Editing Soviet Union (section)

=== Collectivization ===
While state-owned industry dominated the cities, the countryside saw rising inequality. Kulaks, rich peasants, were buying up other peasants' land, since they could afford the best farm equipment. Poor peasants were left with nearly nothing, effectively becoming slaves of the kulaks. Kulaks also gained political power by paying off corrupt local leaders.

Poor and middle peasants wrote to Stalin asking for help. Collectivization and later dekulakization were fundamentally a bottom-up movement.<ref>Ludo Martens, Another View of Stalin. https://stalinsocietypk.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/another-view-of-stalin1.pdf</ref>

In 1928, Stalin's solution was to support the formation of collective farms by offering free tractors, via the Machine Tractor Stations. He believed that collectivization must be voluntary.<ref name=":0">Stalin, Dizzy with Success.https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1930/03/02.htm</ref>

The central Soviet leadership sent 25,000 Komsomol (Youth League) members down to countryside to check on local leaders.

Some local Party leaders were too eager to maximize collectivization, and forced peasants to collectivize by denying them water or education. Kulaks supported this since it made collectivization unpopular. So did right-wingers like Bukharin, in secret.<ref name=":1">Sovinform. "American Intelligence: Kulak rebels, not Soviet state, caused famine." https://sovinform.net/soviet-union-famine.htm</ref> In response, Stalin denounced the forced collectivization, as well as hasty collectivization in areas that had no material basis for collectivization and were just collectivizing things on paper.<ref name=":0" /> (The material basis for collectivization is to have the means of production exist collectively, such as tractors.)

Forced and hasty collectivization were reversed. Some areas lost collectivization numbers at first. Then, collectivization accelerated once again.

Kulaks began to sabotage collective farms. In some cases, middle peasants alienated by forced collectivization did too. Animals were slaughtered and crops were burned, which, with the drought in 1932, caused a famine. (Even British anticommunist reporter Gareth Jones, who is considered the first to report the famine in the West, wrote that animals were killed in sabotage.)

Kulaks even organized uprisings and entered open warfare with working peasants. Nikolai Bukharin and his Right Opposition in the Communist Party secretly supported them against Stalin.<ref name=":1" />

To feed the cities, grain was confiscated from the countryside. Feeding urban workers was considered a priority over feeding the countryside, since the latter produced its own food. Confiscation also prevented grain speculation (hoarding grain to sell at high prices), which would have starved the poor.<ref name=":2">Grover Furr, The Holodomor and Bitter Harvest are fascist lies. https://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/03/the-holodomor-and-the-film-bitter-harvest-are-fascist-lies/</ref>

Dekulakization was carried out against the wreckers whose sabotage had contributed to the famine. Stalin and the Politburo also purged inept local leaders who had continued forced collectivization.<ref name=":2" />

==== Famines ====
Famines had been a regular thing until collectivization. Peasant famines would happen every drought. Poor workers were also on the brink of starvation.

Russia and Ukraine saw famines in 1901-1902, 1906-1908,<ref>http://www.domarchive.ru/history/part-1-empire/61</ref> 1918-1920 (the Civil War), 1920-1921, 1924, and 1928.<ref name=":2" /> All had environmental causes.

Ultimately, collectivization allowed grain to be stockpiled. This meant drought would not cause famine.

After collectivization, drought struck again in 1936, 1939, 1946, 1948, and 1984. Besides 1946, none of these were famines.<ref>Golubev, Genady; Nikolai Dronin (February 2004). "Geography of Droughts and Food Problems in Russia (1900–2000), Report No. A 0401" (PDF). Center for Environmental Systems Research, University of Kassel. http://www2.cesr.de/component/easyfolderlistingpro/?view=download&format=raw&data=eNpFT20OwiAMvUsv4KbJ1HoYgqPbMIwSytwS492FfcRf0Nf3VY11jR_BBqFjZyjCQ_CGYHj2jrUpY2bAJBQ3gqwQQnWs-okk_cVXBKVWbLcqUq9HKmOFUJ5mQ222t1htokgu6DSU9R3hFFwiv6hNspt01tFhcs5sE3nqhyRKe6M6ZqOsV3ESsbpQLgi0pP0XTLcXoyXYSHKk1rmOTkm3w0g-s58rmtNDpLeleTsol-2Ze5ezvz-OIGHM</ref>

1946 was the last famine in the USSR, after the Nazis had depleted Soviet grain stockpiles for 4 years. (The USA expected the USSR to starve during the war, but it lasted until after.)

1991 was the last famine in Russia (post USSR). It was due to capitalism taking over.

==== Manmade famine myth and Ukrainian "Holodomor" myth ====
There is no evidence that Stalin or any Soviet official wanted to starve people.

Ukrainian Nazi collaborators began to claim that Ukraine was specially targeted by the USSR for famine.<ref name=":2" /> There is zero evidence of any discrimination against Ukrainians by the Soviet Union.

Kazakh people have found it offensive because they were also hit hard by the famine. So was south Russia. Really, all peasant regions suffered. The grain was exported to the cities. This was not done to starve people, but to feed the cities. Stalin did not devour all the grain himself.