Soviet famine of 1932-1933

The Soviet famine of 1932–33 affected the major grain-producing areas of the Soviet Union, leading to millions of deaths in those areas and severe food shortage throughout the USSR. These areas included Ukraine, Northern Caucasus, Volga Region and Kazakhstan, the South Urals, and West Siberia.Gareth Jones was the first western journalist to report the inhumane devastation. The subset of the famine within the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Kuban, all of which were heavily populated by Ukrainians, is referred to as Holodomor.

Unlike the previous famine of 1921–22, Russia's intermittent drought was not severe in the affected areas at this time.

Some historians, such as Robert Conquest, claim that the government's forced collectivization of agriculture as a part of the Soviet Union's first five-year plan, forced grain procurement, and political repression in the countryside were the main reasons for the famine. Conquest, and others, additionally claim that the famine was a deliberate act of genocide against ethnic Ukrainians, although this claim has been heavily refuted.

Historian Mark B. Tauger of West Virginia University suggests that the famine was caused by a combination of factors, specifically low harvest due to natural disasters combined with increased demand for food caused by the collectivization, industrialization and urbanization, and grain exports by the Soviet Union at the same time.

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