Photo, above:  Голодомор 1932 года - плата за существование сегодняшней Украины    The Holodomor (Ukrainian: Голодомор, "Extermination by hunger,"  derived from Морити голодом, "Killing by Starvation," was a man-made [intentionally by Stalin] famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1932 and 1933 that killed up to 7.5 million Ukrainians. [more - wikipedia]

New York Times review: BLOODLANDS: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin       For most Americans, who remember World War II as beginning in 1941, it is necessary to recall that Europe had succumbed to an infatuation with violence long before the United States entered the conflict. Timothy Snyder, a professor of history at Yale, compels us to look squarely at the full range of destruction committed first by Stalin’s regime and then by Hitler’s Reich. Each fashioned a terrifying orgy of deliberate mass killing.

In Bloodlands, Snyder concentrates on the area between Germany and Russia (Poland, Ukraine, the Baltic region and Belarus) that became the site of horrific experiments to create competing utopias based on class or race war. For Stalin, this meant controlling “the largest social group in the Soviet Union, the peasantry.” They needed to be driven off small plots of land into more efficient collective farms; many were forced to move to factory zones to sustain rapid industrialization.

Ukraine became ground zero for the resulting artificial famine. The regime confiscated grain for the cities, while sealing the borders to prevent people from escaping, or bearing witness.  The Holodomor, as Ukrainians call it, destroyed over three million men, women and children. More than 2,500 were sentenced for cannibalism in 1932 and 1933. By 1937, “the Soviet census found eight million fewer people than projected,” largely in Ukraine. Stalin refused to circulate the information and, consistent with his usual practice, “had the responsible demographers executed.”

But Stalin was not done. Within a few years, the Great Terror, as it was called, engulfed party officials and the Red Army, leading to the execution of tens of thousands of officers and officials. The Terror also involved the killing of hundreds of thousands of peasants and members of national minorities, most notably Soviet Poles, and again more Ukrainians. Stalin felt the need to explain the casualties of collectivization by blaming enemies who had sabotaged his plans. Poles inside the Soviet Union, who  . . . [more]

JOHN BATCHELOR SHOW

Hour One

Sunday 8 June  2014  / Hour 1, Block A: Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder (1 of 4)

Sunday 8 June  2014  / Hour 1, Block B: Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder (2 of 4)

Sunday 8 June  2014  / Hour 1, Block C: Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder (3 of 4)

Sunday 8 June  2014  / Hour 1, Block D: Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder (4 of 4)

Hour Two

Sunday 8 June  2014  / Hour 2, Block A: Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 (Vintage) by Max Hastings  (1 of 4)

Sunday 8 June  2014  / Hour 2, Block B: Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 (Vintage) by Max Hastings  (2 of 4)

Sunday 8 June  2014  / Hour 2, Block C: Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 (Vintage) by Max Hastings  (3 of 4)

Sunday 8 June  2014  / Hour 2, Block D: Inferno: The World at War, 1939-1945 (Vintage) by Max Hastings  (4 of 4)

Hour Three

Sunday 8 June  2014  / Hour 3, Block A: The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today by Thomas E. Ricks  (1 of 4)

Sunday 8 June  2014  / Hour 3, Block B: The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today by Thomas E. Ricks  (2 of 4)

Sunday 8 June  2014  / Hour 3, Block C: The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today by Thomas E. Ricks  (3 of 4)

Sunday 8 June  2014  / Hour 3, Block D: The Generals: American Military Command from World War II to Today by Thomas E. Ricks  (4 of 4)

Hour Four

Sunday 8 June  2014  / Hour 4, Block A: The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe by Stephen Harding (1 of 4)

Sunday 8 June  2014  / Hour 4, Block B: The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe by Stephen Harding (2 of 4)

Sunday 8 June  2014  / Hour 4, Block C: The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe by Stephen Harding (3 of 4)

Sunday 8 June  2014  / Hour 4, Block D: The Last Battle: When U.S. and German Soldiers Joined Forces in the Waning Hours of World War II in Europe by Stephen Harding (4 of 4)