Thread by @communistsusa

No one denies the fact that the people of the Soviet Union experienced a famine from 1932 to 1933. Rather, we argue against the anti-communist conspiracy that claims that the famine was a deliberate policy aimed at suppressing the nationalist spirit of the Ukrainian people. (1/7)

Since the 1950s, rich anti-communist Americans such as William Randolph Heart and various Ukrainian nationalists who collaborated with the Nazis during Hitler’s occupation in the early 1940s, have worked tirelessly with the capitalist press to spread these fraudulent claims.(2/7)

The reality is that the Soviet Union suffered periodic famines for more than a millennium due to economic backwardness and complex environmental factors. In an effort to overcome this backwardness, the CPSU introduced a policy aimed at the socialization of agriculture. (3/7)

Unfortunately, this progressive policy encountered opposition from wealthy farmers (called kulaks) who sought to increase their profits by refusing to supply food to cities at prices set by the government (while also destroying farming equipment & slaughtering livestock).(4/7)

This combined with the region’s susceptibility to famine resulted in a situation wherein the government procured less food than it had in years prior. This created an environment wherein hunger and related disease existed, particularly in Ukraine and Kazakstan. (5/7)

Through rationing systems (and other large-scale relief campaigns), the USSR managed to feed more than 50 million people, which enabled them to produce a large harvest in 1933 thus put an end to famines in the Soviet Union, with an exception in 1946. (6/7)

The reality is that the collectivization of agriculture in the Soviet Union was one of the greatest achievements of socialism. The beneficiaries of this project, the Soviet people, who lived longer, ate more calories, and saw the elimination of periodic famines. (7/7)