Famine in Ukraine - Harvest of Despair

Even the ancient Greeks depended upon farmers in Ukraine to produce abundant crops of wheat.  Yet ... in the 20th century, things dramatically changed in Ukraine when Joseph Stalin forced collectivized farming on that country.

In 1921, after the Bolshevik Revolution, Russia took over most of Ukraine.  During the early years of the 1930s, when much of Ukraine's grain crop was sent elsewhere - to fulfill government-imposed quotas - disaster ensued.  Millions of people died as Ukraine - Europe's bread basket - experienced its first famine. 

Survivors, and historians, tell us this was no famine brought about by nature.  It resulted from a completely preventable series of events.

See, also:

Harvest of Despair, Part 2

Harvest of Despair, Part 3

Harvest of Despair, Part 4

Harvest of Despair, Part 5

Harvest of Despair, Part 6

Credits

Clip from "Harvest of Despair:  The Unknown Holocust."

Produced and directed by Slavko Nowytski for the Ukrainian Famine Research Committee in Canada, with the assistance of the National Film Board of Canada. 

Narration writer and story consultant, Peter Blow

Photography by Thomas Burstyn and Yuri Denysenko

Edited by Yurij Luhovy

Music by Zenoby Lawryshyn

Distributed by International Historic Films, Inc. 

Released, 1984

Online, courtesy Google Video.