First and foremost, before one begins to discuss anything about Holodomor relating to genocide, it must be established that it indeed was a genocide. The Genocide Convention was passed by the United Nations in 1948, where it was declared that, among four other acts, genocide is to be defined as “Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” (“Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” United Nations Treaty Collection.) With this definition in mind, one can make the judgement whether or not the Holodomor was a genocide. We can find numerous sources for the number of Ukrainians who died during this time period, none of which agree on a number, but one estimate by the United Nations puts the number dead at 7-10 million people because of the famine (United Nations, 58th General Assembly, Letter dated 7 November 2003 from the Permanent Representative of Ukraine to the United Nations addressed to the Secretary-General, (7 November 2003)). This document, however, makes no claims towards whether or not the famine was deliberate or not. The admission of guilt comes in a by Maxim Litvinov, Soviet foreign minister in 1932, “Food is a weapon”, (Keene, Jennifer and Neiberg, Michael Finding Common Ground: New Directions in First World War Studies, BRILL, 2011, Print.) and by Joseph Stalin himself:
“But it is also beyond doubt that after all, the peasant question is the basis, the quintessence, of the national question. That explains the fact that the peasantry constitutes the main army of the national movement, that there is no powerful national movement without the peasant army, nor can there be. That is what is meant when it is said that in essence, the national question is a peasant question” (Stalin, J. V. “Concerning The National Question in Yugoslavia” Yugoslav Commission of the E.C.C.I., March 30, 1925, Moscow.)
In this quote, Stalin claims that the peasant, the common man, the farmer, is the backbone of a national movement. Without a peasant, there will be no movement, as the peasant makes up the movement. Therefore, when discussing questions about the country, what first must be considered is how it will affect the common man. With this as context, Litvinov’s statement about food being a weapon is one that brings with it the implication that Stalin was aware of what his actions could cause. Because Peasants in Ukraine were laborers working farms, they are incredibly important to the nation. The lack of food could easily destroy a nation, as everyone needs food to survive. In 1932, “Stalin set a quota of 6.6 million tons of grain for the Ukraine. The quota had been set unrealistically high… especially since collective farms were always less productive than private farms” (Mass, Warren. "Holodomor: Stalin’s Holocaust in the Ukraine" The New American 4 November 2013: 37. Print.) In other words, Ukraine had to produce 6.6 million tons of grain before they were allowed to keep any for themselves. A lack of food, obviously, means starvation. Setting these Quotas for Ukraine would definitely constitute as deliberate infliction of conditions of life which could bring about the physical destruction of the group. To say that Stalin was unaware of the effects that having such a high demand of food would be to ignore what his Foreign Minister knew: a lack of food could destroy those without it. The shortage of food was the weapon against the peasants which Stalin knew were the backbone of the nation. With the lack of food came a broken spirit of the Ukrainian farmer, and, from there, no national identity. A broken nation was one that could easily be subjugated to the Rule of the Soviets. It would be illogical to assume that the statements made by Stalin and Litvinov were coincidental and completely unrelated to the policies passed in regards to Ukraine. It was clear to Stalin what his policies would do, and in his best interest pass them in order to gain power over Ukraine, therefore these actions were calculated to bring about death. The millions of deaths brought about by the Holodomor were almost definitely deliberate, as shown by the words of Joseph Stalin and Maxim Litvinov and by the policies enacted by Stalin, thus we can conclude that, by the UN’s definition of genocide, the Holodomor qualifies.