Why did Holodomor happen?

Answer 1

There were three genocides in Ukrainian histiry:

1. 1922-23
2. 1932-33 was the most massive one (10 million people were annihilated)
3. 1946-47

Main Reason

Although it is universally considered a horrible tragedy, whether or not the Holodomor is to be considered a genocide is a matter of debate. The United Nations has officially given it recognition as a genocide, along with many prominent world powers such as the U.S. and Canada. However many dispute its classification based on the fact that, no direct order from Stalin could be found ordering the destruction of the Ukrainians as a people. The famine was directed towards a group of people whom Stalin defined as 'kulaks'. This translated into any peasant who resisted collectivization of agriculture. The 'collectivization' consisted of the consolidation of private farms into larger government-owned farms, which the farmers fiercely resisted; the collectives were given unrealisticly high quotas, which very few farms actually met. The Soviets would send agents to take all grain from those who failed to meet the quota, and eventually, there was no grain left to take.

That said, the famine can also be attributed to a lack of organization and poor planning of the collective farms, rather than an intentional famine, based on the reasons stated above.

It occurred mostly in the winter of 1932-33. The number of dead range from 3.5 to 10 million people.

Whether or not it is officially a genocide, it was still a massive crime against humanity, one of the worst of the 20th century.