One of the distinct characteristics of the 1932–1933 famine is that between 65 and 80 percent of all famine-related deaths (direct losses) in rural areas of Soviet Ukraine (UkrSSR) and its oblasts and some regions of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) occurred during the first six or seven months of 1933, and that in all oblasts of UkrSSR and some regions of RSFSR the number of famine losses increased by a factor of six to 15 between January and June–July of 1933. The historical explanation of this sudden explosion of deaths is critically examined, and a more comprehensive explanation is proposed. We show that the regional variations in these increases in losses are correlated with four factors: extensive household searches for grain with all food taken away in many instances, closing of inter-republic borders and limitation of internal travel by peasants, resistance to collectivization and grain requisitions and repressions, and the “nationality factor.” Analysis of the monthly dynamics of rural losses during the first half of 1933 suggests a possible independent confirmation of the hypothesis that during the searches for “hidden” or “stolen” grain, all food was taken away in many households.

Stalin’s collectivization campaigns and the associated famine killed millions in Ukraine and Kazakhstan, yet the two countries commemorate the events quite differently. In Ukraine, the Holodomor (death by hunger) occupies a prominent place in the public sphere and is remembered most frequently as a genocidal policy against the Ukrainian nation. In Kazakhstan, the famine takes up little space in the public arena, and officials remain reluctant to call it a genocide. This article explores these differences using two models explaining variation in the politics of memory: one emphasizing the instrumental calculations of political elites and the other emphasizing the historical and cultural constraints that frame contemporary debates. These two models complement each other rather than compete. The contest over the famine in Ukraine was in part a consequence of eastern and western Ukraine’s differing histories, but it intensified when governing politicians deployed the memory of the famine instrumentally in the 2000s. In Kazakhstan, political calculations led the regime to emphasize unity and stability over divisive debates about the past, but historical factors made depoliticizing the famine feasible.