Tribute to millions of Innocent Ukrainians who perished in Holodomor 1932-33

A factual tribute to millions of innocent Ukrainians who perished in Holodomor – the barbarian terror trail of Stalin’s regime

Those aware with the magnitude of Holodomor (confiscation of all food stuff and edible products by Bolshevik communist Russians that created mass famine and led to death of innocent millions) can but bow their heads in sorrow and grief at the torture, cruelty and pain suffered by Ukrainians, which included tens of thousands of children, in the year 1932-33. Words cannot describe the starkness and ghastliness of the tragedy that was let loose by the totalitarian murderous regime of Stalin. We can pay our homage and respect to all whose lives were cut short by solemnly remembering them and silently praying for eternal peace to the anguished souls.

Seventeen persons every minute, more than thousand every hour, twenty five thousand every day was the daily loss of human lives during the monstrous terror of killing Ukrainians through hunger in the wintery months of 1932-1933. And of the 25,000 dying daily, more than 1000 of them were children under ten years of age. All the above figures are conservative estimates; the real daily death toll was supposedly even higher. Most historians, investigators-researchers of Holodomor agree that at least 4 million perished during those atrociously repressive times for Ukraine, though many point out (based upon statistical records, eyewitness accounts and the declassified secret archives) that in all the number of people who lost lives then was anything between 7-10 million.  

Though the actual figure is hard to ascertain, as the entire families were wiped out and Bolshevik communists simply piled dead bodies over one another during mass burial. Nonetheless those who witnessed the monstrous tragedy (and were lucky enough to be left alive) recount with horror memories of seeing pavements and streets littered with dead bodies. Particularly harsh was the grip of death in the villages and the countryside. Hunger so disoriented people that there had been instances of people turned cannibalistic just to survive few days.    

The above account is a short numerical narrative of the cold blooded mass murder unleashed by Stalin on Ukrainians, ostensibly for these reasons:

1. To break Ukrainian farmers and rich peasants’ resistance to the collectivization drive. As most Ukrainian farmers valued their land and were not keen on state acquiring their properties, they were against any such acquisition by the communist regime. Stalin aware of Ukrainians love for their ancestral land wanted to bring them on their knees ordered forced collectivization and upon resistance organized confiscation of all harvest, farm output and foodstuff to teach Ukrainians a lesson that would be remembered not only by them but by generations.     
    
2. To kill the nationalistic spirit of Ukrainians and curb any ambition of freedom from communist and Russian clutch. Stalin was always fearful of Ukrainians questioning the authority of Russian communist rule over them. He viewed with suspicion everything that was Ukrainian. Thus to force Ukrainians to comply with Russian hegemony and fall in line with communist ideology he methodically thought out one of the most gruesome crime – Holodomor against Ukrainians.
    
3. To preempt any thought of rebellion, revolt that could have come in the minds of other ethnicities and/or nationalities that were under control of Russian communists. And to create a precedence of the quantum of punishment possible on show of defiance to central communist leadership. 

But apart from these more obvious or immediately apparent reasons Stalin had other underlying motives that can be drawn out considering the intensity of brutality exhibited by Stalin and his henchmen in killing of millions of Ukrainians:

1. Even a semblance of uprising or popular revolt of or from Ukrainians would have weakened Stalin’s position and derailed the imperialistic designs of Russian communists. So to keep his leadership intact Stalin came down on Ukraine with such brutal force.
    
2. Preservation of ruler-ruled attitude and orientation of Moscow towards Ukraine at all costs. Ukrainians meant masses of cheap labor to be exploited and used for Russian interests and Stalin very well cashed on that.
    
3. Ukrainians intransigence towards collective state ownership of all private properties would have punctured the communist ideology that rested on state interest subsuming all private matters/personal interest. Any deviation on that would have meant cracks in the monopolistic character of communist rule and Stalin couldn’t let that happen.
    
4. To sustain the iron fist, tightly controlled rule that allowed dictatorial and totalitarian regime to suppress and repress any voice of dissent or disagreement. Stalin simply proceeded to carry on with his self-professed tradition of “till the man is there, problem remains, kill the man and problem is resolved”.
    
5. To be remembered by perpetuity as a leader who strengthened and consolidated the Russian led communist regime in Europe and central Asia. Ukraine was the best example of Soviet supremacy and Russian hegemony, therefore Stalin let his actions of “destroying enemies of communism” speak for himself.
    
6. To teach Ukrainians a lesson for their earlier attempts of wriggling free of Russian clasp. To ensure his objective he resorted to all means deportations, exiles, fabricated trials, prison terms, mental asylums, death warrants and so on. Whatever suited his interest and met his goal was tried and consequent loss of lives was a statistical number which mattered little to horrendous and hideous Stalin.

It is hard to decipher a dictator’s mind or brain as convoluted and bigoted it is. Stalin definitely knew no mercy and was vindictive and ruthless to all whom he considered his enemy or obstacle in his path/goals. And he had a known hatred to patriotic and nationalistic Ukrainians. There appears to be a method in his madness against Ukraine as it is clear that he was bent upon annihilating all things Ukrainian. Holodomor was one of the ploys from many in his arsenal that he used to destroy Ukraine. The saddest and grievous part of all this has been the millions of lives which were crushed to smithereens under the gruesome bludgeoning destruction of Lenin-Stalin and Russian communists.

Commemoration of holodomor is small step towards righting the wrongs of history and as a step in the right direction Ukrainian parliament in 2006 acknowledged Holodomor as an act of Genocide against Ukrainian people by evil Russian communist regime. As memorial service to honor the innocent millions, every year on the last Saturday of November we remember the deceased by lighting candles and praying for them. In the memory and peace of departed souls let us once again pledge to never allow such an occurrence again and continue the efforts to inform the world and new generations of the crimes, excesses, tortures, murders committed by the rogue regimes of Nazism, Fascism and Communism.

May the innocent victims of Holodomor remain in eternal peace. God bless Ukraine and all the peace-loving citizens of the world.

Amen
Sunil Sharma (Суніл Шарма)
Agra, India (Агра – Індія)
26th November 2016 (26 Листопад 2016)