Talk:Holodomor

Cannibal: The History of the People-Eaters

This is not an academic source, authors are not historians. Manyareasexpert (talk) 20:06, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

It's in the general References/Bibliography section, but not used as an actual reference inside our article. I could see an argument for moving it to See Also instead, though. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 20:31, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

It's in Cannibalism section reference #45 "Quoted in Korn, Radice & Hawes 2001" Manyareasexpert (talk) 20:35, 19 November 2023 (UTC)

It's not an academic book, but a RELIABLE source, written by serious journalists and researchers based (in this case) on first-hand interviews. I've readded a much more carefully worded version of the claim you deleted – in this form, at least, it should be OK. Gawaon (talk) 21:04, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

The wording is indeed more careful, thank you. But the article is full of academic sources and sure some of them should mention this. If they are not then this account by journalists is doubtful. Manyareasexpert (talk) 21:11, 20 November 2023 (UTC)

Note how Ogiienko, for example, is even more careful The Holodomor and the Origins of the Soviet Man - Vitalii Ogiienko - Google Books Manyareasexpert (talk) 10:34, 22 November 2023 (UTC)

Google Books doesn't allow that me to see that page, so I can't comment on its contents. But as it seems to be self-published, it wouldn't be admissible as a reliable source anyway. Books by journalists, on the other hand, are accepted in general and I don't think you have reason to label that Channel 4 book as "unreliable". Orlando Figes – no doubt a reliable source – writes in his A People's Tragedy about the widespread sale of human flesh during the Russian famine of 1921–1922, hence it's very plausible that similar things happened during the Holodomor too, which after all was hardly less severe. Nevertheless I admit that the disputed factoid may be just a rumour, and the interviewed man might well have had wrong impressions about what actually went on. Hence I'll remove it. Let's see if there are more substantial records to be found. Gawaon (talk) 18:15, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Ogiienko just mentions "sale of dishes prepared from human flesh at markets, which many testimonies discuss" in relation to some Holodomor crime. The publisher is Ibidem. Just the first thing popped up in my search, I wasn't researching hard. Try to put the quote in the search and maybe the page will appear. Manyareasexpert (talk) 18:41, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

I found confirmation that "A black market arose in human flesh" in Snyder's Bloodlands. Will add a quote/summary from there. Gawaon (talk) 18:49, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you, that's reliable.
A young communist in the Kharkiv region reported to his superiors that he could make a meat quota - what "quota" meant there? Is there an explanation? Were they gathering supplies for quota on markets? After they just were taking the grain by force? Manyareasexpert (talk) 22:04, 23 November 2023 (UTC)

Snyder doesn't explain the "meat quota" further, but the reference he gives is to Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 227. Feel free to look it up there if you have the time. I might do it myself one of these days, but maybe not quickly. Gawaon (talk) 16:59, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Conquest there is on a different topic.
Some activists, even ones with bad personal records, tried to get fair treatment for the peasantry.16 Occasionally a decent-minded Party activist, especially one who had lost any illusions about the Party’s intentions, could do something to help a village - working within the narrow margin of not stirring up his superiors nor, even harder, giving the more virulent of his subordinates a handle against him. Occasionally one of the latter would grossly exceed the level of violence (or corruption) condoned by the authorities, and might be removed. A little more often, the illegal diversion of some food back to the peasants might go undiscovered until the harvest which, if it proved good, would induce the Provincial authorities to pass over the fault.
Some activists were provoked into more overt defiance. One young Communist sent to the village of Murafa, Kharkov Province, reported by telephone that he could make the meat deliveries, but only with human corpses. He then escaped from the area.17 ... Manyareasexpert (talk) 18:41, 24 November 2023 (UTC)

Well, that sounds like a deliberate provocation, so not too much should be made out of it. I'll remove the sentence from the article. Gawaon (talk) 10:18, 26 November 2023 (UTC)

Inclusion of Kazakh Famine under See also

I think a link to the Kazakh famines during the same time period would be helpful in the See also section. 2800:150:15B:1829:F07D:DBBD:5D8E:F08B (talk) 18:38, 29 December 2023 (UTC)

It was already mentioned once in the article, but only in the context of Ukrainians falling victim to it, and it's easy to overlook. So that request sounds reasonable and I've added the link. Gawaon (talk) 14:25, 12 January 2024 (UTC)

"While scholars are in consensus that the cause of the famine was man-made"

Per WP:RS/AC, "a statement that all or most scientists or scholars hold a certain view requires reliable sourcing that directly says that all or most scientists or scholars hold that view". I'm not seeing this sourced anywhere. Can somehow source this or can it be changed? Thanks.Stix1776 (talk) 07:26, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

It's explained in the paragraph following the sentence you quote, and in more detail in Causes of the Holodomor. Some historians believe that it was "deliberately engineered", while others think it was an (unintended) "consequence of rapid Soviet industrialisation", and a third position is that both intentional and unintended factors came together. However, no serious historian seems to suggest that the famine was entirely or primary due to natural reasons (such as a severe drought) – hence the "consensus". Gawaon (talk) 08:36, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

So no source says it's "consensus", per WP:RS/AC? It seems that Wheatcroft and Tauger disagree that it's man-made, which explicitly speaks against "academic consensus".Stix1776 (talk) 16:21, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Hold up consensus isn't unanimity. Tauger is the only one who thinks it was natrual. Wheatcroft (and davis) are the ones who dispute his methodology. Not to mention they say explicitly that policy was the cause of the famine [1]—blindlynx 17:00, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I've added a citation from Andriewsky 2015 historiography. The relevant section is:

Historians of Ukraine are no longer debating whether the Famine was the result of natural causes (and even then not exclusively by them). The academic debate appears to come down to the issue of intentions, to whether the special measures undertaken in Ukraine in the winter of 1932-­‐33 that intensified starvation were aimed at Ukrainians as such. —blindlynx 17:25, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

Plus the article states: "Wheatcroft notes that the Soviet extension of sown area may have exacerbated the problem, which Tauger also acknowledges." – So even Tauger seems to agree that the famine was partially man-made. Gawaon (talk) 18:58, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

I've added another source. That said tauger is the only scholar who argues that its causes were natural and it is wp:undue to privilege one scholar out of all of the people working on this—blindlynx 21:43, 21 February 2024 (UTC)

@Blindlynx, would you mind putting a page number and quote with that source, because I'm unable to find what you're saying. The article I'm reading starts with "1".

In regards to Andriewsky, he literally states "Historians of Ukraine" as the beginning of the sentence. The article is about how historians of Ukraine treat the issue of the Holodomor. If you want to write "historians of Ukraine" in the lead, I'm fine for it. But nothing states academic consensus as stated in the lead. We're going to ignoring WP:RS/AC?Stix1776 (talk) 12:10, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

571 of the published page 5 of the pre-pub the first paragraph of the 'TERROR BY HUNGER' section. How on earth is historians of Ukraine being in agreement about an event in Ukraine's history not academic consensus? Especially given that the academic debate is not about this but the intentionallity of the famine and everyone researching this sees it as a result of government policy to some extent—blindlynx 15:09, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Tauger disagrees with other scholars about the size of the harvest. It seems that when he questions the term "man made" he is disagreeing with the position that the famine was intentional.[2] TFD (talk) 12:52, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Well, but if so that would only show that he misunderstands the meaning of "man-made". An unintentionally man-made famine would still be man-made. Gawaon (talk) 13:46, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

He's mostly arguing that the human causes of the Holod don't set it apart from other most famines as most have similar levels of human causes—blindlynx 16:04, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Whether he understands the term correctly or not, he agrees that it was man made within the definition provided in this article. So that seems to mean there is a consensus, just disagreement over intention and whether ethnic Ukrainians were specifically targeted. TFD (talk) 16:17, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

Exactly—blindlynx 17:00, 22 February 2024 (UTC)

@Blindlynx, I added the quote to the source. Is this the correct quote? If not, can you please update it.Stix1776 (talk) 04:44, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Thank you!—blindlynx 15:08, 23 February 2024 (UTC)

Guys, I think the causes on the side of the article are not causes

Yeah, that's about it. They're not causes, but international reactions. AccomplishedTale7 (talk) 12:21, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

I don't know what you mean. The causes listed in the infobox are:

• Industrialization policy during the First Five Year Plan
• Whether it was intentional is debated by scholars

What point are you disputing? — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 21:44, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Sorry, forgot to say i changed that after seeing this —blindlynx 21:53, 27 February 2024 (UTC)

Ah, well, that'll do it! — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 21:55, 27 February 2024 (UTC)