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Terror-FamineMemoir literature and interviews conducted longafter provide a grim picture of the consequences:corpses in the streets of the villages, deliberate crueltyby enforcement authorities, starving children, cannibalism,in short, all of the accompaniments of deep andprolonged famine. ' Demographic evidence yields lessgraphic but no less startling demonstration of theterrible outcome of Stalin's policies. One estimate, byMaksudov, arrives at a figure of 4. 5 million deaths inthe Ukraine as a result of famine, a bit over half of thepremature deaths he estimates for the Soviet Union asa whole. ' Noting that this estimate disregards theresettlement of depopulated villages by non-Ukrainians,Mace suggests the higher figure of 7. 5 million."Demographic evidence also helps to locate the areasof greatest suffering, the Ukraine ranking first accordingto most accounts. Also telling is a comparison oftwo districts facing each other across the Russian-Ukrainian boundary, the Ukrainian side showingextreme devastation and the Russian side roughlynormal mortality."Terror-famine" is the term Robert Conquest usesfor the whole episode, suggesting not just the natureof the events but also the deliberate intent that pushedthe misery associated with collectivization across' theline to outright devastation. " Famine by itself is ofcourse not a genocide, nor is massive loss of life. Butby demonstrating that the consequences of policy wereknown and remedies available, the argument turns onthe intentions of those responsible. The evidence isquite powerful that the famine could have been avoided;it is overwhelming that the worst consequences couldhave been ameliorated at least. It is equally hard todisregard the evidence, not least from the statementsof Stalin and other party leaders, that the entire policyhad a nationality dimension as well as an economic one.The Ukraine would have suffered terribly, by its verynature as an agricultural stronghold, from collectivizationand the manner of its imposition. But there is noadequate explanation, apart from the nationalityquestion, for the singling out of the Ukraine forexceptionally dire consequences."The UN Definition of GenocideIt can be argued that the UN definition of genocideis deficient in its failure to allow for murderousonslaughts on strata — such as the kulaks — of a givenpopulation, whether real or invented." Were thisextension to be admitted, then the program of dekulakization,given the extreme loss of life that its implementationentailed, would count as a genocide. In anyevent, what is beyond doubt is that the Ukrainianfamine does fall within the UN definition as an attemptto destroy the basis for continued existence of anationality. The Ukraine survives as a self-consciousethnic community, but a genocidal policy does not haveto succeed in its final aim before it can be counted asa genocide.NOTES1. In the Marxian tradition the classic treatment ofthe subject is Otto Bauer, Die NationalitQtenpage unddie Sozialdemokratie (Wien: I. Brand, 1907); JosephStalin, Marxism and the National-Colonial Question(New York: International Publishers, 1935) is atheoretically inferior effort, partly derived from andpartly at odds with Bauer; for a modern study, see IanCummins, Marx, Engels and National Movements (NewYork: St. Martin's Press, 1980).2. On these events, see Richard Pipes, 7heFormationof the Soviet Union; Communism and Nationalism,191 7-1923 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,1954).3. James E. Mace, "Famine and Nationalism inSoviet Ukraine, " Problems of Communism1984): 41 ff.(May-June4. M. Levin, Russian Peasants and Soviet Power(New York: W. W. Norton, 1975), 148-158.5. The episode is described in detail against thebackground of the leadership struggle in Stephen F.Cohen, Bukharin and the Bolshevik RevolutionYork: A. A. Knopf, 1973), 270 ff.(New6. Lynne Viola, 7he Best Sons of the Fatherland;Workers in the Vanguard of Soviet Collectivization(New York: Oxford University Press, 1987).7. The foregoing account relies heavily on James E.Mace, Communism and the Dilemmas of NationalLiberation (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UkrainianResearch Institute, 1983) and Robert Conquest, 77IeHarvest of Sorrow (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1986).8. For example, Miron Dolot, Execution by Hunger(New York: W. W. Norton, 1987).9. Cited in Mace, "Famine, " 38.10. Mace, "Famine, " 38.110 GENOCIDE