Not bad as a broad brush intro.

I suspect you could pick holes from both a Russian and Ukrainian perspective which probably means not a bad synthesis if both sides object!

The Holodomor - stated in the video to be purely anti-Ukrainian is interpreted by many (non-Russian) academics as part of a USSR wide anti-Kulak (small farmers/industrialists) programme of attacks by Stalin (a Georgian not a Russian). It killed c3 million Ukrainians and c6 million Russians and Kazaks through starvation. A horrendous act of brutality but one targeted against a class rather than an ethnic group.

QuoteThe Holodomor - stated in the video to be purely anti-Ukrainian is interpreted by many (non-Russian) academics as part of a USSR wide anti-Kulak (small farmers/industrialists) programme of attacks by Stalin (a Georgian not a Russian). It killed c3 million Ukrainians and c6 million Russians and Kazaks through starvation. A horrendous act of brutality but one targeted against a class rather than an ethnic group.

Nevertheless, given that the video focuses on Ukraine's relationship with Russia, I somehow have the feeling that knowing that it wasn't only targeted at them is not going to make Ukrainians feel any better about the prospect of life under Kremlin rule and that self-determination as an independent country is more appealing instead.  

[Note: The numbers vary enormously depending on which source one chooses to quote, the exact number of deaths being impossible to calculate due to lack of records. Of the numerous sources I looked at for the wider Great Russian Famine of 1930-33, not one estimates such a low proportion of Ukrainian deaths to the overall total of deaths as yours. Most of the sources estimate between 3 to 5 million Ukrainians out of 5.5 to 8.7 million deaths overall (the others didn't give sub-totals for Ukraine, etc.). The closest (and lowest) I found to your assertion was 3.9 million in Ukraine out of a total estimate of 8.7 - roughly 45% (50% more than the 33% estimate stated by you). The highest was c.66% - the opposite from your figures.]

Quote from: flamingpig0 on 05 October 2022, 04:29:08 PMI wonder how many forum contributors would be supporters of Putin; if only they had been born in Russia.

I'd imagine a few, we're all probably guilty of seeing the world through the perspective of our own cultures.  It's the same as religion, if you have a chosen deity it'll generally be the one of your region rather than a particular ideology that you identify with.

Conquest (1986) total famine deaths 7 million.
Davies and Wheatcroft (2004) 5.5 to 6.5 million deaths.
Ellman (2005) about eight and a half million victims. (famine and repression 1930-33)
Victor Kondrashin(Russian famine historian) between 5 and 7 million victims.
Russian historical demographers(Polyakov and Zhiromskaya, eds, 2000) 7.2 to 10.8 million
In 2008, Russian State Duma(State Duma,2008):  within the territories of the Volga Region, the Central Black Earth Region, Northern Caucasus, Ural, Crimea, Western Siberia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus, 7 million people .

There are others estimates.

As for percentages of victim ethnicity (if we think Russians and Ukrainians are ethnically distinct-?) I quite like the footnote in the draft version of Andrei Markevich, Natalya Naumenko and Nancy Qian's paper 'The Soviet Great Famine, 1932–33' Sept 2020:
'There are no reliable comprehensive data on the ethnic composition of famine victims.'

By July 2021, in the published version: 'THE POLITICAL-ECONOMIC CAUSES OF THE SOVIET GREAT FAMINE, 1932–33'National Bureau of Economic Research Cambridge Mass. Working Paper 29089, they had decided they did have enough data after all and that Ukrainians suffered disproportionately.

They say that this was not a result of a higher proportion of Kulaks in Ukraine. (This is disputed by other independent historical analysis.)

They estimate that between 30% and 45% of victims were Ukrainian despite Ukrainians accounting  (in their calculation) for only 21% of the population at the time.

What does that suggest?
One - if you want to publish make sure you know what people want to hear.
Two - the Ukrainian diaspora in the US is a very vocal and powerful lobby.
Three - Between 70% and 55% were 'collateral damage' if this was an anti-Ukrainian policy.

QuoteWhat does that suggest?
One - if you want to publish make sure you know what people want to hear.
Two - the Ukrainian diaspora in the US is a very vocal and powerful lobby.
Three - Between 70% and 55% were 'collateral damage' if this was an anti-Ukrainian policy.

After watching this video, I was left wondering, "Doesn't Ukraine have an older and more valid case for arguing that the ancient 'Rus' lands (including Moscow and St. Petersburg) should be transferred to Ukraine given that the capital of the 'Rus' lands was Kyiv?" 

Anyway, the thing about the word "suggest" is that it is speculation and not fact.

On your three points:- 
One - You should add ".... or what you want them to hear?" (e.g. "3 out of 9 million" is what you wanted us to hear when all other sources clearly said otherwise)
Two - I didn't know there was one (please tell us who they are) but, if so, good for them. And who is surprised? For example, the Polonium / Litvinenko affair and the Salisbury poisoning on UK soil recklessly putting UK citizens at risk hardly endears Russia to us in the UK. And with the illegal annexation of Crimea and shooting down of Malaysia Flight 17 by a Russian missile, with that kind of behaviour, what chance has a Russian lobby got in the USA?
Three - You've based your final figures on one source despite the existence of numerous, other sources so it is coming across that you're trying to disinform by changing the proportions to suit your agenda. The majority of sources estimate that a minimum of 45% who died were Ukrainian so, at the most, the max "collateral damage," as you assert, is 55%, not 70%. Nor does the video specifically say the genocide was against Ukrainians (although given the focus of the video I can see why one might think that). Ethnically speaking, and although each has its own language, Russians and Ukrainians are Slavs. And given the widespread application of that brutal policy, it was "genocidal" in a sense in that it was against a specific group (i.e, anti-kulak). But when a specific group loses 3 to 5 million of its own people due to a deliberatly callous policy of starvation and deprivation, rightly or wrongly, can you blame them for taking it personally? How would your community react to that?

QuoteOn your three points:- 
One - You should add ".... or what you want them to hear?" (e.g. "3 out of 9 million" is what you wanted us to hear when all other sources clearly said otherwise)

All other sources? I gave you one that had a (slightly) lower minimum. There are lower estimates but I distrust them as biased, as I distrust the 66% you quoted which is a wild outlier.

QuoteTwo - I didn't know there was one (please tell us who they are)

1.1 million self identifying Ukrainians in the US. I've known several of the ones in US Government service.

QuoteThree - You've based your final figures on one source despite the existence of numerous, other sources so it is coming across that you're trying to disinform by changing the proportions to suit your agenda.

Which final figures? The 30% -45% giving the 70%-55% 'collateral damage'? That article I regard as a fair synthesis if slightly slanted towards the idea of a deliberate attack on the Ukrainian population.
There is no precise source figure for the number of deaths from starvation in the Ukrainian SSR.
The lowest I've found is 2.2 million excess deaths in 1933: Chapter 1 La crise des anées 1930 by J. Vallin, F. Mesle, S. Adamets and S. Pyrozhkov from "Causes de décès en Ukraine au XXè siècle. p.30.

The highest c10 million by US diaspora publications and Ukrainian nationalist politicians.

Ukrainian famine historian SV Kulchitsky estimates 3.2 million. Submissions in the genocide cases in Ukraine said c3.9 million.

V Kondrashin (Russian) generally accepted Kulchitsky's figures for Ukraine and estimates between 4 and 5 million non Ukrainian famine deaths in 1932-3 as a low estimate.

I have changed no proportions.
My agenda is a healthy uncertainty and a rejection of the contention the Soviet wide famine was a specifically anti-Ukrainian action.

QuoteThe majority of sources estimate that a minimum of 45% who died were Ukrainian so, at the most, the max "collateral damage," as you assert, is 55%, not 70%.

I have not conducted a meta analysis of all 'sources' but from what I have read the consensus of unbiased analysis puts 45% at the top end (with the huge caveat that accurate quantification of all deaths never mind accurate identification of victims' 'ethnicity' is almost impossible).
A combination of Kulchitsky's and Kondrashin's estimates give a 37%-46% range for the percentage of Ukrainian deaths.

QuoteNor does the video specifically say the genocide was against Ukrainians (although given the focus of the video I can see why one might think that).

Minute 8: 'the Holodomor was a state sponsored famine created by Stalin's Government in the Ukraine as an act of genocide.'

@ Gwydion: What's funny is that the above must have taken you ages yet it hasn't changed a single thing. I am going to resist responding to your comments many of which I find selective and distortive because it must be getting boring for everyone else and I really can't be bothered arguing with you for the rest of eternity.

As I said from the very start, "the numbers vary enormously depending on which source one chooses to quote, the exact number of deaths being impossible to calculate due to lack of records".   

In other words,  no .. one .. knows.

[Right. It must be someone else's turn to wind Gwydion up.]

Could you two be less civil, then could tell you off. 
And you've drifted off topic to something historical. 

Drat! Curses! Humbug! Pshaw!
That offensive enough?

I do slightly object to the idea of being accused of being selective. I have said why I deliberately avoided Soviet apologist figures and and the more extreme end of Ukrainian nationalist claims.

The standard 'deliberate starvation' model was probably fully expressed by Robert Conquest in 'Harvest of Sorrow'*. The standard 'revisionist' (as in they actually looked at the documentation available) position is Davies and Wheatcroft's 'The Years of Hunger: Soviet Agriculture, 1931-1933' 2004.

Didn't take too much time- the Soviet Union and its breakup being something of a hangover interest from work in the eighties.

*Conquest was virulently anti-Soviet (weren't we all) and over egged many of his historical puddings. He later denied that he meant the famine was intentional but rather that it could have been prevented and Stalin failed to do that. Evidence which came to light later shows that Stalin remitted the grain appropriation from Ukraine by 28% between August and October 1932 when it became clear there was famine and the USSR sent 325,000 tonnes of grain seed loans and relief to Ukraine between Feb and June 1933.