What was the 1932-33 Holodomor Horror?

Sigmund Freud. He studied dreams.

Sigmund Freud chose to publish his epic Interpretation of Dreams in the year 1900 because he and his peers believed the 20th century would see the fruition of humanity's Golden Age. How unexpectedly different the 20th Century proved to be. World Wars, Cold War, military disasters like Viet Nam and Afghanistan, genocides, apartheids, African horrors like Idi Amin and Rwanda's tribal slaughter, the Spanish Flu epidemic (50 million killed worldwide, 675,000 in the U.S.), Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the perpetual threat of nuclear war... OK, you get the picture. I do not believe the idealists of 1900 had a clue what lay ahead.

Though I've oft heard reference to the massive quantities of deaths produced by Stalin and Mao in their efforts to acquire and maintain power, I was not familiar with the word Holodomor, so it intrigued me to read about it yesterday.

The word Holodomor means "to kill by starvation." It is used in reference to what occurred in the Soviet Union because it has now been recognized as an intentional man-made genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out in 1932-33 by the Soviet government under Stalin.

The Wikipedia account goes on to say, "The term Holodomor emphasizes the famine's man-made and intentional aspects, such as rejection of outside aid, confiscation of all household foodstuffs, and restriction of population movement. Whether the Holodomor was genocide is still the subject of academic debate, as are the causes of the famine and intentionality of the deaths."

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FAST FORWARD
This past week I noticed a story about potatoes being dumped in Idaho. Someone else sent me a story about lettuce being plowed under. Once you look and see stories about the food chain breaking down, it's easy to wonder how far this (our current pandemic) will play out.

All my life I've heard expressions like "the cure was worse than the disease." Is our government's initial knee-jerk mass closures and panic-driven determination to "do something quickly" doing more harm than good?

Are all the inefficiencies and poorly thought out "remedies" due to good intentions gone bad? It's easy to see how some conspiracy theorists have already begun to conclude that it's "all part of a bigger plan."

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Well, let's not overthink it. Here's a song to give you a lift as you enter another day of lockdown. Freight Train Blues, Doc Watson.

Related Links
Holodomor at Wikipedia, source material for this blog post.
COVID-19 Highlights the Harms of Bad Food Regulations and the Benefits of Lifting Them
Coronavirus creates glut within previously tight potato market
'Food supply chain is breaking,' Tyson Foods chairman says as processing plants continue to close