In 1930 a new wave of collectivization began in the USSR. In April of that year, the Law on Bread Procurement was passed, according to which collective farms had to hand over from a quarter to a third of the harvested grain to the state. Meanwhile, as a result of the Great Depression, agricultural prices in the West fell sharply. The Soviet Union was on the brink of economic crisis, because no one gave it long-term loans, demanding to recognize the debts of the Russian Empire. In order to earn foreign currency, it was decided to increase grain sales, as a result of which grain procurement plans rose sharply, and almost all crops were harvested from collective farms.

The plan for the handing over the bread and other products by the collective farms was established in such a way that after its implementation there was almost nothing left for the working day. As a result, grain procurement on collective farms became increasingly difficult. Harvesting from the 1931 harvest lasted until the spring of 1932. The harvesters then swept away absolutely everything from the peasants, and a general famine began in 44 districts of Ukraine with numerous deaths. Even then, the facts of cannibalism were registered.

After a hungry winter, the 1932 crop was under threat. Physically weak and hungry and dissatisfied peasants were unable to work effectively in the fields. At the beginning of summer, the so-called "hairdressers" came to the unripe bread. These were mostly women who secretly cut ears of corn into porridge for their hungry children at night. With the beginning of the harvest, the "carriers" appeared - they carried the grain home in their pockets, behind their bosoms. Most collective farms began to hide the true size of the crop or leave the grain in the straw to grind it a second time.

In this regard, Stalin decided to take the strictest measures. On August 7, 1932, the Central Executive Committee and the CPC of the USSR adopted a resolution written by him, "On the Protection of the Property of State-Owned Enterprises, Collective Farms, and Cooperatives, and on the Strengthening of Public (Socialist) Property." Theft of collective and cooperative property was punishable by execution with confiscation of all personal property, and under extenuating circumstances - imprisonment for at least 10 years, again with confiscation of property. Amnesty in such cases was prohibited. Contemporaries called this draconian act the "law of five ears of corn." For half a pocket of grain brought from the field to a starving family, the collective farmer could receive 10 years in concentration camps. Less than 5 months after the adoption of this "law", 54,646 people were convicted in the country, of which 2,110 to the maximum penalty.

Another extraordinary method of the struggle for the implementation of the grain procurement plan was the blacklisting of those collective farms that were particularly lagging behind in the implementation of the plans. The decision to put on the "black board" was accompanied by the cessation of supplies of any goods to the village, its inhabitants were deprived of the right to leave. Collective farms listed on the blackboard were fined and cattle were confiscated. Their workers lost even hope for any help. At the end of 1932, 25 collective farms were listed on the "black board" in Kharkiv region.

Repressive bodies became more and more actively involved in the "process" of grain procurement. From November 15 to December 15, 1932, 16,000 people were arrested in the republic for non-delivery of bread, including 409 heads of collective farms, 107 heads of village councils, 108 of whom were sentenced to execution, and for the second five days of January 1933 and only in 153 districts of the USSR - 2,709 people, of whom 56 were shot for so-called counter-revolutionary sabotage.

In the winter of 1932-1933, many collective farmers were left without grain and seed, collective farmers and individuals were left without food, and cattle were left without fodder. When the peasants ran out of last hidden supplies, the hunger strike escalated into a mass famine that swept across Ukraine. Mortality has increased significantly, especially among the older generation and children, there have been cases of cannibalism, hunger dystrophy has become a typical phenomenon, severe gastric diseases caused by eating non-food products, typhus was raging. Peasants abandoned their homes and tried to reach the cities. But the roads in Ukraine were blocked by PCIA special forces. Those who tried to flee the hungry areas and escape were turned back, and women and children were thrown off the trains. In trains and at stations, SPD crews checked passengers' luggage and confiscated food from starving families. Already in February - March 1933, the famine took place in 738 settlements in 139 districts of Ukraine. The situation is especially acute in Dnipropetrovsk, Kyiv, Donetsk, and Vinnytsia regions. In the spring of 1933, the living did not have time to bury the dead. Military units were sent to help the funeral teams. In some settlements, black flags were hung in village councils, which meant that all residents died. Desperate people ate frogs, horse carcasses, chaff, tree bark, weeds. The situation in Kharkiv and the region is evidenced by the following data of the SPD of the USSR from June 5, 1933. In February 1933, 431 corpses of starving peasants were picked up on the streets of Kharkiv, in March - 689, in May 992. On June 1, 1933. 221 cases of corpse-eating and cannibalism were registered in the region.

The direct losses of the population of Ukraine from the famine of 1932 amounted to about 150 thousand. In 1933, 3 million 941 thousand people died of starvation. The birth rate in rural areas has dropped by an order of magnitude during the famine years. Total demographic losses in the USSR, including declining birth rates, reached in 1932 – 1934 was 6 million 122 thousand people. The gene pool of the Ukrainian people was irreparably damaged, killing millions of rural workers and their children. Ukraine lacked new scientists, engineers, teachers, writers who could do much to improve the welfare of the republic, for its socio-economic and cultural development.

It is now clear that the Holodomor would not exist if Ukraine had real sovereignty, would be an independent state.

In 2006, the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine officially recognized the Holodomor as genocide of the Ukrainian people, recording it in the Law "On the Holodomor of 1932-1933 in Ukraine" of November 28, 2006.

Volodymyr Hrechenko, Head of the Department of Social and Humanitarian Disciplines of the Faculty № 6