Why did the genocide come about?
Ukraine was originally controlled by Czars of Russia for 200 years. In 1917 they declared their country independent. This however, was not a long lived victory. Vladimir Lenin (the first leader of the Bolshevik party) wanted to reclaim the area previously owned by the Czar. Ukrainian troops fought against Lenin's red army and Russia's white army, who is still loyal to Czar. When Lenin beat Russia's white army they finally controlled Russia. At first, Lenin was taking out large amounts of grain and shipping it to Moscow and other large Russian cities. A huge drought happened in Ukraine and Lenin felt bad for the Ukrainians and stopped sending so much grain to the other countries. He also encouraged a free market exchange of goods. Everything then changed when Vladimir Lenin died and Joseph Stalin (his successor) took over. Joseph Stalin was focused on making the Soviet Union way more industrialized and to do this he changed their economy to a command economy. He once said " We are fifty or a hundred years behind advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it or we shall be crushed."