Putin: "What is Happening in Donbass Resembles Genocide"

[Absolution9]

Mr. Volodya, do you know what genocide is? Genocide is the killing of 10 million Ukrainians by starvation in order to destroy the Ukrainian language, Ukrainian culture and curb the national liberation struggle. And what is happening now in Donbas is an attempt to return the Ukrainian territories controlled by the Russian regular army and the separatists supported by it to the control of Ukraine.

You really can’t blame the Ukrainian collectivization famine of 1932-1933 on Russia or ethnic Russians.  It was the Soviet government that caused the famine through its desire to collectivize Ukrainian agriculture against the wishes of the farmers/peasants.  The Soviet high leadership prior to WWII was not very ethnic Russian to say the least, probably well under 50%, with other groups hugely over represented. The top role was held by a Georgian (Stalin/Dzhugashvilli), there were several other Georgians in high leadership.  The person directly responsible for Ukrainian collectivization was Kaganovitch, a Ukrainian born Jew.  Poles/Balts/Jews/Georgians/Armenians were all radically overepresented relative to population.  Ethnic Russians were heavily underrepresented in Soviet leadership during this time.

I say this as a Kiev born Jew - immigrated to the US as a 3 year old in 1988, so I have no sympathy for the current Russian leadership either.

[Absolution9]

Mr. Volodya, do you know what genocide is? Genocide is the killing of 10 million Ukrainians by starvation in order to destroy the Ukrainian language, Ukrainian culture and curb the national liberation struggle. And what is happening now in Donbas is an attempt to return the Ukrainian territories controlled by the Russian regular army and the separatists supported by it to the control of Ukraine.

If the "Holodomor" was a genocide against Ukrainians, then why did ethnic Russians, Poles, and Bulgarians suffer in similar proportions and numbers?

I've never heard a dumber statement in my life. I don't know where you found this information, but it's total nonsense. And I'm not going to have a discussion with a Russian fanatic like you

Also the famine was not at all confined to Ukraine - 5-9M people are estimated to have died across the Soviet Union about half in Ukraine with millions in southern Russia as well.  On a per capita basis the hardest hit area was Kazakhstan. 

The main cause for the famine was the idiotic Marxist Leninist belief of the Soviet leadership that collectivization would increase agricultural yields coupled with huge agricultural export quotas used to buy machinery and expertise from the West in order to rapidly industrialize.  The collectivization actually decreased yields massively but the export quotas remained the same so Soviet authorities were taking subsistence food from agricultural workers instead of surplus food.

The black earth regions of Ukraine and Southern Russia were hit hard as that was where the biggest agg surplus existed previously to fill the quota and where yield decreases were heaviest.  In Kazakhstan the reasons were somewhat different having to do with mass slaughter of animals by pastoralists in prior years to avoid giving them up to central government control.

[Absolution9]

Mr. Volodya, do you know what genocide is? Genocide is the killing of 10 million Ukrainians by starvation in order to destroy the Ukrainian language, Ukrainian culture and curb the national liberation struggle. And what is happening now in Donbas is an attempt to return the Ukrainian territories controlled by the Russian regular army and the separatists supported by it to the control of Ukraine.

If the "Holodomor" was a genocide against Ukrainians, then why did ethnic Russians, Poles, and Bulgarians suffer in similar proportions and numbers?

I've never heard a dumber statement in my life. I don't know where you found this information, but it's total nonsense. And I'm not going to have a discussion with a Russian fanatic like you

Also the famine was not at all confined to Ukraine - 5-9M people are estimated to have died across the Soviet Union about half in Ukraine with millions in southern Russia as well.  On a per capita basis the hardest hit area was Kazakhstan.  

The main cause for the famine was the idiotic Marxist Leninist belief of the Soviet leadership that collectivization would increase agricultural yields coupled with huge agricultural export quotas used to buy machinery and expertise from the West in order to rapidly industrialize.  The collectivization actually decreased yields massively but the export quotas remained the same so Soviet authorities were taking subsistence food from agricultural workers instead of surplus food.

The black earth regions of Ukraine and Southern Russia were hit hard as that was where the biggest agg surplus existed previously to fill the quota and where yield decreases were heaviest.  In Kazakhstan the reasons were somewhat different having to do with mass slaughter of animals by pastoralists in prior years to avoid giving them up to central government control.

Note that I did not claim that there was a famine only in Ukraine. In my comment, I only touched on the Holodomor, I simply did not mention the famine in the Volga region, in some other regions of the RSFSR and in Kazakhstan.

I do not deny the existence of famine in Russia, but its scale was much smaller there than in Ukraine. And the famine there was mostly caused by incompetent, clumsy management, while in Ukraine, party workers took away any food from the peasants, absolutely any food, and killed pets so that dogs or cats would not be eaten.

As for Kazakhstan, the reasons was the same as in Ukraine. The Soviet government needed to exterminate a large part of the population in republics smaller than Russia's (because Russia was the largest and most influential) in order to destroy national feelings and the will to resist and the desire to fight for independence.

Also, those who speak Ukrainian, I can drop a link to the website of the Holodomor Museum, which contains oral evidence (audio + text) about that terrible period. Those who doesn't speak Ukrainian can use, for example, Google Translator and read it with my help!

As far as I can tell, the famine in the Russian black earth/Volga region was every bit as bad adjusting for the lower rural population density in those areas.  The overall death toll wasn't even that much lower (3-5M in Ukraine vs 2-3M in southern Russia).  Everything points to those regions vs for instance Northern Euro Russia or the Urals (much less Siberia) being the primary surplus agg regions in the SU (and on major rivers nearer to the sea for export ease) so that was where the export quotas were coming from.  Once they had a collapse in yield the Soviet regimes total disregard for human life came to the forefront and they indiscriminately seized all the grain from the primary quota regions.  Of course they didn't want to admit what a mistake collectivisation was at any level of government.

In the Kazahk case it was the animal owners themselves that slaughtered their herds instead of giving them up, that happened in the years prior to the famine.  Doesn't seem like the Soviet regime was deliberately trying to starve them, just enforcing its collective ownership/management policy.

It's hard for me to imagine why a mostly ethnic minority run Soviet regime would try to kill off a huge chunk of the rural population specifically in Ukraine - Southern Russia - Kazahkstan.  Also remember that the part of Ukraine (Western Ukraine/Galicia) that currently has the strongest national feelings wasn't even a part of the Soviet Union prior to WWII.  It also seems (looking at maps) like the absolute most impacted region was the lower Dnieper region, that makes sense from a grain exports standpoint but that hardly seems like the most pro-Ukrainian national feelings region then or now.  Also in Russia, areas most heavily impacted were on the export oriented lower Don - Manych - Volga river systems.