Genocide is an act committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, any national, ethnic, racial, religious or other historically formed cultural and ethnic group.

      I believe that at the beginning of the last century, against the Kazakhs and Ukrainians, the leadership of the Soviet Union did not use genocide. I did not see a single document that would explicitly state that the difficult economic conditions were created specifically for ethnic Kazakhs and Ukrainians. Mass hunger in 1932-1933 covered many regions of the USSR, which speaks not about the national or ethnic background of the tragedy, but about the failure of the political leadership of the country. The dictatorship and totalitarianism that prevailed in the Soviet Union allowed, without regard for the opinion of the people, to conduct compulsory collectivization, which ruined many diligent business executives, turning them overnight into enemies of the people. In addition, the course for accelerated industrialization became a voluntaristic end in itself for the sole ruler of the vast country, Joseph Stalin, who took the bread from the starving fellow citizens and sent him to export for the sake of the latest equipment and technologies. The centralized command economy management system, instead of normal market relations, used forced harvesting of grain and livestock in some and redistribution to others. Practice has shown that no leader and his politburo can manage the economy as efficiently as a self-regulating market.

      Thus, I believe that the culprit of the mass famine in Kazakhstan and Ukraine was not Russia, but the political leadership of the Soviet Union (regardless of its ethnic composition).

      Do we need official recognition of the Holodomor (Asharshilik) in Kazakhstan?

      It depends on the purpose for which this is done.

      If in order to personify the tragedy with the Russian Empire and transfer the wrath of the Kazakh people to modern Russia and the Russian people, then in no case can this be done. Once again I repeat, it’s not the Russian people that are to blame, but the Soviet power.

      If the recognition of the Holodomor is aimed at condemning the inhuman basis of the Soviet system and, in particular, totalitarianism and dictatorship, then undoubtedly giving the official status to the Holodomor will play a positive role in rallying the nation.

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