Soviet famine of 1930–1933

The Soviet famine of 1930–1933 was a famine in the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union, including Ukraine and different parts of Russia, including Kazakhstan, Northern Caucasus, Kuban Region, Volga Region, the South Urals, and West Siberia. Major factors included the forced collectivization of agriculture as a part of the First Five-Year Plan and forced grain procurement from farmers. These factors in conjunction with a massive investment in heavy industry decreased the agricultural workforce. Estimates conclude that 5.7 to 8.7 million people died from starvation across the Soviet Union. In addition 50 to 70 million Soviet citizens starved during the famine yet survived.

During this period Soviet leader Joseph Stalin ordered the kulaks (land-owning proprietors) "to be liquidated as a class". As collectivization expanded, the persecution of the kulaks, ongoing since the Russian Civil War, culminated in a massive campaign of state persecution in 1929–1932, including arrests, deportations, and executions of kulaks. Some kulaks responded with acts of sabotage such as killing their livestock and destroying crops designated for consumption by factory workers. Despite the vast death toll in the early stages, Stalin chose to continue the Five Year Plan and collectivization. By 1934, the Soviet Union had established a base of heavy industry, at the cost of millions of lives.

Some scholars have classified the famines which occurred in Ukraine and Kazakhstan as genocides which were committed by Stalin's government, targeting ethnic Ukrainians and Kazakhs. Others dispute the relevance of any ethnic motivation – as is frequently implied by that term – citing the absence of attested documents explicitly ordering the starvation of any area in the Soviet Union, and instead focus on other factors such as the class dynamics which existed between the kulaks with strong interests in the ownership of private property. These beliefs were in conflict with the ruling Soviet Communist party's tenet which was diametrically opposed to private property. Furthermore, the party's goal of rapid industrialization also played a role in worsening the famine, as it chose to continue industrial growth rather than remedy the famine. As famine spread throughout the Soviet Union, international media began to cover it, with Gareth Jones being the first Western journalist to report on the devastation.

Public discussion of the famine was banned in the Soviet Union until the glasnost period initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev in the 1980s. In 2008, the Russian State Duma condemned the Soviet regime "that has neglected the lives of people for the achievement of economic and political goals".