Talk:Holodomor/Archive 19

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"In modern politics" content removal

@Þjarkur: re this reversion, I moved the content to Holodomor in modern politics, as it largely duplicated the content there. FuzzyCatPotato (talk) 12:45, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

@Þjarkur: re this reversion, same as before for Holodomor genocide question. FuzzyCatPotato (talk) 12:46, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

​I don't think there's anything wrong with duplicating some of the content, Holodomor in modern politics and the genocide question are a large enough part of the discussion about the Holodomor that it's fine to have somewhat large sections on them – I felt it wasn't enough to just have two sentences about it in this article with a link to the more detailed article. I do agree that some of the quotations are too long, but it might be better to summarize them a little more rather than to move them entirely. – Thjarkur (talk) 12:50, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

@Þjarkur: sure, I agree that the summary should be more than two sentences. I just noticed a lot of duplicated material between the Holodomor articles and was focusing on merging them. moreover, the summary here was somewhat inaccurate -- for example, it portrayed Conquest as taking the pro-genocide view when he later retracted that view, as seen in holodomor genocide question. would a 1-2 paragraph summary be sufficient? FuzzyCatPotato (talk) 12:57, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

​Summarizing more than we're currently doing would be good, but maybe 2 paragraphs is too little? Duplicating some of the content is fine since many readers will only read this article. Another thing, is our list in the section § Remembrance too focused on events from 2006–2013 or is it consistent with the timeframe in which most international attention was given to it? – Thjarkur (talk) 14:20, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 December 2019

My suggestion is to change "There are also those who blame a systematic set of policies perpetrated by the Soviet government under Stalin designed to exterminate the Ukrainians" to "There are also those, such as American historian James E. Mace, who blame a systematic set of policies perpetrated by the Soviet government under Stalin designed to exterminate the Ukrainians". Murlemonder (talk) 05:06, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. ‑‑ElHef (Meep?) 14:36, 18 December 2019 (UTC)

List of the dead

There was a scandal due to the fact that the Ukrainian authorities included in the list of people from the modern phone book to increase the number of victims (and receive political dividends) --145.255.172.139 (talk) 19:15, 13 January 2020 (UTC)

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Second paragraph incoherent

The second paragraph needs a rewrite. It sounds more like a rant than an encyclopaedia, and it's unclear what is the article and what is a quote 14.202.37.121 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 00:04, 31 January 2020 (UTC)

Are you referring to the second paragraph of the lede? If so, it coherently describes the death toll as reported by sources. Darwin Naz (talk) 22:32, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Added parentheses in infobox

In the infobox, after "[t]otal deaths", the text was "[f]rom 3 to 12 million; see death toll most likely estimate is about 3.5 million". I added parentheses around "most likely estimate is about 3.5 million". Could anyone please tell me if I should have used another form of punctuation, or just left it alone? (Note:I also removed an extraneous space that I didn't include in the quotation above; sorry to boast, but I didn't want to be dishonest by not mentioning it.)--Thylacine24 (talk) 22:00, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Reason for reduced collection?

Under the History section, there is a line

From the 1932 harvest, Soviet authorities were able to procure only 4.3 million tons as compared with 7.2 million tons obtained from the 1931 harvest.

Is there an explanation for why the Soviets procured 40% less grain than the previous year? Was there a drought or other ecological reason that explains the deficit? HyenaButter (talk) 20:06, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to add to this. The reference for the number in question seems to actually refer to "Melons and other cucurbit" production in 1932 and 1933. The number for grain in the same two years is 55-60 million tons in 1932 and 70-77 million tons in 1933. Before the famine, the 1930 estimate is 73-77 million. Seeing as this is an order of magnitude different than what's currently on the page, it should probably be fixed, but I'd like someone else to check my numbers here if possible. 76.17.38.53 (talk) 05:11, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

Man-made?

Considering this topic is STILL controversial decades later, and considering WP:NPOV, why is it fine to call it a man-made famine? There are many scholars who dispute this mainstream narrative. --Felipe Forte ^{(have fun!)} 20:40, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

there is do debate as to it being man-made or not, but whether it was the result of bad collectivization practices; will-full genocide; or some combination of the two Blindlynx (talk) 16:45, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Given that the Holodomor genocide debate is extensive enough to warrant its own article, the language used is probably too strong. "Engineered" and "intentional" imply a level of purpose that is still not agreed upon academically, beyond the recognized fact that man-made factors did exacerbate the famine regardless of intent. 76.17.38.53 (talk) 05:21, 29 August 2020 (UTC)

this is probably because while sanctioned by West, USSR has purchased technology from it and had to pay West with grain. Some locals, including people like Khrushev, also saw it as chance to climb career ladder, plus heavy social infight between Soviet system and old feudal Kulaks resulting sabotage of Soviet agriculture plans.89.0.31.59 (talk) 00:51, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Extra section

I'd like to add a link to Scotland's memorial to the holodomor in Edinburgh (c/f https://edinburgh.mfa.gov.ua/en/news/photos/2238-vidkrittya-ta-osvyachennya-pershogo-v-shotlandiji-pamjatnogo-znaku-zhertvam-golodomoru-19321933-rokiv-v-ukrajini) with photograph. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cthonus (talk • contribs) 17:46, 20 November 2019 (UTC)

Incorrect date of the film "The Guide"

In this article in the section "In popular culture" it is stated, that this film was made in 2004, however, it was made in 2014. It must be corrected Ængelland (talk) 10:58, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

 Done Thanks. Esowteric+Talk 11:01, 12 September 2020 (UTC)

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Semi-protected edit request on 29 December 2020

Change Holodomor to Golodomor. The letter "г" is "g", and the letter "х" is "h". Danisz1000 (talk) 04:39, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

No. This is an Ukrainian, not Russian word, and transliteration is correct. Lembit Staan (talk) 17:51, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Sam Sailor 20:39, 29 December 2020 (UTC)

The title "Holodomor" is extremely provocative

It implies it was a genocide, which it wasn't. There was no genocide committed against any people of the USSR. It was a famine that the Soviet leadership tried get a hold of, but the kulaks made worse. Calling it Holodomor implies it's akin to the Holocaust, the killing machine of six million jews. I don't think anyone in their right mind would think the USSR would do anything even close to killing off an entire group of people. AHC300 (talk) 12:56, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Your personal opinion thereof is irrelevant. Wikipedia is based on reliable scholarly sources, and those say it was genocide.--Galassi (talk) 13:14, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Don't have a real dog in this fight - but I do think it is incorrect to characterize "reliable scholarly sources" as all agreed that this was a genocide. It might be gross to you, but the reality is that Holodomor genocide question is one that is actively debated among respected academics in the literature. 2601:645:8200:61E0:DAB:F0B9:781C:54EC (talk) 15:40, 19 October 2020 (UTC)

No, a genocide, as in, the real intention of killing a considerable part of the population based on ethnicity, is an extremely unusual event in History. The burden of proof is on you. What is your reliable scholarly source that say it was a genocide? --Felipe Forte ^{(have fun!)} 23:15, 16 June 2020 (UTC)

It was not a genocide. It was simply one of many famines Russia experienced that anti-communists paint as a genocide to serve their agenda. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMOdDQQVZ6U --Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 02:19, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

The bibliography section is filled with WP:RS that this was an intentional man-made genocide. Some you can start with are:

• Applebaum, Anne. Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine
• Conquest, Robert. The Harvest Of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivisation and the Terror-Famine
• Dolot, Miron. Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust
• Kotkin, Stephen. Stalin (volume 2)
• Montefiore, Simon Sebag. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
• Naimark, Norman M. Stalin's Genocides

This issue has been discussed numerous times [1] and their is a clear and overwhelming consensus.   // Timothy :: talk  23:12, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

@AHC300: @Marx.FelipeForte: The name is popularly used and used by scholars. The third paragraph of the lede states:

The term Holodomor emphasises the famine's man-made and intentional aspects, such as rejection of outside aid, confiscation of all household foodstuffs, and restriction of population movement. Whether the Holodomor was genocide is still the subject of academic debate, as are the causes of the famine and intentionality of the deaths. Some scholars believe that the famine was planned by Joseph Stalin to eliminate a Ukrainian independence movement.

Most of the material discussing whether the Holodomor is a genocide -- mentioned on this page at Holodomor#Genocide_question -- has been moved to Holodomor genocide question. FuzzyCatPotato (talk) 03:46, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

You lose crediblity when you say, "It was a famine that the Soviet leadership tried get a hold of, but the kulaks made worse." OTOH the common name is Ukrainian famine, and the term holodomor has been adopted by anti-Communists because of its similarity to the word Holocaust and to promote the narrative that the Communists killed 10 million Ukrainians while the Nazis only killed 6 million Jews. Notice that none of the sources Timothy cites use the term holodomor in their titles. All these writers are anti-Communists. Anti-Communism does not mean opposition to Communism, but opposition to an extreme degree. That doesn't mean that their books are unreliable but that they present one view of events. TFD (talk) 04:29, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, if this is true, then I believe it may be worth mentioning in the article at Etymology. Could you please back that claim with sources? I, too, have seen too many times this used to actually trivalise the Holocaust. Davide King (talk) 11:31, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

See for example: ""Competition Among Victims: Constructing a "Ukrainian Holocaust"" on pp. 119 ff. TFD (talk) 17:12, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

The Four Deuces, thanks! That was really interesting. How would you summarise it? Davide King (talk) 01:26, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, its just example of unlogical propaganda, landing into books. This is because "genocide" sounds both emotionally strong and blocking fact that it was done by Ukrainians on Ukrainians.89.0.31.59 (talk) 00:53, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Even the BBC admits that it was the Kulaks' fault, even if inadvertently. https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/guides/ztqmwxs/revision/1--Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 20:28, 13 September 2020 (UTC)

This article is capitalist propaganda. --Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 03:50, 3 November 2020 (UTC)

Your remark is in blatant violation of the Wikipedia principle of WP:AGF. --2001:56A:F90F:A400:502B:38E1:F870:835A (talk) 22:47, 9 December 2020 (UTC)Glome

It may violate the principle, but it's true — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8801:12:F900:85D6:B66:4988:A5CC (talk) 22:38, 14 January 2021 (UTC)

Lack of improvement in this and related articles over the last decade.

I was one of the users that attempted, along with others, to significantly clean up and reorganise the articles involving the 1933 famine. During this time, a split occured inside the article along, what I would guess was, political divisions, between those insisting "the Holodomor was a genocide" (and thus the narrative produced by the article must be focused on this fact), and those insisting they held a "neutral" perspective (which was claimed by the prior group to be a concieted attempt at denying the proclaimed genocide, which may well be true). 2 seperate articles: One entitled Holodomor, the other entitled the 1933 Soviet Famine, were produced. Seemingly the Kazakh famine has also been split from this. These articles clearly represent the political divisions between the editors of the original article.

This occured at least 6 years ago, perhaps longer, though I cannot remember exactly when. These three articles have not significanly improved in this time, which is a shame considering the politico-historical significance this event holds to many people. This is proven by its current C grading in quality. An attempt should be made to either reunify or reorginise these clearly related articles. Hopefully, as the reasonable people we all are, we can do a better job at it this time. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.181.153.99 (talk) 20:42, 9 February 2021 (UTC)

The problem is that even if this weren't politically fraught, taking the time to seriously improve it would require a massive amount of effort. As it is, it not only requires a ton of effort and involves sifting through a huge number of starkly conflicting sources (which also requires the context to understand the perspective specific sources are written from), it also means that even once you've put all that work in you then have to convince editors to accept your changes, many of which will be suspicious that any significant change is an effort to bias the article one way or the other. It's hardly a surprise that under such circumstances the article hasn't improved. If you want to start the ball rolling for major improvements, though, I would try to produce a general list of up-to-date, high-quality objective sources which can be used as a centerpiece (we can't write the article solely from those sources because even the perspective of high-quality / high-profile WP:BIASED sources is needed, but if we could reach an agreement on those then it would provide a good starting point for how to evaluate and present the others.) --Aquillion (talk) 04:38, 21 February 2021 (UTC)

Blaming Holodomor on communists is stupid.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz7Z4Ye0p2E

--Scottandrewhutchins (talk) 22:49, 20 February 2021 (UTC)

You posted a link to a video that has nothing to do with the Holodmor, it is not even mentioned. Yes the communist are to blame the Communist party of the Soviet Union carried out the policy, closed the border of the Republic, and refused to give aid during the famine. Even scholars who do not think it was genocide blame the Soviet Government for it happening. The only people who voice disagreement are Stalin/Soviet apologist. 3Kingdoms (talk) 17:38, 24 February 2021 (UTC)

blissful ignorance of the Berkhoff study published in Harvard Ukrainian studies. Ukrainanian independence, Holodomor and the praise for members of the infamous Galician SS

Maybe ol' "Euge", known in Canada as "Euromaidan [insert Sieg Heil] Euge", whose patrilineal descent is affiliated with the anti-semetic news outlet alleging "no Jews or Soviets" suffered during the famine can step back?

There is no doubt the famine was real, however the same cannot be said about the antagonistic role purportedly played by Stalin that is apparent throughout the article.

Even if we disregard any possibility that the Ukrainian population at the time was anti-Bolshevik, to eliminate any possibility there was a predisposition towards Stalin, Berkhoff has a salient observation

The evidence is still sparse, however, and some scholars are doubtful whether such statements were really made and whether such actions actually took place, and if so, whether those statements and actions were sincere.42 What does seem beyond doubt is that the peasants found it almost unthinkable that their living conditions would not improve. And indeed, for various reasons many—and probably most—peasants of the Reichskommissariat Ukraine sooner or later had more food at their disposal than before the German occupation.

Besides the welcome many peasants gave to the Germans and the desire among at least some peasants to destroy the collective farms, another possible indicator of the legacy of the Great Famine was the widespread peasant fear of another famine. There were realistic reasons for this fear to be sure—the Soviet scorched-earth policy, successfully resisted in places, but least of all in the Left Bank, and the Nazi requisitions, which intensified in the summer of 1942.

and he also notes that, the German-occupied Ukraine, which Melnykites adored, deliberately used this tactic

— Yet, at the same time, Nazi planners were imposing famine on Ukraine's cities as part of a larger scheme secretly approved in Berlin in April and May 1941 to starve Soviet cities. As I have argued elsewhere, one result was a man-made famine in Kyiv.48 During that famine, a role reversal took place. Whereas in 1933 peasants had attempted to save themselves by coming to Kyiv, now desperate Kyivans tried to barter with well-fed peasants in the countryside. And here, too, the legacy of the Great Famine showed itself—if not in reality, then at least in the minds of some city dwellers.

and powerfully concludes

That said, how many people considered the famine as man-made, and whom they blamed—indeed, how many people really explained the famine at all—is far from clear. The "Komsomol generation" might have heard about the famine, but these young had not necessarily lost faith in the Soviet system because of it. One of its members, Pavlo Negretov from Kirovohrad, recalled (after surviving the gulag) that the famine had not made him and his schoolmates any less loyal to the political system of the USSR.57 As noted, the Nazi-sponsored propaganda blamed the Jews for the famine, but at the moment we have little evidence that citizens in wartime Ukraine blamed anything more specific than the viada (authorities). A substantial number even seems to have believed that Stalin had been unaware that famine had erupted.

which leads me to believe the themes of this article are inherently biased.

No one disputes the legitimacy of the famine and whether it occurred under Stalin, but it is far from clear Stalin knew or condoned the suffering. In fact, Berkhoff provides compelling evidence that Stalin did not know until afterwards, and the people of Ukraine actually resented authority as opposed to central command.

In my view, this incredibly well-sourced and thoughtful piece puts a sledgehammer in the central theme of this article. it also suggests that nazi propaganda during occupation has played a significant role in the recollection of this event.

--

I would now like to touch on the catastrophic effect of the bias in this article, sharing the same themes as the corresponding Nazi propaganda from the early 40s, and how it has affected a country the world used to view as "the dream".

To quote a passage by the Ottawa Citizen:

Some Ukrainians see Shukhevych and SS Galizien Division members as heroes. They argue that those individuals served the Nazis because they saw them as liberators from the Russians. Their ultimate goal was an independent Ukraine.

Indeed, in my city, we have a large group of people who shamelessly and unabashedly worship the Galician SS. Our Country's Deputy Prime Minister descends from a similar ideology has increased their brazenness.

It has now reached a point that if one does not support the Galician SS, out of these individuals perverted belief of an "Independent Ukraine", they will be subject to the tactics Holodomorians eagerly associate with totalitarianism.

This article is in need of serious revision and real facts. It is laughable the citations for Cannibalism are third-rate sources, like many of the sources used in this article to support a specific view. Berkhoff is a far better source for the fact cannibalism did occur.

First-world born individuals of Ukrainian descent have continued to do their "own people" a disservice with their selective account of the famine.

Their preferred account incorporates an anti-Soviet sentiment that has predictably led to increased worship of, what is known to be amongst, the most treacherous SS divisions out of a perverted yearn for an "Independent Ukraine" 198.53.159.44 (talk) 04:05, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

An Aside

One thing that I want to share is the tragedy about having to learn about Holodomor when I born in Canada, and a direct historical descent from the cis-Sutlej states. I thought if I did good work and established myself as a leader in my field, that science could change the world. But it couldn't do anything in an apparently-free country like Canada, due to the poisonous culture I've mentioned above. My people joined the "evil Colonial" British East India Company to escape this kind of toxic group mentality, which lasted until 1947. My father lived a good enough life in the Punjab that he still fails to understand the irony of his father telling him to "leave to Canada" in the mid seventies, who foresaw the inevitable collapse of what used to be our original home.

It is funny that these Holodomorites go about their pursuit of independence in the manner described in this article, while "my people" lost any claim to what was rightfully ours from over 150 years of service due to "politics". We were on the right side all three times: 1857, 1914, 1939, yet we have nothing. But at least we were given the opportunity to come to other territories in hopes of pursuing what we were originally promised. I will leave it to the reader to determine whose service has spoken louder than words, until now.

I'm not asking you to care about me. I'm asking you to think about if we've really moved past 1932-1939. My own experience suggests that the Nazi school of thought has won. Holodomorites have managed to acquire power through connections as opposed to merit and have now leveraged it to exert a totalitarian influence they often recall with such negativity. We have not, and will not, move forward until the toxic individuals in power perpetuating these toxic agendas are reprimanded for their conduct. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.53.159.44 (talk) 04:32, 6 March 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 March 2021

The Holodomor Theater, written by Ali Safari and directed by Raha Haji Zeinel, was staged in Iran in February 2021. The play was acclaimed by the Ambassador of Ukraine and invited to perform in Kiev. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ali safari1987 (talk • contribs) 07:12, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

Capitalist vs Communist Famines

This is listed as a genocide, while other easily preventable famines (such as the Famines in British India, and those today in third-world capitalist countries) aren't? The famines under capitalism kill OVER 7 MILLION PEOPLE EVERY YEAR, could be EASILY PREVENTED but aren't because it is NOT PROFITABLE TO DO SO. If this page is counted as a genocide, then easily preventable famines under capitalist regimes should be too, in order for views to be unbiased. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.85.200.227 (talk) 18:15, 19 March 2021 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a venue for communist anger against the developed world. Create a blog for your unwarranted vitriol. Alexandermoir (talk) 01:23, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

The Holodomor is recognized as a genocide in Ukraine where it was committed, and in a couple dozen other countries. Its definition as a genocide has been a topic of academic discussion for the last two decades. I looked through all of the Indian famine articles, and couldn’t find any mention of genocide. This could account for the different categorization. —Michael Z. 23:07, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Move to "Golodomor"

Why is it called "holodomor" and not "golodomor", I mean in Russian, its pronounced as a "G" and not an "H", using a "Г" and not a "Х", as in "Голодомо́р". ReaIdiot (talk) 06:18, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Because it's not in russian—blindlynx (talk) 15:43, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

While the first letter is the same in both Russian and Ukrainian ("г"), "г" is transliterated as "g" for Russian words (See Russian alphabet#Letters but "h" for Ukrainian ones (see Ukrainian alphabet#Letter names and pronunciation.) However, some sources transliterate the word as golodomor. TFD (talk) 16:11, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Scant mentions of the experiences of the Ukrainian Jewish population, and related issues

There are very few mentions of the trials of the sizeable Jewish population in Ukraine at this time. One of the few hits is a very understated comment on antisemitism in Ukraine, and another is possibly incorrectly cited demographic breakdown from Roy Medvedev's book that was citing Babyonyshev's paper which made no declarations about ethnic demographic impact (and someone would need to get their hands on Medvedev's book to clear that up).

Outside of these instances, there is a frustrating silence. I decided to dive into archived talk page posts here that included "Jewish", which did not turn up anything helpful as most instances of the word were used in comparisons to the Holocaust (with a few very antisemitic remarks from a handful of long-inactive accounts). Fittingly, I found one other person who raised my same concern six years ago with no relevant replies. I'm commenting here in the hopes that this subject would finally bring some light to the plight of the contemporary Ukrainian Jews, which at the time numbered over a million and would play no small part to an event of this scale. Mewnst (talk) 01:01, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

Mewnst - interesting topic. I had a brief look on Google Scholar and it seems little is published. A fairly recent paper entitled "The Holodomor and Jews in Kyiv and Ukraine: An Introduction and Observations on a Neglected Topic"[2] looks useful, but points out how little scholarship there is on the topic, which might explain its scant mention in our article. BobFromBrockley (talk) 08:57, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

There's actually a paper that was recently published on this topic [3] i haven't had a chance to pick it up yet though. This is a sadly overlooked part of the Holod and certainly warrants inclusion given that the hardest-hit areas were about a third Jewish. That said because it is overlooked there's not a lot of reliable sources on the topic. I'll post what i find here though so we can work to include it—blindlynx (talk) 19:07, 29 April 2021 (UTC)

If an aspect of a topic is "neglected" in the literature, then it lacks weight for inclusion. Instead, we need the experts to correct this neglect first, before we add the information. TFD (talk) 19:39, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

There's a fair bit of talk in the lit that this is underresearched not only specifically about Jews but the topic in general—blindlynx (talk) 01:03, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

It could be that since the narrative of Holodomor casts the Ukrainian famine as a genocide against the Ukrainian people, that Jews, Russians and other non-Ukrainians who died during the famine were not part of the genocide. TFD (talk) 02:17, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

The use of famine for genocide and crimes against humanity wasn't limited to Ukrainians. There's a problem of terminology because the term 'Holodomor' refers both to the targeted famine against various ethnic groups and the wider genocide of Ukrainian that was perpetrated until WW2 using other means. I'll find some decent sources on this and post them here—blindlynx (talk) 03:47, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

"holodomor" vs "great famine"

why is this famine conveyed as intentional and compared to genocide when the Irish potato famine was equally "intentional" (caused by laissez-faire capitalism, absentee landlords, and reliance on a single strain of a crop)? seems like a bias. 2603:7000:8C01:1513:B070:F947:C888:DAF8 (talk) 12:58, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

Does your question relate more to the Great Famine (Ireland) article? Or are you proposing some kind of improvement(s) here? Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 13:16, 29 June 2021 (UTC)

I think you answer your own question. The Famine in Ireland was caused by laissez-faire capitalism and absentee landlords. Therefore, it wasn’t “intentional”; rather it was caused by neglect and ignorance. The government in London even tried to create relief efforts. This is in stark contrast to the deliberate actions of the communists in Moscow to cause suffering in Ukraine. Thanks. Kentish (talk) 17:50, 28 July 2021 (GMT)

I think that's a bit dismissive of the Irish perspective on the Potato Famine, and also of quite a bit of the history. "Caused by laissez-faire capitalism" could be rephrased as "the people who held political and economic power in Ireland deliberately chose to take all the potatoes and send them to England while the Irish starved". It's not like it was done accidentally. Also, the Soviet government organized relief efforts for Ukraine. I'm not weighing in here, and I'm not sure what the relevance is for the article itself, but I think those are important clarifications if we're gonna have this conversation.73.33.168.206 (talk • contribs)

Putting intentional in quotations, meaning so-called intentional, doesn't advance the discussion here. Wrong place for the Great Famine (Ireland). Good luck with discussions there. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 16:49, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Most modern historians appear to disagree that the Soviet Famine of 1932-1933 was a "genocide" and it appears that most of the push to call it such comes from political groups with vested interests in doing so. I don't see any evidence to back up the claims that the famine in Ukraine was deliberate, and the only people who seem to claim this are Ukrainian nationalist activists with some dodgy admiration to a certain one-time-ally of the Nazis called the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists. --BulgeUwU (talk) 20:07, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

User:BulgeUwU, this isn’t about whether to call it a genocide. There is no academic disagreement, even among opponents of the genocide label, that that Holodomor was a “man-made” famine, caused by decisions of the Soviet leadership. Please see the article’s many references if you lack evidence.

The exception are admirers of a certain one-time ally of the Nazis and mass murderer named Stalin. So please cut the ad hominem attacks, especially the ones that try to associate a national group with Nazism. You are out of line. —Michael Z. 03:53, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

"According to higher estimates, up to 12 million[14] ethnic Ukrainians were said to have perished..."

This statement in the lead is supported by Rosefielde's 1983 article. I am wondering why:

1. ...the claim about "ethnic Ukrainians" is made based on the article that contains not a single word "ethnic" and "Ukrainian"?

2. ...the claim is made based on the article that is 40 years old, whereas the same author published more fresh data?

Meanwhile, in his more recent paper (Steven Rosefielde. Stalinism in Post-Communist Perspective: New Evidence on Killings, Forced Labour and Economic Growth in the 1930s Source: Europe-Asia Studies, Sep., 1996, Vol. 48, No. 6 (Sep., 1996), pp. 959-987) Rosefielde summarizes the results of his own analysis of newer evidences and the figures produced by his colleagues (Wheatcroft, Conquests et al) and concludes:

Although uncertainties remain, the evidence suggests that approximately 8.7 million perished in 1930-36 from collectivisation and famine, with 1.1 million more following shortly thereafter during the great terror

Note, that refers to the USSR as whole. Clearly the figures for Ukraine only and for Holodomor only (1932-33) cannot be bigger than 8.7. I am going to remove these outdated figures, which are not supported by the cited source and directly contradict to new figures presented by the same author in his newer research. If somebody has a reliable source for high estimate, please add the data and the source. I am not going to edit the article in next couple of weeks.--Paul Siebert (talk) 02:20, 9 September 2021 (UTC)

I added a current (2020) Ukrainian (East/West: Journal of Ukrainian Studies) reference indicating scholarship estimates roughly 4 to 7 million victims in Ukraine. This provides scholarly corroboration within a single source for the slightly wider range detailed in the introduction based on citing two separate sources. Hopefully we can put arguing over "entire USSR" versus "specific to Ukraine" and "outdated" versus "current" discrepancies to rest with regard to victims specific to the Holodomor. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 16:45, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Ok. And I removed Rosefielde from the lede, because the statement and the figure is simply wrong: it is an outdated figure reconsidered by the author himself, and it is about the USSR as whole, it includes not only 1932-33 famine, and it is not about ethnic Ukrainians.--Paul Siebert (talk) 17:04, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for that, I was attempting the same (edit conflict) when you removed it. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 17:17, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, Vecrumba, thank you for your discussion and contributions. What about According to the findings of the Court of Appeal of Kyiv in 2010, the demographic losses due to the famine amounted to 10 million, with 3.9 million direct famine deaths, and a further 6.1 million birth deficits? This is also in the lead right after and is sourced to Наливайченко назвал количество жертв голодомора в Украине [Nalyvaichenko called the number of victims of Holodomor in Ukraine] (in Russian). LB.ua. 14 January 2010. Archived from the original on 24 April 2012. Retrieved 21 July 2012. The only reason that is in the lead appears to be VERIFY but it is hard to verify when it is not in English, and is not sourced to a reliable secondary source to establish WEIGHT. Unless such source is added, at best that statement belongs to the body, and it would still need a better source to establish weight; it should be easy to do so, if it is due. Same thing for the earlier United Nations joint statement. Davide King (talk) 17:22, 12 September 2021 (UTC)

I'd support collapsing the last two paragraphs of the intro and moving the UN figure, demographic losses, and more precise range to the death toll section. I would also change the 3.5 million victims in the infobox to 4–7 million.

Reviewing the cited sources in the lede, I'm not sure they are characterized quite correctly. I think:

1. famine in the USSR was man-made as result of: industrialization, not admitting to and seeking foreign aid as in earlier famine, etc., Ukraine was just part of it
2. Ukraine part of wider USSR famine, but amplified/exploited in Ukraine
3. Ukraine famine entirely man-made and intentional, Ukraine had grain

and regarding both 2 and 3, impossible quotas, grain was confiscated, all food stuffs confiscated from homes and storage cellars, starving Ukrainians prevented from leaving territory, etc. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 18:51, 16 September 2021 (UTC)

Paul Siebert, from his Slavic grammar, is clearly a pro communist and his censorship shows typical 21st century love of communism. Let’s face it, Siebertovich, Wikipedia is a joke. You’ll just erase this, as your pro soviet handlers will demand. This article is a sick joke. Alexandermoir (talk) 01:13, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Alexandermoir, remember to assume good faith. There is no need to drag in political judgements on the basis of ethnicity, either. Mewnst (talk) 08:24, 22 October 2021 (UTC)

Sources

@Karl Krafft: What's your objection to the Payaslian source? It's not questionable, self-published or circular—blindlynx 01:38, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

1) Simon Payaslian is a scholar specializing in the Armenian genocide. I believe it's improper to compare him with J. Arch Getty, a Soviet expert, especially for such an extraordinary claim.

2) Payaslian's source only makes a passing claim of the "scholarly consensus holodomor genocide" claim in the introduction.

3) Taking into the account the above and also that the article has only 2 citations in 10 years (one of them in an Environmental Science journal), we can't base a claim about scholarly consensus around this source. Karl Krafft (talk) 03:19, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry but Oxford Bibliographies Online repository of peer reviewed papers, and the overviews are themselves peer-reviewed regularly. The citation in question was last reviewed a few days ago, I fail to see how that is a worse source than a twenty year old op-ed—blindlynx 03:54, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Perhaps it is better to attribute the claim to Oxford Bibliographies rather than to Payaslian—blindlynx 04:03, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

And obviously a recent meta-analysis would be ideal—blindlynx 16:04, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

As I noted before, Getty is a Soviet expert unlike Payaslian whose works are primarily about the history of Armenia. And it doesn't matter that it's peer-reviewed, it falls under the WP:ECREE paragraph which says: Claims contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community.... It's a worse source because Payaslian isn't relevant to the field of Soviet studies, or even to the field of genocide studies. Karl Krafft (talk) 16:27, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Any claim of scholarly consensus is exceptional in this case. Getty's op-ed does not meet that bar either, as he is not a genocide scholar and the citation is not a scholarly peer reviewed source. Given that there is no scholarly consensus—as the article states a few time—would you be alright with removing both claims?—blindlynx 19:37, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Any claim of scholarly consensus is exceptional in this case. Agreed. Removing both seems to be the best option here. Karl Krafft (talk) 00:03, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

perfect!—blindlynx 02:27, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I've removed both. The Getty source is still in the lead btw—blindlynx 02:33, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

It's good to have his name at least as a trivial mention, amongst Sovietologists who believe that the famine wasn't intentional. I won't object removing it from the lead though if you're bothered by it. Karl Krafft (talk) 06:53, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

I was mostly objection to his claim of consensus. If anything we should include his analysis of the famine later in the article. Realistically his analysis isn't that different from Applebaum's. After all the main point of contention in scholarship is what the reasons for the the continuation of ridged quotas and other policies that continued the famine were, right? It's pretty narrow segment of the whole thing but it's a big sticking point for a number of reasons. Also, we should apply MOS:CITELEAD to this article and move citations out of the lede, to other parts of the article all together—blindlynx 16:32, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

How are we choosing the set of scholars quoted in the lead? Getty himself says “the Ukrainian famine has been on the periphery of my interests,” and his opinions on it have been criticized by Holodomor scholars as polemic.[4] —Michael Z. 18:06, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Systematic review of scholars to see which one's are WP:due is the best course—blindlynx 18:44, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

The section "Genocide question" could be better written in accordance with weight. It says "Scholarly positions are diverse," then gives parity to leading experts, popular writers and even a Stalin apologist. TFD (talk) 16:58, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

it does need to be rewritten, but the stalinist view is totally fringe—blindlynx 17:59, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

Life expectancy

There is an obvious grammatical error regarding life expectancy in that the wrong preposition is used. The article claims that life expectancy fell TO 10.8, wehereas the meaning is evidently that it fell BY 10.8 years.181.93.31.22 (talk) 02:40, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

No. Quoting the cited source: “This period of stability was interrupted by a sharp 9-year drop in 1932, and a further fall of 28 years in 1933. In that year it fell to 10.8 years for females and even to 7.3 years for males!” —Michael Z. 19:26, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

User:Fifelfoo, please make factual edits according to the cited sources, not suppositions or disinformation posted by anonymous editors. The source is openly accessibly with the link in the reference. I’ve reverted your edit. —Michael Z. 19:33, 24 January 2022 (UTC)

You're suggesting a reliable source states soviet life expectancy was 7.3 years for males in 1933. Go for it. Expect it to go to WP:RS/n sometime Fifelfoo (talk) 00:08, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Not Soviet; in Ukraine. Yes I am. —Michael Z. 17:32, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

See also Rudnytskyi et al. (2015), “Demography of a man-made human catastrophe: The case of massive famine in Ukraine 1932–1933,” p 65:

Vallin et al. (2002) estimated 1933 values for Ukraine at 7.4 for females and 10.8 for males; our estimates, 5.0 for males and 8.0 for females, are somewhat lower due to our higher estimates of direct losses. Andrew et al. (1998) also documented low values of life expectancy at birth in 1933 for Russia: 15.2 for males and 19.5 for females.

 —Michael Z. 17:44, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Do you understand what life expectancy is? Of the children born in the year 1933, such a large proportion died in the first year, with an actual lifespan of 0.0 through 1.0, that the average age of their generation was brought down significantly. Perhaps malnourishment during infancy harmed their health and lifespan. Of course, life expectancy in Ukraine in 1933 was also lowered due to other causes, including the Second World War that would affect mortality of those who survived to age six through twelve. —Michael Z. 18:00, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Life expectancy is a measure of an average time an person is expected to live provided that their life conditions remain unchanged. According to Vallin (Fig 5), there was a very sharp drop of life expectancy (exactly as you say), but only in 1933. After that, it returned to the pre-famine level (actually, even increased) and continued to grow (as Wheatcroft demonstrates, in XX century, life expectancy in the USSR, including Ukraine, demonstrated unprecedented growth, comparable only with similar growth in Japan).

Therefore, you were absolutely right when you wrote that life expectancy in 1933 dropped to ca 10 years. However, this information is presented in somewhat confusing way. "Life expectancy" is better applicable for description of some trends during long periods of time, and when we try to use it to describe short time fluctuations, that looks somewhat odd.

Indeed, to say that "in 1933, life expectancy dropped to 10 years" literally means that during the period of 1932-33, (actually, 1-2 years), their average lifetime was 10 years. It seems that type statement may cause cognitive dissonance in a reader (and the IP's question is an example of that). I think it would be better to describe the same using another parameter, mortality rate. In other words, instead of using life expectancy (which looks very artificial in this context), it would be better to say that in 1932-33, mortality rate increased to XX (or YY times).

Actually, LEB is calculated from the mortality rate value at the moment of the person's birth, which means LEB is derived from the mortality rate. Therefore, it would be much better (and much less misleading) to use mortality rates instead of LEB. Paul Siebert (talk) 18:41, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict)WRT this edit, it is correct that LEB didn't fall by 10.8 years, it was literally 10.8 years. However, this "10.8 years" was not a real value: people couldn't have lived 10.8 years during a one year period. Furthermore, your "sharply fell for those born in 1932 to 28 years, and for 1933 extremely low 10.8 years for females and 7.3 years for males, or lower, and remained abnormally low for 1934 but, as commonly expected for the post-crisis peaked in 1935–36" is incorrect either. Vallin's table 3 clearly says that LOB (for males) was 43.5 in 1931, 7.3 in 1933, 37.5 in 1934, 46.4 in 1935, and then it continued to grow. In other words, already in 1934, LOB nearly approached pre-famine level, and in 1935 it exceeded it and continued to grow (in agreement with what Wheatcroft says. Therefore, I propose to get rid of LOB as very confusing, and to use mortality rates instead. Vallin says that "the Ukrainian mortality rate for males around age 14 is 18 times higher in 1933than it was in 1931", and that is much more clear and non-controversial than LOB.--Paul Siebert (talk) 19:12, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Citation needed for all of your logic. Sounds like original research. What do you mean “looks somewhat odd,” “that type statement may cause cognitive dissonance,” and “looks very artificial”? What do you mean “describe the same using another parameter” when the source gives this parameter?

Life expectancy at birth is calculated from the age at death of the entire cohort born in that year over their full lives. It is not mortality of the entire population during that year.

I suggest we continue to use the statistic as given in the sources, and not try to make up some new statistic that obscures the magnitude. —Michael Z. 19:01, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

SYNTH is not directly applicable to talk pages No citations are needed for general discussion on a talk page. The same source gives both mortality rate and LOB, and it is your decision to use the latter and to ignore the former.

WRT "make up some new statistic that obscures the magnitude", it is an accusation of bad faith? I expect formal apologies from you. Paul Siebert (talk) 19:15, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Please clarify your comments above, then, as I requested. As far as I can tell, the realization of the almost unbelievable magnitude of this artificial famine is the “odd” and “artificial”-looking “cognitive dissonance” that you want to eliminate from it. Anyway, so far I’m not accusing you of bad faith, just wrong judgment about the importance and usefulness of this remarkable statistic.

And again, mortality and life expectancy at birth are different indicators. —Michael Z. 20:00, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

You literally accused me of "making up some new statistics" and in "obscuring the magnitude" of famine. This statement is false (I didn't make up anything, the data were taken from the very same source that you use), and it is a accusation of wrongdoing. You cannot claim you didn't accuse me of anything, because your words allow no double interpretation. Of course, I may be wrong, but, I see only one way to figure it out: to discuss it at AE. I would like to avoid that, so it would be better if you just concede that you were not right.

WRT statistics, it seem it is your approach which is more obscure. To say that mortality rate increased in 1933 seventeen fold is a quite normal statement, which is intuitively clear for any reader with no preliminary language. To say that life expectancy (which was calculated from mortality rate) dropped to 10.8 is somewhat artificial and confusing, because noone is interested to know how long an average Ukrainian would be expected to live had Holodomor lasted 10 or more years. A reader is more interested to know what was a probability of death in 1933, and the mortality rate value is a direct response to that question.

WRT yours "mortality and life expectancy at birth are different indicators", can you please elaborate on that? What additional information LEB provides, how it is calculated, and what LEB and mortality rate are indicators of? Paul Siebert (talk) 20:23, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I briefly explained the statistics, and I believe you are still misinterpreting them. Maybe read more about them or get an opinion from someone who understands demographics more deeply than you and I.

Perhaps you thought removing “cognitive dissonance” didn’t obscure the magnitude—I don’t know—but I think the remarkable statistic casts light on the magnitude of the crime. Not necessarily an accusation of bad faith. I thought you meant derive a mortality statistic based on life expectancy—since you implied there’s a direct relationship—but I thought that’s impossible. I still don’t know what you mean, since you haven’t said what number or proposed a specific text change. Not necessarily an accusation of bad faith. —Michael Z. 21:16, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Starting from the bottom, you literally said that, although you are assuming my bad faith, you are not insisting on that. That is a very nice behaviour for a person who, being an admin, is supposed to demonstrate the highest standards of user behaviour.

I am not sure it is me who needs to read more. It is reasonable to conclude that LEB is calculated based on a cumulative probability of a person to die at each age if that person will be exposed to the same life conditions that exist by the moment of their birth. Indeed, this formula fully confirms my conclusion, for "kPx" is literally a mortality at age x. Therefore, my commonsensual conclusion was totally correct: LEB is derived from mortality rates, which are actual statistical data (the number of deaths at certain age divided by the number of people at this age). Life expectancy is a good parameter for description of long term trends: thus, instead of discussing the decline of mortality rates of each cohort during the first half of XX century, it would be much more convenient to present just one parameter, LEB, which perfectly demonstrates the same trend.

However, by using LEB to describe short term effects, we may face problems: a reader may be very confused. I would say, by presenting LEB drop instead of saying about a sharp growth of mortality rates, you are obscuring a real situation: an average reader understand the latter much easier than the former. As soon as you started to question my god faith, let me remind you about WP:CIR. Think about that. Paul Siebert (talk) 21:50, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

The formula you point to says “mortality at each age” of the members a population. So it cannot be derived from a single mortality number during one year. I also don’t see anything about “same life conditions .. by the moment of their birth.”

Again, please get someone who understands demographics better than you or I to comment, instead of repeating the same thing. —Michael Z. 22:08, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

• Those are interesting and very much telling numbers about average life expectancy due to Holodomor (I did not see them before). They seem to be reliably sourced. Include of course. The scholarly RS [5] say this:

A significant decline in life expectancy at birth is observed in 1932 for all four subpopulations, with life expectancies at birth of about 30 years for urban and rural males, and about 40 years for urban and rural females, and extremely low levels in 1933: 26.0 and 18.7 years for urban females and males, and 6.6 and 4.2 years for rural females and males, respectively. Extreme life expectancy at birth values for the peak year of the 1932–34 famine have been documented by other researchers. Vallin et al. (2002) estimated 1933 values for Ukraine at 7.4 for females and 10.8 for males; our estimates, 5.0 for males and 8.0 for females, are somewhat lower due our higher estimates of direct losses. Andreev et al. (1998) also documented low values of life expectancy at birth in 1933 for Russia: 15.2 for males and 19.5 for females.

My very best wishes (talk) 22:09, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Seems like a lot more reasoned argument than defending higher longevity based on personal interpretation and contentions regarding how life expectancy ought to be calculated in the first place. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 19:23, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Is this okay to add?

I learned about the holodomer by learning it was called the Ukrainian famine, and I wanted to know if I could add that name. Or is the Ukrainian famine something different than the holodomer(which I doubt but is a possibility). I don’t want to offend anyone by adding that name. So please if someone can tell me if that would be appropriate. Thanks for reading. Ghost Callie (talk) 23:19, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

Not sure what you are really asking here. A quick synopsis:

The famine in Ukraine and surrounding regions was the second major USSR famine. The USSR under Lenin received aid for the first—that relief run by Herbert Hoover. During the second, Stalin not only did not request aid but suppressed information that the famine was occurring. Regarding Ukraine, specifically: foodstuffs were confiscated from Ukrainian households and Ukrainians fleeing the famine were turned back, that is, not allowed to leave the territory. Thus the devastation of the famine was magnified and targeted at the Ukrainians. Thus this second major USSR famine in relation to Ukraine was labeled "death by famine", or "Holodomor." So, that's what the famine should be called, so it's unambiguous as to which famine it was.

Some have argued that Stalin was upset that he wasn't told people were dying or that there was no exacerbation of the famine to target Ukrainians. Of course, some still contend the Earth is flat and the Moon is made of cheese.

Here, some good non-WP reading on Hoover's prior famine relief. How the U.S. saved a starving Soviet Russia

Hope this helps. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 19:40, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

Effects on grain exports - more detail welcome

I note this article says without quantification that Ukraine's grain exports continued 'albeit at a reduced rate'. One wonders if there were noticeable effects on bread and other food prices in destination countries - at the same time Europe was also going through the Great Depression and I wonder if besides the Ukrainians the famine thus also hurt European would be consumers, many of whom were poor and/or unemployed. (Britain derived most of its grain imports from North America so may have had less of an effect there.)Cloptonson (talk) 10:01, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

More on exports at Causes of the Holodomor#Export of grain and other food. —Michael Z. 16:42, 10 March 2022 (UTC)

Etymology and Usage

The first paragraph states a derivation of the word Holodomor from "морити голодом, moryty holodom, 'to kill by starvation'" and states that "The term Holodomor emphasises the famine's man-made and allegedly intentional aspects...". Later in the article the meaning of Holodomor is given as "death by hunger, killing by hunger, killing by starvation" or "murder by hunger or starvation", and connected with phrases such as "to inflict death by hunger", "to poison, to drive to exhaustion, or to torment" or "kill or drive to death by hunger, exhausting work" - i.e. all implying a deliberate act of killing. Sources quoted for this include a BBC report but no linguistic sources.

An important caveat here - I don't speak Ukrainian. I do however speak Czech, which has the very similar word hladomor, literally "hunger-plague" - this is the usual word for famine in Czech and does not imply any kind of active killing. I also notice that the Ukrainian version of this article implies that the word Holodomor actually comes from Czech: "The term Holodomor was first mentioned on August 17, 1933 in the Czech journal Večernık P.L., which published the information Hladomor v SSSR." (from the Ukrainian-language version of this article as translated by Google Translate - the Czech phrase is as it is in the original). In Czech, "mor" means plague, not anything along the lines of murder. The Ukrainian version of the article (while stating clearly that the Holodomor was an act of genocide) does not stress this connotation of the word itself in the same way as the English version.

Please note I am not taking sides on the debate as to whether the Holodomor fits the definition of genocide. I just want to question the implication that the use of the word itself suggests a deliberate act. Could someone with some more in-depth knowledge of the Ukrainian language and its etymology please comment?

--HairyDan (talk) 12:07, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

It doesn’t say it comes from Czech. It happens to be earliest attested in Czech, (I believe) used by Ukrainian diaspora. Not the same.

Moryty is an active verb. I suppose it could result from, e.g., natural plague, but when talking about an artificial famine it is reasonable to interpret it as killing with conscious agency or intent. —Michael Z. 14:23, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

in Ukrainian it means to kill in a drawn out way [6]—blindlynx 15:40, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

“To exterminate” is another good translation. —Michael Z. 18:12, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Expansion of History/ Referencing the role of the 5 Year Plan and Collectivization

The history section of the article glosses over or does not mention anything about the Five Year Plan or the collectivization of agriculture. I believe that by elaborating on this, readers can understand the context in which the famine happened in. The Soviet Union is not alone in the death toll of industrialization as when Western Europe and America industrialized many died or lived in squalor as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by FictiousLibrarian (talk • contribs) 16:03, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

I don't recall many millions of Americans or Britons starving to death during the Industrial Revolution. That's certainly news to me!TheTimesAreAChanging (talk) 20:21, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

A higher percentage of Britons died during the famine of 1848 than Soviet citizens who died during the Ukrainian famine. TFD (talk) 12:11, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

In support of TFD, see e.g. Irish Potato Famine. Drivers in that case may have been political rather than industrialization as such (and the blight) - but that of course does not undermine the parallel to Holodomor. Perhaps, more relevant than comparing percentages of the entire population affected, would be to consider percentages in the remote province particularly affected.--Nø (talk) 12:56, 2 April 2022 (UTC)

There was widespread starvation plus the whole child labor thing alongside massive outbreaks of disease and malnourishment so... FictiousLibrarian (talk). 06:57, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

This sounds like WP:SYNTH trying to create a false parallel and normalize this crime against humanity by the Soviet régime as an normal or inevitable effect of industrialization. I don’t believe reliable sources say this is the case, so let’s not try to make it sound like it. —Michael Z. 15:50, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Actually, explaining victims of Communism by forced industrialization and forced collectivization (which was undertaken in order to industrialize) is a fairly mainstream view. TFD (talk) 22:59, 3 April 2022 (UTC)

Equating the Holodomor to “when Western Europe and America industrialized many died or lived in squalor as well,” as proposed above, is whitewashing a crime against humanity. —Michael Z. 00:35, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Certainly it should not be equated, but the reasons should be explained. TFD (talk) 01:41, 4 April 2022 (UTC)

Larger famine in USSR

Though it's beyond dispute that Ukraine suffered the most during the 1932-1933 famine and that Stalin and USSR policy excacerbated that suffering in Ukraine, is it not appropriate to mention that millions also died throughout the Soviet republics of the famine or to mention the 1923 famine as well? 2600:1700:A1C1:9C20:3413:9A93:5BCB:9B4B (talk) 00:40, 1 April 2022 (UTC)

You bring up a good point. This is going to be included in an expanded/new section about the lead up to the famine which includes the five year plan and collectivization. FictiousLibrarian (talk). 17:57, 8 April 2022 (UTC)

Typo

"In some areas were depopulation was due to migration" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.46.252.14 (talk • contribs) 16:38, April 10, 2022 (UTC)

Fixed. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 14:29, 13 April 2022 (UTC)

"To eat your children is a barbaric act"

I've looked for the source of this online and everywhere, including in the original russian, but nowhere I search seems to have the original document for this. The cited link in the source for this claim 404's. I'm honestly not convinced this is actually factual. I suggest that this claim be removed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 50.224.233.122 (talk • contribs) March 15, 2022 (UTC)

I updated the citation with a working link to the article ChaseF (talk) 01:49, 24 March 2022 (UTC)

"The claim „The Soviet regime printed posters declaring: "To eat your own children is a barbarian act."” cites http://www.paulbogdanor.com/left/cannibalism.pdf as a source, which cites http://hungarianassociation.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Kronika-2005-Final.pdf , which quotes „Saját gyermekeid megevése barbár cselekedet” in Hungarian without any sources or citations. I couldn't find any other references to the original poster (in Russian or otherwise). Would it make sense to annotate this quote with "Unreliable source" or remove it?

2A00:79E0:42:203:4287:E74:6272:9F87 (talk) 09:12, 19 June 2018 (UTC)"

This is an old objection to this phrase that I found while diving through the references, searching for the origin of the "barbarian act poster" claim, and it is correct. I mirror the original poster's objection: is this a reliable source? I should note: a similar claim, of parents eating their children, is found in Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago on page 342 (english) and 317 (russian), but the exact claim, that there were propaganda posters advising parents not to eat their kids, seems to appear only in this 2005 (70~ years after the fact!) proceedings of the Hungarian Scientific, Literary, and Artistic Association. In fact, the earliest mention to the phrase at all seems to be a paraphrased version of that quoted in the Hungarian journal - "Gyermeked megevése barbár cselekedet!" - and seems only to appear in the now-defunct (and EXTREMELY small) hungarian "BOSS Magazin", from 2004. https://www.tenyek-tevhitek.hu/kannibalok.htm Is this an example of wikipedia citation genesis..? I have the feeling that someone at this unnotable publication may have made up a claim that has now propagated, in error, throughout the years, due to poor fact checking by all involved. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.43.152.147 (talk) 19:38, 17 April 2022 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Ukraine genocide which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 15:08, 20 April 2022 (UTC)

caracterization of an ongoing event and single media source as encyclopedic fact in the "in modern times" section

the use of a single The Guardian (western media) article as source "The intentional impediment of relief supplies to civilians, depriving them of food crucial to their survival, is present in Russia's war against Ukraine in 2022.[173] The comparison to the Holodomor's weaponized starvation has been made with regards to humanitarian aid convoys being blocked from accessing Mariupol.[174]" stating the possibility of the use of starvation techniques by the current military operation on Ukraine by Russian Military without citing any official sources or russian media sources, represents a bias and non conclusive argument as such it should be removed as is express an opinion and non factual information. Juanriveranava (talk) 18:12, 7 April 2022 (UTC)

You are right about the bias claim. That is a claim that western media is making. I will work on rephrasing it to reflect that instead of it coming across as a blunt statement that is fact and undisputed. I will get back to you when that is completed. FictiousLibrarian (talk). 03:03, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

"birth deficit"

The last sentence in the paragraph directly below the infobox reads:

According to the findings of the Court of Appeal of Kyiv in 2010, the demographic losses due to the famine amounted to 10 million, with 3.9 million direct famine deaths, and a further 6.1 million birth deficits.

On first reading I thought "birth deficit" was an error for "birth defect", and so does every search I've tried in attempting to find the definition. From some of the text I have found, it seems to be a loss in births per year versus what would be expected from previous history, but I can't put that in because it would be original research. If anyone can find a legitimate definition, it should be added at least as a footnote.

Thnidu (talk) 18:55, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

I think you’re on the right track. Here’s a relevant paper (cited here, but without a link to this text).[7] —Michael Z. 19:54, 28 February 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, but I don't see a definition of the term. The authors evidently assume that the reader will be familiar with it-- not unreasonable, given its specialized target audience. :-( Any ideas of how or where I might look, or ask for a pointer -- say, any relevant Wikiprojects?

Thnidu (talk) 19:56, 1 March 2022 (UTC)

Fixed that. Birth deficit is a term that is deliberately misleading you should not count people as deaths if they would not exist in the first place. FictiousLibrarian (talk). 03:04, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 February 2022

2601:603:4B80:1C80:80AA:1BCC:C2B3:762D (talk) 01:36, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

No, this has been disproven time and time again by reputable and academic sources. The inflated death toll has been debunked as Cold War propaganda. The official death toll that has been corroborated is roughly 3 to 5 million people. FictiousLibrarian (talk). 03:09, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

10 million people died in Holodomor

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 01:45, 27 February 2022 (UTC)

Typo error in first paragraph

There's a sentence that reads, "The Holodomor famine was part part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932–1933 which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country." Note the redundant words "part."

I'd fix myself but this page is locked. 136.34.179.69 (talk) 12:07, 30 March 2022 (UTC)

 Done — Czello 07:29, 27 April 2022 (UTC)

"Ukrainian Genocide" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Ukrainian Genocide and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 April 28#Ukrainian Genocide until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Star Mississippi 13:09, 28 April 2022 (UTC)

Red Holocaust by Rosefelde

I have removed this book from the article, as well as references to its author's opinion. The book cites wikipedia as a source, therefore can not be a reliable source for wikipedia, due to circularity issues. --Boynamedsue (talk) 13:33, 1 May 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 May 2022

Suggestion: "Change all spellings of "Kiev" to "Kyiv" Swardfighter (talk) 02:20, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

 Not done: from wp:kyiv: For unambiguously historical topics (e.g. Kiev Offensive), do not change existing content. if you believe changing kiev to kyiv for this article is appropriate, please establish a consensus before sending an edit request. 💜  melecie  talk - 04:59, 23 May 2022 (UTC)

Applebaum

The article currently says that Anne Applebaum claims that the Holodomor was deliberate genocide. In Red Famine she actually talks about how many Ukrainians believe they were victims of genocide, that Lemkin originally conceived of it as genocide, that the Ukrainian government has lobbied for it to be genocide, and then concedes that it would "be difficult" to make Holodomor or any Soviet crime fit the U.N. definition of genocide. She then goes on to argue that the category is outdated and that Holodomor is morally on the same level of genocide regardless of technical definitions or terminology. A more accurate summary of her view would be to say that she acknowledges it does not fit the U.N definition of genocide, but believes it is morally equivalent and in line with Lemkin's original much broader understanding of the concept. Chilltherevolutionist (talk) 02:32, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Here's a link to an a 2017 interview, where she calls it genocide. I think the problem is that the use of the term is not properly explain in the text. Ukrainian nationalists believe and their supporters believe that the famine was directed against ethnic Ukrainians, which meets the definition in international law. Applebaum disagrees with this analysis, but says that the definition of genocide should be widened. Can you provide a source where she says it was not genocide? TFD (talk) 23:18, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

In the Epilogue of Red Famine (Apologies, my digital copy does not have easily cited page numbers) she acknowledges it doesn't fit the current legal definition of genocide but that she thinks it would be under Lemkin's original concept. Elsewhere in the book she says the terminology is a matter of indifference, and that it's a great crime of moral equivalence even if it was not intentional massacre of Ukrainians as a nation:

"The Convention finally passed in 1948, which was a personal triumph for Lemkin and for many others who had lobbied in its favour. But the legal definition was narrow, and it was interpreted even more narrowly in the years that followed. In practice, ‘genocide’, as defined by the UN documents, came to mean the physical elimination of an entire ethnic group, in a manner similar to the Holocaust. The Holodomor does not meet that criterion. The Ukrainian famine was not an attempt to eliminate every single living Ukrainian; it was also halted, in the summer of 1933, well before it could devastate the entire nation. Although Lemkin later argued for an expansion of the term, and even described the Sovietization of Ukraine as the ‘classic example of Soviet genocide’, it is now difficult to classify the Ukrainian famine, or any other Soviet crime, as genocide in international law." Chilltherevolutionist (talk) 08:43, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Scholars in the field of Holodomor studies discuss different definitions of genocide: especially scholarly ones, but also legal and political. There is scholarly discussion about whether the Holodomor meets any of the three.

The Ukrainian famine was not an attempt to eliminate every single living Ukrainian; it was also halted, in the summer of 1933, well before it could devastate the entire nation: a red herring, because it is not a criterion. It doesn’t contradict any of the five genocidal acts listed the UN definition, and I believe this is supported by case law in former Yugoslavia. Applebaum only discusses how the Genocide Convention has tended to be applied, and there are other interpretations: I think former Yugoslavia shows that it is not an absolute. Anyway, it’s an academic question, because the 1948 convention is not retroactive, so the legal question on the Holodomor of 1932–33 can probably never be tested. —Michael Z. 20:39, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

Can we please stop trying to distract from the conversation by injecting ethnic stereotypes like Ukrainian nationalists and their supporters? But if you want to go this way, then I’d that it literally sounds like Russian ultranationalist propaganda that demonizes Ukrainians to deny the Holodomor. Anyway, it doesn’t belong here.

Applebaum does describe the debate over classification as genocide, perhaps acknowledging that it is a valid interpretation, and not an absolute that will someday be resolved. —Michael Z. 20:36, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

It's not a red herring, because when we say that Applebaum considers the famine to be a genocide without explanation, we are falsely implying that she is claiming that it was directed against ethnic Ukrainians. Essentially we have several views: that the famine was unintentional, that it was intentional and that it was directed against ethic Ukrainians. The article should be clear on the different interpretations.

Also, you seem to equate mainstream Western scholarship with Russian ultranationalist propaganda. That the ethnic genocide narrative is central to Ukrainian nationalist ideology is well established. It is part of the double genocide theory that tries to show that the "Holodomor" was worse than the Holocaust and therefore Communism was worse than Nazism, with its implications for which side was preferable in WW2.

TFD (talk) 21:06, 27 May 2022 (UTC)

I am not equating those things and I don’t see how you can justify that statement. Why are you associating “Ukrainian nationalists” with an opinion held by genocide and Holodomor scholars, if not to make some kind of point? Who has the view that the famine was unintentional? Neither this article nor double genocide theory show any connection between the two. I am not convinced by your argument. —Michael Z. 15:59, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

The vast majority of scholars think that the famine was unintentional, coming from a combination of factors both within and outside the control of the Stalinist government, and that the attempts at aid were both insufficient, and hampered by an attempt to cover up the famine in the context of boasting about the 1st 5 year plan.

Re: Double Genocide and its prominent role in Ukrainian historiography see "A laboratory of transnational history : Ukraine and recent Ukrainian historiography" edited by Georgiy Kasianov and Philipp Ther (A Ukrainian historian and an Austrian one) and edited by Central European University Press. Andreas Kappeler's contribution in particular is relevant:

"The traditional national approach, anterior to the Soviet Union and transmitted from North America by émigré historiography, was revived. The prerevolutionary narratives of Hrushevsky and Lypynsky, banned in Soviet times, became the new guiding concepts, and Hrushevsky became the canonized model for post-Soviet Ukrainian historians. The national myths of Cossackdom and of the thousand-year old traditions of Ukrainian statehood (according to the Declaration of Independence of 24 August 1991) were reconstructed, as was the traditions of Ukrainian populism and martyrology.25 The tradition of suffering was reinforced in post-Soviet historiography by the tragic experiences of Soviet rule, culminating in the famine of 1932–33, and by the Chernobyl disaster of 1986. The Great Famine (holodomor), caused by the Stalinist Soviet government and denied by the Soviet authorities until 1988, became the most important new element of Ukrainian collective memory. It serves to delegitimize Soviet rule and counteract strong Soviet traditions. The famine was officially designated a genocide of the Ukrainian people and sometimes termed the Ukrainian Holocaust.26 The implicit contention that Ukrainians had been victims of a genocide in the 1930s—one that was equated with the Nazi extermination of the Jews—is not only a major element in Ukrainian national martyrology but may also be interpreted as a response to allegations of a so-called perennial Ukrainian anti-Semitism and of Ukrainian collaboration with Nazi Germany during the Second World War. The identification of the Holodomor with the Holocaust has, however, been rejected by most non-Ukrainian historians.27 It challenges the singular and exclusive place of the Holocaust and Auschwitz in the collective memory not only of Jews but also of most Western Europeans and Americans. This very approximate picture of current Ukrainian historiography does not take into account the many differing views now current mainly among historians of the younger generation and in some regional historical schools.28 Nevertheless, if we look at the contents of recent general surveys of Ukrainian history written by Ukrainians in Ukraine and abroad, the general pattern remains that of a national historical mythology founded by Hrushevsky and Lypynsky, combining the history of the Ukrainian people with that of the present-day territory of the Ukrainian state. It focuses on the history of the Cossacks, the Ukrainian national movement, and the development of a Ukrainian high culture; on the sufferings of Ukrainians under Polish, Russian and Soviet rule; and on the traditions of Ukrainian statehood from Kyivan Rus´ to the Cossack Hetmanate and the People’s Republic of 1917–20, culminating in the post Soviet Ukrainian national state.29 This revived Ukrainian national history, based mainly on the canonized schemes of prerevolutionary historians (novonarodnytstvo and novoderzhavnytstvo), and constituting above all a history of the Ukrainians, has its merits. It fulfills the important task of legitimizing and strengthening the new Ukrainian state and the fragile Ukrainian nation. It serves as a counterweight to Soviet traditions, still vital in the minds of many citizens of Ukraine. It also seeks to oppose the Russocentric imperial view, which includes and absorbs Ukrainians into an all-Russian history and dominates historiography not only in Russia but also in Western Europe and North America." Chilltherevolutionist (talk) 04:45, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

This quote from an article by Dovid Katz in the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, while it is about the Baltic states, summarizes what we are discussing:

A major criticism of this movement is that Soviet crimes, while terrible, should not be equated to the crimes Nazi Germany inflicted throughout Europe, particularly genocide. Critics of the "Double Genocide" theory argue that its supporters are obfuscating (and downgrading) the Holocaust, without necessarily denying a single death. Conversely, those who subscribe to the idea of "Double Genocide" perceive their critics as sympathetic to Soviet rule, culturally pro Russian, or soft on Communism.[8]

Compare the last sentence with your comment about "Russian ultranationalist propaganda."

Both this article and Causes of the Holodomor acknowledge that some scholars see the famine as unintentional. ("Whether the Holodomor was a genocide or ethnicity-blind, was man-made or natural, and was intentional or unintentional are issues of significant modern debate." "Some historians believe the famine was the unintended consequence of problems arising from Soviet agricultural collectivization implemented to support the program of rapid industrialization in the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin." According to an article published online by the Cambridge University Press, "A further recurring topic in foreign reports is the role played by intentionality in the outbreak of the famine. This issue has sparked a heated debate among modern scholars, with a faction supporting the view that the Soviet leadership purportedly unleashed the famine and another seeing it has the undesired outcome of collectivization."[9] This is referenced to Klid and Motyl's 2012 'The Holodomor Reader.'

OTOH, I have no seen any sources for actual genocide scholars claiming that the famine was deliberately directed toward ethnic Ukrainians.

Also, I would like to point out that we are discussing what the sources say, not what we personally believe. When I say that the sources do not support the ethnic genocide interpretation, I am not saying that I do not support it. While I think it is unlikely, I am basing my opinion on what experts have concluded rather than any independent analysis I have carried out.

Finally, while you say you are not equating the Holocaust with the Holodomor, there is no difference in your analysis between the two: both were deliberate mass murders carried out with the intention of eliminating an ethnic group.

TFD (talk) 16:48, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Your new quotation still doesn’t connect the Holodomor with double genocide theory. Those are not the two things you previously said and I denied I’m equating. Nor have I equated them. This discussion is getting further off the rails. —Michael Z. 17:19, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

"Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko’s request that Israel recognize the Holodomor – the man-made famine in the Soviet Ukraine in 1932-1933 – was “unbelievable,” and an effort to promote a “double genocide theory,” Efraim Zuroff said on Tuesday." (Jerusalem Post 22 Jan 2019)[10] Efraim Zuroff is the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center office in Jerusalem. Poroshenko referred to the Ukrainian famine as "genocide against the Ukrainian people." In any case, your objection is pedantic. It doesn't matter whether people use the term "double genocide" to describe the definition of both the Holocaust and the famine as genocides as defined in international law. There are assigning a moral equivalency. If you have a better term for this, I would be happy to use it. TFD (talk) 19:14, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

That’s a statement by a non-Holodomor scholar to Israeli politicians about a statement by a Ukrainian politician. This has nothing to do with scholarship and nothing to do with Applebaum’s book. It looks like you’re not discussing specific article changes, but personally trying to convince us to accept Zuroff’s theory that the Holodomor cannot be a genocide because Soviet Jews existed, and “if everything is a genocide then nothing is.” You seem to want to make this and other Wikipedia articles accept this biased political WP:POV theory as fact. This is verging on WP:SOAP and WP:OR. —Michael Z. 19:53, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

Sorry that I was sidetracked by your various objections, so let's return to the subject of the discussion thread. Few if any genocide scholars consider the famine to have been a genocide as defined in law. And please remember that we are supposed to discuss the weight of opinion in reliable sources, not what beliefs you think I may have. I do not always share majority views on every topic, but I believe that weight should be observed regardless.

Incidentally, I brought up Zuroff's quote to show that regarding the Holodomor as genocide is a double genocide theory. It is not helpful to misrepresent that I brought him up for his opinion on whether or not it was a genocide.

TFD (talk) 02:35, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Statement of the International Association of Genocide Scholars

The resolution of the International Association of Genocide Scholars Executive Board (28 February 2022) on the Russian invasion stated that Ukrainian populations have faced genocide in the 20th Century, in the form of the Holodomor (the Ukrainian famine-extermination in 1932-33 by Stalin) and the Holocaust.

Source: https://genocidescholars.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IAGS-EB-Ukraine-Statement-2022.pdf

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Maria Orsic (talk • contribs) 21:58, 27 June 2022 (UTC)

Article contradicts itself on genocide question.

The section "Genocide question" says that there is no scholarly consensus on the genocide question, but the next section, "Soviet and western denial and downplay", says "Holodomor denial is the assertion that the 1932–1933 genocide in Soviet Ukraine either did not occur or did occur but was not a premeditated act."

Either the section "Genocide question" is completely wrong, or the statement that I have quoted is not generally accepted by authoritative sources as true. The impression I get is the "Soviet and western denial and downplay" section that was written by someone with something to prove, but I don't know enough about the subject to be sure about that. Either way, this needs to be resolved. Itsmeitis (talk) 00:39, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

• Hmm I don't really see a problem that needs to be resolved. The dispute is about the label "genocide". Whether something occurred or not, that's a different thing. Drmies (talk) 00:41, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

I think User:Itsmeitis is making a valid point. In the quoted passage could be amended by changing 2nd "the" to "a":

"Holodomor denial is the assertion that a 1932–1933 genocide in Soviet Ukraine either did not occur or did occur but was not a premeditated act."

Not sure if that is the right remedy, though.--Nø (talk) 13:04, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

I don’t have access to the two cited sources, but an authoritative definition of Holodomor denial is provided by the Library of Congress: “the diminution of the scale and significance of the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-1933 or the assertion that it did not occur.”[11] Debating whether the famine was a genocide according to one or other criterion is part of scholarly debate, but insisting that it is not or cannot be a genocide against the evidence or on ideological grounds would be an example of “diminution of its significance.”

There appears to be a scholarly consensus that the famine is part of the subject of genocide studies,[12] – It seems self-evident that genocide scholars must study the Holodomor for a debate to exist. And as long as an academic debate exists, we can’t say it is not a genocide. At least one authority lists it among the twentieth-century genocides.[13] There are various significant definitions of genocide which can be categorized as academic, legal, or political (can’t find a reference at the moment). Scholars view the resolution of the question in different ways,[14][15] including the idea that it is not a question to be resolved academically.[16] The legal question will probably never be resolved by a court ruling, because the 1948 international Genocide Convention is not retroactive to crimes against humanity of the 1930s, so in a way the legal question is academic.

That is to say, that the “genocide question” should not be viewed as an absolute binary one with a correct answer that is or will be conclusively resolved, and the article is not self-contradictory but can be improved. —Michael Z. 15:21, 29 June 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 August 2022

"Some historians conclude that the famine was planned and exacerbated by Joseph Stalin in order to eliminate a Ukrainian independence movement.[Citation needed]" Mgonz5932 (talk) 23:16, 3 August 2022 (UTC)

Add [citation needed] or remove the above quote.

Neither source supports this claim. The first source is an encyclopedia article which never argues that the famine was planned by Joseph Stalin to eliminate the Ukrainian independence movement. The second citation leads to a book by David Engemen, which states that the famine was a byproduct of the desire of the Soviet state to collectivize and politically control the Ukrainian countryside. While that may be true, it is not a plan by Stalin to eliminate the Ukrainian independence movement.

True, the sources don’t support that exact wording. Let’s agree on improved wording based on them. It might also benefit from other sources: Engerman’s language is archaically Russo-centric, referring to Soviet subjects including Ukrainians as “Russian peasants” and “rural Russia.” —Michael Z. 03:44, 4 August 2022 (UTC)

Would something like "Some historians conclude that the famine was planned in order to collectivise and subjugate the Ukrainian countryside" be better? If so. i'm willing to enact this change. Handmeanotherbagofthemchips (talk) 14:32, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

“Famine was used to collectivize” would be better, as 1932–33 wasn’t laid out as a plan ahead of time. —Michael Z. 15:13, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Ok, so: "Some historians conclude that famine was used to collectivise and control the Ukrainian countryside"? Handmeanotherbagofthemchips (talk) 16:00, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

Hm, you know, rereading the lead paragraph, I believe that is inadequate. There exist plenty of sources that will tell you the Holodomor, or the Holodomor along with purges of Ukrainian political, cultural, intellectual, and religious leaders, did destroy Ukrainian national consciousness to some degree. I don’t think that concept should be removed. We need to find better sources and possibly rewrite that. Sorry, I probably don’t have the time in the next days, but this may already be present in the article or other articles about the Holodomor. —Michael Z. 16:39, 5 August 2022 (UTC)

You're right: we are talking about ukrainian culture in general, not about some revolt. That's why i think this edit request does make sense. Handmeanotherbagofthemchips (talk) 00:09, 6 August 2022 (UTC)

Simply alerting editors that I'm gonna go ahead and flip the switch on this request template to "answered" as there is ongoing consensus building per the template. Cheers! —Sirdog (talk) 22:49, 7 August 2022 (UTC)

Ok, seems cool. Handmeanotherbagofthemchips (talk) 13:24, 8 August 2022 (UTC)

"The perfective form of moryty is zamoryty, 'kill or drive to death by hunger, exhausting work." According to the previous sentences, it is the word "holodom" that carries the meaning of "hunger", so why is it included in the meaning of "zamoryty" here? Shouldn't this be "The perfective form of moryty is zamoryty, 'drive to death'?" --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 12:32, 29 August 2022 (UTC) "

Its seems that someone misread the example in this dictionary (or some other) as part of the definition [17]—blindlynx 14:11, 29 August 2022 (UTC)

@Blindlynx humm 70.58.24.108 (talk) 21:39, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 1 September 2022

Change "Holocaust" to "Nazis" in the sentence

This interpretation has been criticised by some as the Holocaust killed other targeted ethnic groups alongside Jews, bringing the death toll to around 11 million.

The Holocaust refers to the genocide of European Jews. 2001:569:7FE9:2400:253B:D011:5E30:3D77 (talk) 17:33, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

Not done. Other groups were rounded up and killed during the Holocaust. Jews were the primary target, but absolutely not the only group involved. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 17:49, 1 September 2022 (UTC)

@HandThatFeeds: Many things happened during the Holocaust. The Holocaust refers to the genocide of European Jews. 2001:569:7FE9:2400:ECDB:F67A:82C8:8FEB (talk) 02:41, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

And that's all this statement is saying: other groups were killed during the Holocaust. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 11:44, 2 September 2022 (UTC)

@HandThatFeeds: That's a lie. It says "the Holocaust killed other groups", not "other groups were killed during the Holocaust". 2601:547:501:8F90:2D1C:2D6D:AA39:7BEB (talk) 03:45, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

That's a distinction without a difference. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 16:42, 7 September 2022 (UTC)

I'd say that it is the source of a lot of disagreement here. If "the Holocaust killed other groups", then the Holocaust is not just "the murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazis". --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:33, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

@HandThatFeeds: That's a distinction without a difference. That's also a lie. You may not care about accuracy, but Wikipedia does. 2601:547:501:8F90:ED1C:FE50:BC0D:CFA2 (talk) 00:47, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Be careful of accusing someone of lying, that's a personal attack. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 22:08, 9 September 2022 (UTC)

Bigger problem is the sentence and the one preceding are not supported by the cited source, and this should probably be removed, rendering the above request moot. —Michael Z. 17:03, 8 September 2022 (UTC)

References

In Modern Poltics and the Russian Invasion of Ukraine.

"The intentional impediment of relief supplies to civilians has been alleged as part of Russia's war strategy in the war against Ukraine in 2022. As of early May 2022, Ukraine's Defense Ministry claims that Russian forces have plundered at least 500,000 tons of grain from farmers since the invasion started. This looting included the seizure of industrial farm equipment, such as tractors, and forcing farmers to surrender 70% of their grain yields."

This line is included in the modern politics section and has me questioning whether it and more broadly the Russian invasion should be mentioned in that section at all. This of course changes if there are newsworthy accusation from relevant people that reference the holodomor (i.e A ukrainian offical saying "The russian plundering of the country is starving the ukrainian people like the holodomor", or something of that nature). However for the moment, this line doesn't seem to be relevant enough to the Holodomor to include outside of historical russia-ukraine relations.

I'm opening up this section in the talk page to get feedback before removing that line as it may be a contentious topic among editors. Gladfire (talk) 14:02, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

There are experts relating the Holodomor to the current war, with its Russian incitement of genocide and genocidal acts, its colonial basis, and the continuity of a chekist being responsible. I will see if I can collect a few sources. —Michael Z. 23:07, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

If there's sources that are actually compares them that'd be great. My plan was to retool the source 166 referenced at the end of the line to specifically mention the Luhansk administrator comparing it to the holodomor. Gladfire (talk) 06:34, 11 September 2022 (UTC)

The Holocaust

Change

the Holocaust was a heavily documented, coordinated effort by Nazi Germany and its collaborators to eliminate certain ethnic groups such as Jews, Slavs, and Romani, ultimately killing 11 million people

to

there was a heavily documented, coordinated effort by Nazi Germany and its collaborators to eliminate certain ethnic groups such as Jews, Slavs, and Romani, ultimately killing 11 million people

The Holocaust was the genocide of European Jews. 2601:547:501:8F90:A1F7:BA0D:3881:621B (talk) 20:43, 24 September 2022 (UTC) 2601:547:501:8F90:A1F7:BA0D:3881:621B (talk) 20:43, 24 September 2022 (UTC)

So you're just going to ignore the fact that there were equally systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecutions and murders of other groups? Carried out via the same mechanisms at the same locations. Yeah, that makes perfect sense. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:15, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

@Khajidha: Poor reading comprehension. Poor attempt at deflection. 0/10. 73.154.131.161 (talk) 00:00, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Just pointing out that your racist attempts to exclude roughly HALF of the Holocaust victims from the term make no sense. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 13:24, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

@Khajidha: your racist attempts Refrain from personal attacks or you will receive a warning. As the sources I've cited show, the Holocaust refers to the genocide of European Jews. 73.154.131.161 (talk) 17:24, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Seems that the Holocaust Museum Houston disagrees with you: "Holocaust - Term first used in the late 1950s to describe the systematic torture and murder of approximately six million European Jews and millions of other "undesirables" by the Nazi regime from 1933 to 1945." See https://hmh.org/education/resources/vocabulary-terms-related-holocaust/ . I don't know how else to describe the exclusion of people who were systematically executed by the Nazis, using the same mechanisms, in the same locations, from the count of Holocaust victims simply because they were not Jewish than by the word racist. You are literally distinguishing between two groups of victims of the same events on the basis of their race. --User:Khajidha (talk) (contributions) 17:43, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

@Khajidha: 1. There are over a dozen Holocaust museums in the US alone. A museum web page is not a scholarly source. 2. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum says: The Holocaust was the systematic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its allies and collaborators. 3. I have shown what the scholarly sources say: The Holocaust refers to the genocide of European Jews. 2601:547:501:8F90:FCA3:3087:1592:FF9F (talk) 23:35, 11 October 2022 (UTC)

You failed to gain consensus for this change previously. It hasn't even been a month, this feels WP:BLUDGEON-y. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 13:26, 26 September 2022 (UTC)

@HandThatFeeds: You failed to gain consensus for this change previously. How so? You were the only one who objected, and for no apparent reason. Mysterious. Why are you objecting to accuracy? What's your motive? Downplaying the anti-Jewish nature of the Holocaust? 73.154.131.161 (talk) 00:00, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

Way to not WP:AGF. I did give a reason, you just didn't like it. You are trying to argue that the Holocaust is exclusively the extermination of the Jews, ignoring the other people swept up in the Nazi exterminations at the same time. Your own citation included in this section does not deny that it included other groups. So it seems you're here to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS in attempting to frame it as exclusive to the Jewish internment & deaths. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 15:21, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

The Holocaust refers specifically to the genocide of European Jews. The Nazis also tried to exterminate other peoples during WWII, but the expression "The Holocaust" is specific; the rewording is correct. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 22:39, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

You are trying to argue that the Holocaust is I'm not "trying to argue" anything. I'm pointing out the correct definition, supported by multiple sources. other people swept up in the Nazi exterminations "Contemporaneous with" does not mean "part of". Your own citation included in this section does not deny that it included other groups. My citations show that the Holocaust refers to the genocide of European Jews. 73.154.131.161 (talk) 17:21, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

Jews were not the only group that the Germans considered "untermenschen" and were systematically targeted. Slavs were seen as an inferior race by the Germans and were targeted for extermination alongside Poles, Romani, and other ethnic minorities. FictiousLibrarian (talk). 15:02, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

References

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. As they're have been objections, this will need consensus to implement. Also, stop attacking editors that disagree with you. ScottishFinnishRadish (talk) 00:08, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

It is, however, a correct change -- or at least a consistent one, within Wikipedia, where consensus has The Holocaust defining it as the genocide of European Jews. --jpgordon^{𝄢𝄆𝄐𝄇} 14:00, 27 September 2022 (UTC)

@ScottishFinnishRadish: From that page:

consensus should be obtained before requesting changes that are likely to be controversial

Consensus isn't needed if a change is not controversial.

There is nothing "controversial" about using the correct definition. 73.154.131.161 (talk) 17:16, 6 October 2022 (UTC)

the cause of the famine was man-made

Could you please point me onto quotes from sources regarding that. I'd like to include this into another language wiki. Manyareasexpert (talk) 22:27, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

@FictiousLibrarian, could you please give a quote for your new edit. What I found is
Except in Kazakhstan, the phenomenon's causes were similar across these
areas: the devastating human toll, as well as the toll on the capacity for production,
taken by dekulakization - a de facto nationwide, state-led pogrom against the
peasant elite; forced collectivization, which pushed peasants to destroy a large
part of their inventories;12 the kolkhozes' inefficiency and misery; the repeated
and extreme requisition waves originated by a crisis-ridden industrialization, an
urbanization out of control, and a growing foreign debt that could be repaid only
by exporting raw materials; the resistance of peasants, who would not accept the
reimposition of what they called a "second serfdom" and worked less and less
because of both their rejection of the new system and hunger-related debilita-
tion; and the poor weather conditions in 1932. Famine, which had started to take
hold sporadically already in 1931 (when Kazakhs were dying in mass), and had
grown into solid pockets by the spring of 1932, thus appears to have been an
undesired and unplanned outcome of ideology-inspired policies aimed at elimi-
nating mercantile and private production. Manyareasexpert (talk) 15:28, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

This is a copy of an abstract from "Scholars generally blame Stalin and his rural collectivization policy. The lack of agricultural machinery, ineffective organization and the awkward relations between the village officials and local peasants all contributed to the famine." by Yiwei Cheng. https://philpapers.org/rec/CHEAAO-4 Now it's important to add some context because most mainstream sources claim the Holodomor was a premeditated genocide despite the evidence to the contrary. Overall natural factors such as poor harvest and issues with rain, coupled with incompetent government bureaucrats, and sabotage as an act of retaliation by the Kulaks caused the Holodomor. The man-made factors are mainly Stalin's Five Year Plan which attempted to turn the USSR which at the time was underdeveloped agrarian society into a modern industrial nation. Ultimately, the Five Year Plan did succeed however it did come at the cost of millions of lives and devastating famine in Ukraine and other states such as Kazakhstan. I hope this helped.

Yours Truly FictiousLibrarian (talk). 15:56, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I don't get why 'Famine-Genocide' and other like terms are eschewed?

As the academia of the Holodomor is burgeoning and archives are uncovered, the Holodomor is being routinely called a 'famine-genocide' and referred to in common parlance as the 'Ukrainian genocide'. It was removed on the 26 November 2020, without talk page approval but by a highly respected wikipedian. I understand his position, however, contend that since that date discourse surrounding the Holodomor has evolved and I believe we should make mention of its referral as a 'genocide' in common language. Also I don't get why "millions of inhabitants of Ukraine, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine" was removed, this seems highly apposite as a preface to the page. The Holodomor page i don't think should be created into an expressionless and anodyne page so as not to ruffle feathers, just as the Armenian Genocide cannot be watered down to satisfy everyone, thats my opinion anyway.@TimothyKloucester TimothyKloucester (talk) 16:04, 2 October 2022 (UTC) See Wikipedia:Sockpuppet_investigations/YanT121#Suspected_sockpuppets - GizzyCatBella🍁 19:10, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Black Book of Communism unreliable source.

(Redacted) FF toho (talk) 15:43, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Previous discussions at WP:RSN have indicated that it's generally reliable but requires attribution for claims. Further discussion around it should really take place there. — Czello 15:47, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

I agree with you however there is some important context. The Black Book of Communism is a series of essays written by credible historians. However it was compiled by Stephane Courtois and he does have a bias. Courtois is an open anti-communist to the point his political views interfere with scholarly pursuits. He wrote the famous introduction that claimed 100 million died in communist counties which has been debunked. If a source claims this introduction or an essay written by Courtois then absolutely remove it. However not every essay in the book is biased and if you read the book through, you'll find the historians in the later chapters openly contradict Courtois's death toll in the introduction. Overall the general reliability of the Black Book should be brought up on the reliable source page. Thank you for bringing up this point.

Yours Truly FictiousLibrarian (talk). 16:01, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Removed copyvio comment. --Izno (talk) 20:06, 17 November 2022 (UTC)

Recent sources

Here is a potentially useful list compiled by Iryna Skubii at H-Net: New publications in Ukrainian studies: famine of 1932-1933 (Holodomor).  —Michael Z. 17:00, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

Countries recognising Holodomor as genocide

Why is Brazil, the Czech Republic, Portugal and the USA not mentioned in this paragraph?

Brazil and the Czech Republic recognized the Holodomor as genocide in 2022, the United States in 2018, and Portugal in 2017. 46.211.254.153 (talk) 14:43, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Portugal: 1 2 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.47.59.237 (talk) 16:51, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Brazil: 1

Czechia: 1

It is also necessary to fix the maps. Countries such as the USA, the Czech Republic, Moldova, Romania, Ireland, and Brazil should be added to this map. Ireland should be added to this map. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.211.103.70 (talk) 17:13, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Added Ânes-pur-sàng (talk) 21:53, 25 November 2022 (UTC)

Is this section appropriate? In most cases it seems that a parliament has passed a resolution, which is not the same thing as a country recognising.♥ L'Origine du monde ♥ ^{♥ Talk ♥} 21:40, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

I have moved the section to the modern politics section. I think it needs checking, if it is indeed a worthwhile list, to eliminate countries whose governments have not recognised Holodomor as genocide.♥ L'Origine du monde ♥ ^{♥ Talk ♥} 22:02, 26 November 2022 (UTC)

In all cases, these are statements, declarations, resolutions, regulation, compendiums, documents issued by national assemblies / parliaments of countries, but not, for example, by the head of the government. Therefore, I do not quite understand the need for this transfer from the paragraph on genocide when it comes to its recognition by states. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.47.59.236 (talk) 08:32, 27 November 2022 (UTC)

@L'Origine du monde:, the USA recognized the Holodomor as genocide. I still don't understand why you are removing the countries and relocating the section separately from the map.

”As of January 2021, the Senate, the United States House of Representatives, and multiple state governments have recognized the famine as man-made and as an act of genocide.”

These are political decisions, so I moved to the modern politics section. If the US government has recognised the Holodomor as genocide, please give a citation. Might be better if every entry in this section described exactly who had given the recognition...♥ L'Origine du monde ♥ ^{♥ Talk ♥} 10:21, 29 November 2022 (UTC)

@L'Origine du monde:, de facto, no government, i.e. the executive body of the state, recognized the Holodomor as genocide, this is always done by the highest state, legislative body (parlament), adopting this or that normative legal act. The section was renamed, I think the name is correct. By the way, add Germany to the section, the Bundestag today recognized the Holodomor as genocide. By the way, add Germany to the section, the Bundestag (not Bundeskabinett) today recognized the Holodomor as genocide and the map should probably be returned.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.148.149.248 (talk • contribs) 13:37, November 30, 2022 (UTC)

Please remember to sign your posts with four ~ symbols at the end, so we know who we're talking to. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:51, 30 November 2022 (UTC)

References

Why two sections: "Further reading" versus Bibliography?

Over the past 17+ years of this article's evolution, the structure of the references section may have become bloated. For example, it seems to me that large numbers of the items in the ==Bibliography== section would be items good for items to recommend readers consider for ==Further reading==. Wikipedia:Further reading is not policy but offers guidelines that the section should not be voluminous, and be confined to the very best references on the subject. This would suggest that an often cited work like Applebaum's book should be considered for adding to ==Further reading== but since the list is already quite long, we should consider whether it should take the place of a less noteworthy reference. But shortening the Further reading is also problematic. Wouldn't there be great difficulty in coming to consensus for a controversial subject on which sources constitute the very best resources? Also, I can see that perhaps the Polish or Ukrainian language references currently in the section may be seminal authoritative references, but should these references be on the recommendations list for english language readers to consider, nearly all of whom cannot read other languages? Seeing that fewer than 3% of articles have Further reading sections, perhaps retaining this section needlessly complicates the reference section. Perhaps fold these references into bibliography and replace it with a section on primary sources- example items being the US commission volumes with oral evidence? J JMesserly (talk) 08:10, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable in principle. I’d point out that other languages are read by some of our readers and potentially accessible to the rest through machine translation, so they’re not necessarily disqualified from the top-tier category.  —Michael Z. 18:31, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Right. (That's what I do, but I would wager a healthy majority of the 10K plus daily readers of the article are not aware how to do this. There can be other complications, such as pdfs with text not copyable or with poor text recognition, or employing non unicode character sets, making translation challenging.)

My intention is to treat the section as if it does not exist until a consensus emerges over an extended period of time. First, I will need to clean up some errors I made to it when I mistakenly moved some entries to it thinking it was the bibliography section. J JMesserly (talk) 19:51, 6 December 2022 (UTC)

Removal of Image Depicting Ukrainians Protesting in 1933

I do not know when the image was removed, but there was an image that depicted Ukrainians in Chicago protesting on December 17, 1933. This image also showed members of the Communist Party USA attacking the protesters. Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Communists_attacking_a_parade_of_Ukrainians_in_Chicago._17.12.1933.jpg The image can still be found on the Norwegian, Portuguese, and Ukrainian versions of this article, and yet it was removed from this version. Marley's Shield (talk) 23:54, 10 December 2022 (UTC)

Slovakia did not recognize the Holodomor as genocide

The word genocide is not mentioned in the document by the National Council of the Slovak Republic, which is indicated as a source. Separately, the US is constantly removed from the list of countries that recognized the Holodomor as genocide, although the US legislature did so, as did the legislatures of other countries.(Latest source) 31.148.149.242 (talk) 22:00, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

while i don't speak Slovak, the term 'vyvražďovania' seems to mean genocide here. Sk wiki uses the word to dab the Holocaust Holokaust alebo holokaustum alebo nespisovne holocaust bolo systematické vyvražďovanie [18]. Obviously a Slovak speaker should weigh in—blindlynx 22:12, 8 December 2022 (UTC)

@Belisarius~skwiki: I saw your recent edit, maybe could weight in here?—blindlynx 21:35, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, I didnt see this thread. Well, as I wrote in the edit. Correct, there is no word "genocide" in the text of 2007 Declaration. However, the meaning of "systematic killing" what is literally in the text, is in my opinion the same one as of "genocide". So if some users prefers just a rigid "de iure" play on words, then Slovakia should not be included in that list. If some prefer "de facto" reality of condemnation of the act of holodomor as act of systematic killing, then Slovakia should be included. --Belisarius~skwiki (talk) 21:46, 11 December 2022 (UTC)

Romania

Romania's recognition of the Holodomor took the the form of a political resolution voted by the country's parliament. The full text of the resolution is available here: [19]. It recognizes the "deliberate, artificial famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine" as a "crime against the Ukrainian people and against Humanity". At no point does the resolution use the term "genocide". MP Nicolae Miroslav Petreţchi, who initiated the resolution, stated in his speech that the name (i.e. "Holodomor") "reflected, etymologically, the dimensions of genocide: famine and mass killing." Other MPs also used the term "genocide" in their speeches, but, bottom line, the resolution they voted on does not use it. Therefore, strictly speaking, the article and the map are inaccurate.Plinul cel tanar (talk) 09:32, 12 December 2022 (UTC)