Relationship between the USSR and Ukraine in the 1930's

Stalin’s policy priorities were not building a ‘worker’s paradise’ or a classless society, but protecting Russia from war and invasion. In 1928, Stalin launched the first of two ambitious five-year plans to modernize and industrialize the Soviet economy. These programs brought rapid progress – but also significant death and suffering. Stalin’s decision to nationalize agricultural production dispossessed millions of peasants, forcing them from their land to labor on gigantic state-run collective farms. Grain was sold abroad to finance Soviet industrial projects, leading to food shortages and disastrous famines in the mid-1930s. Soviet Russia was dragged into the 20th century, transforming from a backward agrarian empire into a modern industrial superpower – but this came at extraordinary human cost.

By June 1933, 28,000 men, women and children were starving to death each and every day. As the Ukrainians were dying, the Soviet Union was exporting their grain to other countries. This famine was initiated to dehumanize the Ukrainians and counterattack any movement for independence. Anyone caught stealing grain was killed immediately, this lead to people eating dogs, birds, mice and withal resulted into cannibalism . Seven to ten million Ukrainians had perished in the course of one year. Despite having a substantial amount of knowledge of the crisis in Ukraine, the west turned a blind eye

Holodomor occurred during 1932-1933, but corrupt events and poor leadership led up to the famine and starvation. Vladimir Lenin, who ruled the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1924, declared Ukraine as an independent nation. Sadly, the new country’s government was very unstable and could not withstand. So, the country became a part of the Soviet Union once again. As a result of getting a taste of independence, a new pride and patriotism rose among the Ukrainians along with a political elite group. Joseph Stalin, who rose to power in 1924, saw that this wave of nationalism in Ukraine as a threat. So Stalin set up a new form of economic production called collectivism. Collectivism is where individual farmers were

The people were in a state of famine, the political government was weak, and the economy was in shambles with inflation as high as can be. As Stalin rose in power, this would all change in both positive and negative aspects. One of Josef Stalin’s first methods of rebuilding broken Russia was through what he named to be the Five-Year economic Plans. Through these plans, Stalin would induct a Command, or a Socialist, Economy. This Command Economy would involve a society in which the government would make all economical decisions, controlling nearly all aspects of societal life. As seen in Document One, Stalin believed that implementing a “Socialist economy” would prevent from Russia “[lagging] behind the advanced countries by fifty to a hundred years.” It would bring them up to pace with the surrounding capitalist economies, keeping Russia as a world power. The Five-Year Plans also included the increase of quota in both industrial and agricultural positions. If quota were increased, industrial increase would soon follow. Seen in Document Eight, “the fulfillment of the first and second Five-Year Plans strengthened the U.S.S.R.’s economic position.” The Five-Year Plan would cause for Russia to rise to become a modern industrial society, as well as

Collectivisation had a big impact on Russia for both positive and negative reasons; it was a failure in the aspect that it caused ‘chaos in agriculture’ and due to the problems caused, millions died due to famine and poverty in the short term. ‘Grain harvests dropped dramatically’ during the early 1930s and took until the late 1930s for yield to rise again. However, in the long run, a food surplus was secured and so could be used to feed and pay for the industrial workforce needed for the 5-year plan. It was also incredibly significant in history as it showed how much control Stalin had over Soviet Russia and the fear that the peasants lived in; for example if they were caught stealing even just a few pieces of grain they could be executed or imprisoned for up to 10 years. The lasting impression that is received from the wide tolerance of this policy was how small and insignificant the few rebellions were that were organised. This further demonstrates the power and influence held over the peasants during this period of time.

Ukraine is granted a market economy status by the EU and USA. The sharp economic decline in the 90s resulted in deteriorating living standards for most citizens and widespread poverty. However, during the 21st century, there has been some positive economic growth in Ukraine, as well as Eastern Europe as a whole. Ukraine’s currency, the Hryvnia, was introduced in September 1996 and has remained relatively stable. The unstable political situation in Ukraine hardly influences its economic development. GDP has been growing steadily since 2005 at an average growth rate of 7% and industrial production has been expanding by 12%. The Ukrainian economy was hit by the harsh effects of the global financial crisis but managed to attain a 4.2%

Under Stalin, the desire for independence became a death sentence. According to the part of a documentary in which the segment was titled “Ukrainian famine 1933”, much of Ukraine’s economy was based on the individual farming land that was owned by kulaks or wealthy farmers, a name given by Soviet Union. When Russian government demanded that the farming land be given to it, it caused a resistance from the farmers and peasants of the nation. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union declared the kulaks as the enemy of the government and forced them to not only give up their land and livestock but also to be relocated in remote areas Siberia. This fate was not only written to the wealthy famers but to any person that defied the Russian government. They began to kill those that showed open defiance. In order to control any further resistance, Soviet Union increased its demand for grain from the Ukraine. During this period, the nation was facing a drought so they were already limited to the amount of grain that could be given to the government. As Soviet Union continued to demand more and more grain from the nation, the nation did not have food to support itself. According to the article titled “Famine in Ukraine after Second World War”, it states the grain was given to “various European countries in order to forestall their reliance on imports from the United States. In 1946 the Soviet Union shipped 1.7 million tons of grain to Albania, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Finland,

The civilians of the country had to face the famine, a shortage of food, because they were urged to work in farms, but did not have the opportunity to gain profit or food from their hard work. The result of this caused the working-class to not be motivated and forced to continue their work for the country. In the source titled, “Famine Testimony of Tatiana Pawlichka,” it writes “ After the harvest, the villagers tried to go out in the fields to look for the grain left behind by the harvest; the communists would arrest them and shoot them, and send them to Siberia”(Famine Testimony of Tatiana Pawlichka). The author describes how desperate the peasants were in trying to be able to get food from the field and the consequences they had to face. The method used by Stalin to not be seen as an unjust ruler, in and out of the country, is by using propaganda.

Stalin wasn’t determined to make everyone in the USSR content as much as he was for making it grand, as a whole. Targets for orders he placed were getting harder and harder to achieve since the collection of soviet grain harvest wasn’t meeting expectations (doc7). This eventually lead to a famine but not for everyone, it only affected the peasants working in the fields. Stalin had “taken everything from them” (doc7). News was spread all over about people getting “largely affected by the terrible famine” (doc9).

They addressed rebellious farmers by firing warning shots above their heads. In some instances, they fired directly at the people. The NKVD also went to work conducting a campaign of terror designed to break the people's will. NKVD squads attacked and killed uncooperative farmers.”In Moscow, Stalin responded to their unwavering defiance by dictating a policy that would deliberately cause mass starvation and result in the deaths of millions. By mid-1932, nearly 75 percent of the farms in the Ukraine had been forcibly collectivized. On Stalin's orders, the mandatory seizing of food was drastically increased in August, October and again in January 1933, until there was simply no food remaining to feed the people of the Ukraine.” (The Holodomor « World Without

Even though, they knew their grains supply was going to be less for next year’s planting and the fact that their crops were infertile during the winter. These peasants knew about their lack of supply and the awful Russian winter climate but didn’t take any precautions to prepare for the worst like the famine. It was worse as the Volga and Ural Regions were overcrowded with hungry peasants and their lack of hygiene practise. Diseases like typhus caused from lice infestation was spreading among the peasants. If these peasants planted enough grain for themselves, maybe it wouldn’t have caused this awful famine. I mean it wasn’t me that caused it, as you can see there were other consecutive factors that led to this famine such as the peasant’s lack of motivation to plant sufficient grains, the bad Winter climate that made the land barren, their overcrowding population with their poor hygiene practices that spread diseases. My war communism policy of Prodrazvyorstka was just a very small factor and I don’t think that it was the major factor of the

Adding to the deplorable oppression borne by the proletariat during the Five Year Plans, Stalin introduced a collectivisation campaign which not only sparked a persecution of kulaks, but also induced a widespread famine. The Stalin government’s compulsory agricultural policy was largely a failure with regard to its goals. Beginning in 1929, all farms were to be collectivised, with the aim of improving agricultural output and hence, industrialisation. The USSR’s initial system of farming was inefficient, but the introduction of fertilisation and tractors modernised agricultural techniques, increasing the nation’s capacity for production, supporting Historian Jamieson’s statement. However, the policy was catastrophic due to the mass movement of peasant resistance that saw farmers defiantly burning crops and slaughtering livestock, regarding the campaign as a violation of their freedom. By 1933, agricultural production fell dramatically; grain by 17 million tonnes and cows and pigs by a total of 23 million, to below what it was in 1913 (Downey, 1989, p. 19). This

After World War I the economy in the USSR was failing, they were producing very little and were hit hard economically. Stalin developed many economic policies for three main reasons. The first was that he wanted to turn the USSR into a modern world power; he wanted it to be self-sufficient and to have a strong military. Secondly, he wanted to show the eminence of communism over capitalism by proving that a modernized USSR can overtake the capitalist countries. Lastly, he wanted to improve the livelihood of all the Soviet citizens. In order to do this, his main goal in order to do that, he made sure the agriculture section of the economy was productive. The first policy that Stalin created was collectivization. By 1928, the grain produced was insufficient to feed the people. Stalin addressed this issue and took action by joining small farms and making a collective group called Kolkhoz. This policy was unsuccessful. The one good side was that farmers received a wage from

The political relations between Ukraine and Russia as the two independent subjects of international relations were established in 1991 after the eighth December of the same year signed the Belavezha agreement between Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, which marked the end of the existence of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as " subject of international law and geopolitical reality "and the establishment of the Commonwealth of Independent States. From that moment we can talk about the beginning of the existence of full political relations between Russia and Ukraine.

The major trading partners of Ukraine in 2014 were Germany (17.9%), Poland (13.5%), and Italy (9.3%).