Post 7, Reflection

In all honesty, writing this was not too difficult, though it was kind of a pain. I honestly tried to embody my emotions into writing the posts in the project itself. In my writing i just hope to be able to convey the messages that are written in my posts to you. please read these with the sincerest of hearts and try to understand why I wrote some of the things i did. Thank you, Ian Zumbrennen

Post 4, World Responce

            The world always reacts to things that happen. An example would be the batman shooting in Colorado (I do believe that is the place), or the shooting at the kindergarten, or an outbreak of swine flu, and so on, and so on, etc. Stalin’s forced famine is no different than the rest of these things.

            “Back in Moscow, six British engineers working in the Soviet Union were arrested and charged with sabotage, espionage and bribery, and threatened with the death penalty. The sensational show trial that followed was actually a cynical ruse to deflect the attention of foreign journalists from the famine. Journalists were warned they would be shut out of the trial completely if they wrote news stories about the famine. Most of the foreign press corp yielded to the Soviet demand and either didn't cover the famine or wrote stories sympathetic to the official Soviet propaganda line that it didn't exist. Among those was Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Walter Duranty of the New York Times who sent one dispatch stating ‘...all talk of famine now is ridiculous.’ Outside the Soviet Union, governments of the West adopted a passive attitude toward the famine, although most of them had become aware of the true suffering in the Ukraine through confidential diplomatic channels. In November 1933, the United States, under its new president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, even chose to formally recognized Stalin's Communist government and also negotiated a sweeping new trade agreement. The following year, the pattern of denial in the West culminated with the admission of the Soviet Union into the League of Nations. (Stalin’s Forced Famine 1932 – 1933)” this shows that though people knew about the famine, even though some did nothing at all. In all honesty, if you see something that is wrong, try to fix it, even if it is something small, try to do something about it, you just might make a difference in someone’s life.

Post 5, Enduring Effects

“Holodomor, or death by hunger, is believed to have been orchestrated by Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, claiming the lives of up to 10 million people in 1932-33. So far, 13 countries, including the U.S. and Ukraine, formally recognize Stalin's forced starvation as a genocide _ a deliberate attempt to eliminate an ethnic group. The Ukrainian Canadian Congress had hoped Ottawa would offer similar acknowledgment. After meeting privately Wednesday with Harper, congress president Paul Grod said Wednesday the prime minister recognizes the famine as a tragedy, but not a genocide.( Harper remembers 1930s Ukrainian famine victims, but doesn't call it a genocide)”

            This quote is from a Canadian newspaper from 2007. This shows that even though 13 countries call what Joseph Stalin did in 1932 a genocide, the Canadian Prime Minister is still unable to call it what it truly is; a genocide. Many years after this monstrosity has happened, there are still people that are too scared to admit that some people have done wrong, and are doing wrong. Some people have also used Stalin’s techniques and created / changed their own countries’ governments as well. This shows that if you do even one thing you drop a pebble in the still lake of life; this will create a ripple effect, disturbing the water around it, causing problems for everything around. If you take this parable and relate it to life, if someone does something stupid, it does not only affect themselves, it will affect the entire world (given enough time...). this is exactly what happened with Stalin in the past, he did something stupid, and in return, people nearly a century later are still trying to decide what happened in that area, whether they are scared or not of what people think. Anyway, this is my thoughts on the enduring effects of the genocide.

Post 3, Victims

            In any death, there is a victim; even though there may not be a killer in a literal sense. In the Ukraine, the peasant farmer class called the kulaks, and their killer is a man named Joseph Stalin. Stalin was irritated by the joyfulness of the Ukrainians at the looseness of their bondage to the Soviets that he said that their joy was deteriorating the bonds that the Soviets placed. Stalin started to take more grain out of their supply and collectivized the land. “Stalin also imposed the Soviet system of land management known as collectivization. This resulted in the seizure of all privately owned farmlands and livestock, in a country where 80 percent of the people were traditional village farmers. Among those farmers, were a class of people called Kulaks by the Communists. They were formerly wealthy farmers that had owned 24 or more acres, or had employed farm workers. Stalin believed any future insurrection would be led by the Kulaks, thus he proclaimed a policy aimed at ‘liquidating the Kulaks as a class.’ (Stalin’s Forced Famine 1932 – 1933)" “In late 1929, Stalin launched a ‘dekulakization’ program centered on Ukraine but encompassing the North Caucasus… (Askold Krushelnycky 112)” this is not all that happened, “Declared "enemies of the people," the Kulaks were left homeless and without a single possession as everything was taken from them, even their pots and pans. It was also forbidden by law for anyone to aid dispossessed Kulak families. Some researchers estimate that ten million persons were thrown out of their homes, put on railroad box cars and deported to "special settlements" in the wilderness of Siberia during this era, with up to a third of them perishing amid the frigid living conditions. Men and older boys, along with childless women and unmarried girls, also became slave-workers in Soviet-run mines and big industrial projects. (Stalin’s Forced Famine 1932 – 1933)” later Stalin increased the food seizure, and made all food the property of the state. ”Anyone caught stealing State property, even an ear of corn or stubble of wheat, could be shot or imprisoned for not less than ten years. (Stalin’s Forced Famine 1932 – 1933)” and thus, is what happened in Ukraine to the victims.

post 2, Organizers and Leaders

                Every genocide, mass murder, liberticide (the killing of liberty), and homicide (the list goes on), has a leader and/or organizer for the killing. In fact, if you look throughout history, you will find many leaders of many killings. A few examples of leaders are Steven Matthew Fernandez, Mao Ze-Dong, Leopold II of Belgium, Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, and many more. The main leader of The Ukrainian genocide in (of course) the Ukraine is Josef Stalin, whom uses that name as a pen name. Josef Stalin actually is named Iosif Vissarionovič Stalin, which is a really hard name to say (if I do say so myself…). The reason he chose to change his name is because of the fact that his pen name means man of steel. Anyway, I digress, Stalin was ruthless, and it was proved by his system of politics. “Stalin was not one of the decisive players in the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, but he soon rose through the ranks of the party [through strategic means]. In 1922, he was made general secretary of the Communist Party, a post not considered particularly significant at the time but which gave him control over appointments and thus allowed him to build up a base of support (Joseph Stalin (1879 - 1953)).”  This ability of his lead to Stalin being able to take Vladimir Lenin’s spot in the Soviet government, and the deaths of 6 to 10 million peasants in Ukraine via the manmade famine of his.

Post 6, Bibliography

Works Cited

Altman, Linda Jacobs. Genocide: The Systematic Killing of a People. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow, 2009. Print. Pages 43 - 50

Donnelly, Marea. "# 11 Famine." Ed. Troy Lennon. The (Sydney) Daily Telegraph [Austrailia] 24 Apr. 2012, sec. 11: 28. EBSCOhost. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. <tinyurl.com/afplggk>.

"Genocide in the 20th Century: Stalin's Forced Famine 1932-33." The History Place. The History Place, 2000. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. <http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/stalin.htm>.

King, Tamara. "Harper Remembers 1930's Ukranian Famine Victims, but Doesn't Call It Genocide." The Canadian Press 28 Nov. 2007: n. pag. EBSCOhost. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. <tinyurl.com/agj5me5>.

Krushelnycky, Askold. Genocide. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2007. Print. Pages 112 - 121

"Ukrainian Famine." Ukrainian Famine. The Library of Congress, 2010. Web. 25 Feb. 2013. <http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/ukra.html>. 

BBC. "Joseph Stalin (1879 - 1953)." BBC - History. BBC, 2013. Web. 5 Mar. 2013. <http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/stalin_joseph.shtml>.  

Post 1, Background

        So what I can sum up from what I read about "Stalin's Forced Famine in the Ukraine" from several different sources, I can assume that kulak farmers were massacred because they disagreed with Stalin's policy of collectivization, though I will speak of this in later posts. This is not the only thing that has happened in history. When you look at all the people in that history, and you put together all of the people that have the same types of governmental goals and policies, you will find the following examples; Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Barack Obama, and many more. You will find that the persons listed all set a common enemy for the public to support them in their political roles. Hitler’s enemy was the Jews, Hussein accused the people of Kuwait, Osama had amends to make with the Hindu, and Obama’s enemy is guns and terrorism. Stalin has made certain peasants in the Ukraine the enemy.
        In the Ukraine, the people had just freed themselves from the rule of the Czar, and declared a people's republic. Vladimir Lenin then tried to recapture everything that had belonged to the czar. Ukrainian troops fought against Lenin's red army and Russia's white army. The soviets won the war in 1921, and divided Ukraine into 4 parts. The soviets immediately began to ship out grain from Ukraine, and coincidentally, there was a drought that year coincidentally. Lenin loosened his grip on the Ukraine to decrease the resentment against himself. What he did to loosen his grip on the people of Ukraine was the following: he lessened the amount of grain taken from farms and villages and he encouraged a free-market exchange of goods. Lenin died just a few years after this in 1924 and the terrible monstrosity of Josef Stalin took over Ukraine and the Soviets (Genocide in the 20th Century: Stalin's Forced Famine 1932-33).