The Kazakh famine of 1930–1933, known in Kazakhstan as the Goloshchyokingenocide, also known as the Kazakh catastrophe, was a man-made famine where 1.5 million people died in Soviet Kazakhstan, of whom 1.3 million were ethnic Kazakhs; 38% of all Kazakhs died, the highest percentage of any ethnic group killed in the Soviet famines of the early 1930s. Some historians assume that 42% of the entire Kazakh population died in the famine. Kazakhstan's livestock and grain were largely acquired between 1929 and 1932, with one-third of the republic's cereals being requisitioned and more than 1 million tons confiscated in 1930 to provide food for the cities. Some historians and scholars describe the famine as a genocide of the Kazakhs perpetrated by the Soviet state. The famine made Kazakhs a minority in the Kazakh ASSR, and not until the 1990s did Kazakhs become the largest group in Kazakhstan again. Before the famine, around 60% of the republic's population were Kazakhs, but after the famine, only around 38% of the population were Kazakhs.
Overview
It was the most severe of all regions affected by famine, percentage-wise, though more people died in the UkrainianHolodomor, which began a year later. In addition to the Kazakh famine of 1919–1922, in 10–15 years Kazakhstan lost more than half of its population due to the actions of the Soviet state. The two Soviet censuses show that the number of the Kazakhs in Kazakhstan dropped from 3,637,612 in 1926 to 2,181,520 in 1937. Ethnic minorities in Kazakhstan were also significantly affected. The Ukrainian population in Kazakhstan decreased from 859,396 to 549,859, while other ethnic minorities in Kazakhstan lost 12% and 30% of their populations. Ukrainians who died in Kazakhstan are sometimes considered victims of Holodomor. Due to the starvation 665,000 Kazakhs fled the famine with their cattle outside Kazakhstan to China, Mongolia, Afghanistan, Iran and the Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Russia in search of food and employment in the new industrialization sites of Western Siberia with 900,000 head of cattle. The Soviet government worked later to repatriate them. 70% of the refugees survived and the rest died due to epidemics and hunger. A monument for the famine's victims was constructed in 2017.
Classification as a genocide
Some historians and scholars consider that this famine amounted to genocide of the Kazakhs. The Soviet authorities undertook a campaign of persecution against the nomads in the Kazakhs, believing that the destruction of the class was a worthy sacrifice for the collectivization of Kazakhstan. Europeans in Kazakhstan had disproportionate power in the party, which has been argued as a cause of why indigenous nomads suffered the worst part of the collectivization process rather than the European sections of the country. Regarding the Kazakh catastrophe, Michael Ellman states that it "seems to be an example of ‘negligent genocide’ which falls outside the scope of the UN Convention".
