The Soviet Ukraine had to face a horrible famine from 1932 to 1933, which killed millions of people. This is known as the ‘Holodomor’, or the Great Famine or the Terror-Famine.
Many scholars today are of the opinion that the famine was man-made. Some historians even say that the famine was planned and made worse by Joseph Stalin, to put a stop to the Ukrainian independence movement. Some others say that the famine was a result of Soviet industrialization and collective farming.
Farmers in Ukraine had refused to join collective farms, giving away their lands, and many of them were put in prison. The Soviet government raised the Ukrainian harvest quotas in 1932, which meant much of the harvested grain was confiscated and sent to other parts of the Soviet Union. This left millions of Ukrainians starving, and many died.
There is a view since 2006, shared by Ukraine and some other countries, that the Holodomor was in fact a genocide carried out by the Soviet government to harass the Ukrainian people.
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