75410 - From famine to genocide

N. Lygeros

For the Soviet Union the label kulak was used to destroy even the trace of the ownership. The Soviets classified peasants as kulaks to erase them. The dekulakization was in fact a more general process. It was a geopolitical act especially against Ukrainian people and between 1932 and 1933 many millions were genocided without any culpability. Everything was done in the framework of ideology. Every act of brutality or even barbarity was rationalized. The Soviets considered that they were performing their revolutionary duty. They stole grain for the socialist fatherland. Everything was possible against anyone. The survival of the soviet ideology was the crucial point. It wasn’t a question at a human level but only geopolitics. The Soviet Union had the right to justify its existence. And few years after the genocide of Ukrainian people, Stalin continued with the Great Purge from 1936 to 1938. It was the period of the fear of party infiltration, the fear of counterrevolution and the elimination of political opponents as always. Just to be sure that the power would be consolidated against the enemies.