holodomor

spotted this piece of graffiti recently whilst walking across town. it's commemorating the 'holodomor', the man-made famine that hit ukraine in 1932-33 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor). underneath the picture it says 'genocide'.

it is not possible to establish exact numbers, but it is likely that around six million people died of hunger in that year, in the country referred to as the 'bread-basket of europe', due to the forced removal of crops (and even top-soil) from here to other strategic points in the ussr, to gain control over agricultural production, and to weaken the 'kulak' class, the almost-imaginary rich peasant farmer who was pitched as political enemy number one in the early days of the soviet union.

the label of 'genocide' is still politically contentious, even today, and there have been a number of legal cases in recent years to ascribe the guilt of these millions of deaths to the soviet authorities.