millions tons (Altman 44). Even after Stalin ordered all peasants to surrender their entire grain crop, leaving nothing for themselves, the quota was not met. In one year seven to ten million Ukrainians perished from starvation. Of these, three million were children under the age of seven ("Spiking the Ukrainian Famine, Again" 33).The Soviet government denied any existence of a terror famine, although it did admit that Stalin continued with the campaign even after learning of its toll on the peasantry ("Denying the Terror Famine" 2). It estimated a death toll only in the thousands and regarded these as necessary casualties in the interest of increased productivity. The Soviet Union also insisted that it was "misfortune and not malice that caused the Ukrainian difficulties" (Altman 47). It called Ukrainian accusations of genocide "fraudulent," claiming such allegations were a ploy to conceal Ukrainian-Nazi collaboration ("Denying the Terror Famine" 4).No amount of Soviet sugar-coating can hide the evil truth behind the government-created famine of 1932-1933. There is no denying that it was an attempt to destroy the independently spirited people of the Ukraine who were a threat to Stalin's revolution and Russian domination. The well-fed, smiling farmers on Soviet propaganda posters never existed (Procyk 31). Instead, hunger-stricken men, women, and children lay swollen and dying on land that used to be their own (Glennon 207).Stalin dispatched special brigades to the Ukraine to find and seize private food stashes. These brigades consisted of 100,000 terrorists, ex-convicts, and Communist party officials ("Spiking the Ukrainian Famine, Again" 33; Altman 45). They entered the homes of every peasant, breaking into walls and digging up earth, in which peasants tried to hide their last handfuls of food. Officials also analyzed fecal matter to learn whether the peasants had stolen government property and were eating grain (Altman 45...
