Starvation as a Political Tool: Putin’s Campaign of Famine & Comparing the Ukrainian “Holodomor” and the Irish Famine “An Gorta Mór” – EcoFoodDev – GWC Mag

by Emma J Devereux

Citation: Devereux, E.J.,(2022), “Starvation as a Political Tool: Putin’s Campaign of Famine & Comparing the Ukrainian “Holodomor” and the Irish Famine “An Gorta Mór””, EcoFoodDev, https://www.ecofooddev.com/starvation-as-a-political-tool-putins-campaign-of-famine-comparing-the-ukrainian-holodomor-and-the-irish-famine-an-gorta-mor/

Featured image: Ukrainian Holodomor https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/holodomor-soviet-ukraine-history-facts-deaths-genocide-cause/

The Russian invasion of Ukraine will dramatically disrupt global food supplies. This will lead to higher prices for basic everyday items and to profound food shortages, causing hunger not only in Ukraine and Europe, but further afield. As discussed previously, global wheat and fertiliser supplies from both Russia and Ukraine (and fertilisers from Belarus) will be impacted by the Russian incursion, alongside many other agricultural commodities originating from these countries, such as sunflower oil.

A great number of Middle Eastern and African countries depend on Ukraine and Russia for their grain imports. Disruption to these supplies runs the risk of widespread starvation and malnutrition around the world. This comes on the back of a pandemic that put many households around the globe over the edge of survival. Like famines and food shortages throughout history, this disruption coincides with a price crunch in agricultural commodities associated with reduced supply following repeated droughts. These droughts cut into global soybean, corn, and wheat harvests. Though palm oil is incredibly controversial from a sustainability perspective, many countries around the globe, especially developing nations, rely on it for cooking, and Malaysian typhoons greatly impacted last year’s crop.  This means that the price for agricultural products is already high and will now surge ever higher. The agricultural commodities market is a fully global one, and these impacts can be felt in tillage/crop prices all over the world.  

This is more than urgent. According to the FAO, between 720 and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020. On this spectrum of hunger, roughly 276 million people are in a hunger crisis, and 44 million people are on the cusp of famine. In terms of calories, Russia and Ukraine account for 12% of calories traded globally (Aizenman, 2022), primarily via wheat. As previously discussed, Russia and Ukraine also are major global suppliers of feed for livestock and supply a third of the word’s fodder barley. And of course, Russian oil and gas prices have a profound effect on the global price of food, agrochemicals, and commodities.  

Although much of the Ukrainian wheat exports have been shipped, at least a third remains, and almost half of the corn crop. Ports are now shut, and exports stalled. The setting/sowing season ahead in Ukraine is currently completely off the cards, as is the harvesting of any winter crops already set, alongside their management. As mentioned, the agricultural heartland of Ukraine is in the east of the country which contains some of the most fertile soil in Europe. This is the region most ravaged by the Russian invasion. Although Russia doesn’t suffer from these obstacles, and sanctions are not targeting food exports yet, the global supply chain being what it is, shipping companies will likely refuse to ship from Russia, and Russian vessels have been turned away at ports already.  

The WFP hunger map (https://hungermap.wfp.org/) paints this current grim picture: 

What makes this picture particularly grim, is that those countries currently at moderate risk are some of the countries dependent on Ukrainian food exports. Countries in the Middle East, Sub-Saharan, and North Africa will be severely impacted by the ripple effects of the Russian invasion. These countries were expected to import highly increased amounts of wheat this year due to the aforementioned drought-related food shortages, which is now not going to be possible. Hunger is increasing at a dramatic scale across these regions, with several nations considered high risk and deteriorating from a food security perspective. This war will drive millions into food poverty and famine.  

Ukrainian Famine: Holodomor 

This is not the first time that Ukraine has suffered from a famine due to geopolitical instability and political (mis)calculation. Like Ireland, Ukraine experienced extreme political and civil unrest in the period from 1916/17 to the early 1920s. Although Ireland won its independence and freed itself from empire during this period, Ukrainian nationalists seeking independence repeatedly tried to establish a sovereign Ukraine, but were defeated by Bolshevik forces. So much of Ukraine’s history from this period mirrors that of Ireland: from 1917 to 1921 Ukraine fought a War of Independence, leading to the establishment of a Free Territory. However, Ukraine was eventually absorbed into the Soviet Union, with areas of western Ukraine becoming parts of Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania.  

Something that is akin to both Ukrainian and Irish people is the experience of their respective Great Famines, which lend a cultural distinctness and feeling of separateness to both peoples. Like Ireland, Ukrainian national history focuses on the Holodomor, their Great Famine, and it forms an integral part of Ukrainian national identity. Like Ireland was to the British Empire, Ukraine was a major food production region to the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. And like Ireland, the Russian administration arguably provided inadequate relief efforts in the face of widespread famine, leading to vast losses of life.

However, as with all aspects of history, it is rarely so straightforward. With the Irish famine, the potato failed due to blight, but central to the narrative was blaming the British government for not intervening, for not ceasing rents, for absentee landlords, for not sending aid, for not releasing the grain that was being produced in Ireland for the consumption of those dying, and for therefore encouraging the loss of life and the emigration of vast swathes of Irish people. There is a debate that the famine was constructed to and allowed to ravage to eradicate the poorest Irish people, the people most likely to rebel. That sense of victimhood echoes through generations of identity construction, particularly following Irish independence, and is a national sentiment shared with Ukraine. The Irish population decreased by at least 25%, in what was argued to be a fabricated famine. The Ukrainian famine death toll was estimated at 25,000 people per day. The impact of these famines certainly was felt economically, but also culturally, leading to a type of national estrangement in both cultures.

Of course, there is the issue of narrativization in the remembering of both events, and the discourse surrounding both national traumas, which is beyond the scope of this post but will be returned to. In Ireland, in short, the narrative surrounding the famine was one of exile and victimhood- the Famine was the fault of the government at the time, which failed to act. It was the culmination of centuries of oppression by outside forces from the Vikings onwards, was a class crime perpetrated by an imperialist, capitalist invader, and was the catalyst for a new national hurt- mass emigration. This version of national identity stood side by side with the idea of an Isle of Saints and Scholars, virtuous, non-English speaking, almost ethereal people in the mists on the margin, and also co-existed with a nationalist identity of rebellion- one shared with Ukraine and their Cossack past.  Ukrainian national identity is extremely complex, exhibiting a plurality of positions. Positions exist between Ukrainian and Russian nationalism in terms of Kyivan Rus and the different narratives surrounding their complex history with Russia- varying over the vast Ukrainian geography. Alongside ethnic Russians and ethnic Ukrainians, minorities such as Crimean Tatars also add to the vast Ukrainian melting pot. Ukrainian national identity might also be defined by anti-imperialist rebellion, particularly with regard to the Cossacks. However, debates on the Holodomor appear to mirror Ireland’s Great famine significantly: the Holodomor was a constructed genocide, designed to wipe out rebellion, fuelled by inadequate policies and over-extraction of resources by an imperial, outside force. See this podcast from the Conversation on Ukrainian identity from scholars in this field: https://theconversation.com/the-history-and-evolution-of-ukrainian-national-identity-podcast-179279

The Holodomor took place in the Soviet Republic of Ukraine between 1932 and 1933 and is considered an artificial famine. It took the lives of roughly 4 million Ukrainians, though numbers range. Like Ireland, Soviet policies such as farm collectivization, over-exportation of grain from Ukraine and travel restrictions on those trying to flee led to unprecedented death rates. Stalin eradicated any hope for Ukrainian autonomy via a campaign of religious and political oppression and through the practice of political starvation.  

Commemorating the Holodomor was proven impossible due to the oppression of Ukrainian national politics and identity during the Soviet Union, and the general censorship practiced in Soviet Russia. The term Holodomor was not coined until the 1980s, and was created outside of Ukraine, in the diasporas of the US and Canada. The term was thought to intentionally link the Holodomor with the Holocaust. Not unlike today, where Russia decries “fake news” with regards to reports from sites of such atrocities as Bucha, Ukrainian scholars reporting on the Holodomor in the 80s faced push-back with the publication of such works by Russian scholars as ‘Fraud, Famine & Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard (1987)’. The Holodomor was later intertwined into post-Soviet political rhetoric and Ukrainian national identity construction by many politicians including Victor Yushchenko. The process of memory and narrative proceeded like that in Ireland, forming part of a national distinctness and national hurt.  

Debate continues on whether the Holodomor was an intentional act of genocide, and whether Stalin used starvation to eradicate the Ukrainian independence movement. ‘Holodomor’ translates as “killing by hunger”. The causes of the famine are stated to be a combination of factors, primarily tied to Soviet industrialization. Though poor weather preceded the famine- drought had occurred in the years prior to the Holodomor- Soviet authorities are said to have largely ignored this, and pressed ahead with harvests, gambling on good weather. Yields suffered due to the inexperience and demoralization of farmworkers- crops were sown on soil that was not adequately prepared for harvesting (having not been left fallow). Soviet authorities also, having suffered lower yields in previous years, over-extracted grain for consumption, and hence fodder grain was lacking. Given that the form of power at that time was horse-drawn machinery, there was a physical lack of horsepower in order to adequately complete the harvest. Stalin’s first five-year plan of farm collectivization is seen as a major contributor to the circumstances leading to the Holodomor.  

Once the famine took hold, rationing occurred for a time, but eventually ceased. This led to mass starvation in both rural and urban contexts. Losses due to death and migration were huge, but due to the nature of unrecorded deaths and classified information, different estimates of numbers killed exist and vary from 3 million to 10 million. However, like Ireland, diasporas following the famine became established globally, particularly in the US and Canada, and so followed a cultural tendency towards emigration.

Today, as part of the invasion of Ukraine, Putin’s forces have attacked the agricultural heartland of Ukraine in the first instance. Mines have been placed on farmland, and ports and transport networks used to export agricultural produce have been destroyed and disrupted. Fertilisers and other such commodities cannot be produced or transported, and the cost of gas is closing fertiliser production centres further afield. Reports of starvation are coming from besieged cities such as Mariupol, and aid convoys are being denied entry to Ukrainian cities. April is the maize and sunflower setting season in Ukraine. There will be no further exports of agricultural products from Ukraine this year, there will be no crops sown or harvested as materials and workers are scarce. Millions of hectares of land have turned from agri fields to battlefield. The agri-food sector in Ukraine will take years to recover. The Ukrainian agriculture minister has requested seed for different foodstuffs as part of an aid package- millions of cucumber, onion, and other seed, an indication of the severity of the food situation. It is highly unlikely that those countries that depend on Ukrainian foodstuffs will be able to source adequate replacements, and given that many of those countries are already in great need with regards to food, the result is that people both within Ukraine and outside of Ukraine will die from hunger. This is a humanitarian and food security emergency of the direst proportions both in the short and long-term. If history has taught us anything, it begs us to not let it repeat, and to provide Ukraine with interest-free loans to keep their agri sector afloat. Aid will only do so much-and to provide Ukraine with fuel and commodities to keep whatever agriculture they may have working, and to continue this support into the future. I will end this post with the speech made by President Zelensky’s to the Irish Parliament in April 2022:

Mr Speaker, Mr Taoiseach, dear Senators and members of the Parliament. Dear people of Ireland.

This night, our territory was again hit by Russian missiles. It was done cunningly and it hit civilian infrastructure. The new fuel storage depot was hit and this was used by Russia as a target and this is their attribute.

They are destroying things that are sustaining livelihoods to people. They are hitting places where we store fuel, food storage depot, agricultural equipment and fields. They are putting mines into the fields.

They also have blocked all of our sea ports, together with the vessels that had already agricultural cargos for exports. Why are they doing this? Because for them, hunger is also a weapon, a weapon against us ordinary people as an instrument of domination.

Ukraine is one of the leading food supplying countries in the world. Without our exports, this is not just about the deficit and the threat of hunger, for more than dozens of countries – Asia and Africa – but even more because there will be a shortage of food and the prices will go up and this is reality for the millions of people who are hungry and it will be more difficult for them to feed their families, especially in Northern Africa.

They are undermining our state’s time. They are destroying our infrastructure and they are deliberately provoking the food crisis and what will happen as a result of this crisis, at least there will be political turbulence. And as the violence increases, new refugees will be looking to save their lives.

Russia is using this hunger weapon. The worst thing is the city of Mariupol. This half-a-million inhabitants city was put under siege and they have blocked the access from the soil, from the sea. They are blocking their humanitarian cargo. They are not allowing anything to come through. Neither water, nor medication. While it was snowing, people could melt the snow to get water, now they don’t even have that. So, they are bombing 24/7. Airstrikes, bombings in Mariupol. There is no single house left intact in a half a million city. None.

The dead and killed were simply buried in the yards of the condominiums and in many cases, they couldn’t even do that. The bodies were just left there lying on the streets in the remnants of the buildings and the basements and we don’t know how many citizens of Mariupol have been killed by Russia.

But we know for sure that this was part of a general occupation tactics. They have done the same or they have attempted to do the same with the city of Chernihiv, Sumy, Okhtyrka, Kharkiv, Izyum, Volnovakha and many other Ukrainian cities.

Maybe you have not heard those geographic names yet but this is about millions of people that Russia was trying to destroy and continue to do so. When you hear these things, it may seem that this is not possible, it may seem that none in the present-day world will dare to do that but these are real facts.

The fact is that Mariupol, cities, were drawing the maps of how to find the bodies of the dead who were buried in their yards. The fact is that Russian occupants were killing people on the roads when they were trying to escape the blocked cities. Until today on the Ukrainian highways, we have hundreds of shot and burned cars.

The fact is that Russian soldiers were not even trying to take these bodies out of the streets while Bucha and Irpin were under occupation. These dead bodies were simply lying on the streets, on the sideways, in the yards of the houses, anywhere. The fact is that in the 42 days of the all-out Russian war, at least 167 children were killed in Ukraine. We don’t know yet all the atrocities of Mariupol and the victims in other areas of Ukraine where the fighting is still going on.

The fact is that as a result of Russian shelling, 927 educational institutions were damaged. 258 hospitals, they even shot at 78 ambulances. They were targeting even churches and shelters that they knew for sure that there is nobody but women and children. And this is a fact.

The country which is doing this doesn’t deserve to be in the circle of the civil countries. It should be held responsible for everything they have done in the Ukrainian soil. They have come to Ukraine as a colonising army. Their state propagandist’s and their politicians are not even concealing what they want.

In the 21st century they are looking at their country as a colonial empire who allegedly has the right to subdue neighbouring people and destroy the foundations of their independent life, destroy their identity, everything that makes us Ukrainians.

Russian soldiers were deliberately looking for and killing teachers in the occupied districts. They are abducting local government leaders and they are killing community leaders. Together with the Russian army, there were special groups coming in who were trying to destroy any political opposition. Now when we are hearing new rhetoric about the sanctions against Russian opposition, I can’t tolerate any indecisiveness after everything that we have gone through in Ukraine, after everything that Russian troops have done.

Today when the whole world knows about the crimes against our people, we still have to convince even some of European companies to abandon Russian market. We still have to convince foreign politicians that we need to cut any ties of Russian banks with the global financial system. We still have to convince Europe that Russian oil cannot feed Russian military missionary with new sources of funding.

Ladies and gentlemen, the people of Ireland, since the very first days you are supporting good, you are supporting Ukraine and this is a fact. You did not doubt starting helping us, you began doing this right away.

And although you are a neutral country, you have not remained neutral to the disaster and to the mishaps that Russia has brought to Ukraine. I am grateful to you, to every citizen of Ireland. Thank you for supporting sanctions against Russia, thank you for the humanitarian and financial support extended to our country and thank you for caring about Ukrainian people who found shelter on your land.

Just think about it. 10 million Ukrainians have been left without shelter as of today by Russia who had to leave their native cities because of this war. This is something we cannot come to grips with but it means that Russia hasn’t yet abandoned their plans. They are still looking forward to subdue and occupy all of the Ukrainian people.

We want to do our best to make sure that Russia will start looking for peace and leave us alone. So please, I would like to ask you to show more leadership in our anti-war coalition. I would like to ask you to convince EU partners to introduce even more rigid sanctions against Russia that would really make sure that the Russian war machine will stop.

We have to put an end to trading with Russia. We have to cut ties of Russian banks to the global system, cut the sources of their income from the oil that they use for their weapon and for the killing. There are mechanisms out there how to do this. The only thing we are lacking is the principal approach of some leaders, political leaders, business leaders who still think that war and war crimes is not something as horrific as financial losses.

I am sure that your leadership can make a difference and change this. I am sure that the whole of Europe will be able to stop this war and bring peace and stability in the East of Europe. We cannot delay any longer. The longer this aggression of Russia will continue, the worse will be the consequences. Not only for our continent but neighbouring regions.

Ladies and gentlemen and the people of Ireland, our principal approach, our courage have already turned a new page of relationship between Ukraine and Ireland. Our mutual understanding and mutual respect is already at a level where it becomes only the question of time for us to start living in a common European home.

Thank you for the support of the accelerated procedure to provide membership in the EU to Ukraine. With your support, it will be even faster and beneficial to both nations. We need to start thinking about the restoration of our country after the war. We are inviting leading countries of the world to participate in rebuilding and restoring of Ukraine and of course Ireland is always welcome to do so.

For example, in Kherson, Oblast your skill of valuing the lives and community development experience, your economic potential is something that you are known for so let’s bring our efforts together and let’s show that Ukraine and Ireland jointly can do much more than the biggest country of the world was trying to destroy.

I am grateful to Ireland.

Slava Ukraini!

References

Aizenman, 2022 “Russia’s war on Ukraine is dire for world hunger. But there are solutions”, NPR https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/03/06/1083769798/russias-war-on-ukraine-is-dire-for-world-hunger-but-there-are-solutions?t=1647010777881

Noack, C., Janssen, L. and Comerford, V. eds., 2012. Holodomor and Gorta Mór: histories, memories and representations of famine in Ukraine and Ireland. Anthem Press.