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{{Main article|Ukrainian Famine}}
{{Main article|Ukrainian Famine}}
[[Image:Holodomor2.jpg|right|thumb|Ukrainian victims of the Communist genocide of [[Holodomor]].]]
[[Image:Holodomor2.jpg|right|thumb|Ukrainian victims of the Communist genocide of [[Holodomor]].]]
The government-imposed famines of the 1930s, followed by the devastation of World War II, comprised a demographic disaster. Life expectancy at birth fell to a level as low as ten years for females and seven for males in 1933 and plateaued around 25 for females and 15 for males in the period 1941–44.<ref>Jacques Vallin; Meslé, France; Adamets, Serguei; and Pyrozhkov, Serhii. "A New Estimate of Ukrainian Population Losses During the Crises of the 1930s and 1940s." ''Population Studies'' (2002) 56(3): 249-264. Issn: 0032-4728 Fulltext in [[Jstor]]</ref>
When [[Joseph Stalin]], a native [[Republic of Georgia|Georgian]] assumed leadership of the [[Soviet Union]] in the late 1920s, the Soviet toleration of national identities came to an end. Systematic state terror of the 1930s destroyed writers, artists, and intellectuals; the Communist Party of Ukraine was purged of its "nationalist deviationists"; and the peasantry was crushed by means of collectivization, resulting in the [[Great Famine]] or "Holodomor" (Голодомор) of 1932–1933, which claimed some 3-7 million lives including Russians and others resident in the territory of Ukraine. Crops failed and remaining food stocks were forcibly removed by the government. Besides Ukraine, [[Kazakhstan]] and the Volga region were also hit by the famine. Stalin had full knowledge of the destructive force of the famine. It was a by-product of his war on the peasantry that began with collectivization and dekulakization and as an attempt to eradicate peasant culture in its entirety. Ellman explains the causes for the excess deaths in rural areas of Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan during 1931-34 by dividing the causes into three groups: objective nonpolicy-related factors, like the drought of 1931 and poor weather in 1932; inadvertent result of policies with other objectives, like rapid industrialization, socialization of livestock, and neglected crop rotation patterns; and deaths caused intentionally by a starvation policy. The Communist leadership perceived famine not as a humanitarian catastrophe but as a means of [[class struggle]] and used starvation as a punishment tool to teach peasants to work well in the collective farms.<ref>Michael Ellman, "The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1934." ''Europe-Asia Studies'' 2005 57(6): 823-841. Issn: 0966-8136 Fulltext in [[Ebsco]]</ref>
When [[Joseph Stalin]], a native [[Republic of Georgia|Georgian]] assumed leadership of the [[Soviet Union]] in the late 1920s, the Soviet toleration of national identities came to an end. Systematic state terror of the 1930s destroyed writers, artists, and intellectuals; the Communist Party of Ukraine was purged of its "nationalist deviationists"; and the peasantry was crushed by means of collectivization, resulting in the [[Great Famine]] or "Holodomor" (Голодомор) of 1932–1933, which claimed some 3-7 million lives including Russians and others resident in the territory of Ukraine. Crops failed and remaining food stocks were forcibly removed by the government. Besides Ukraine, [[Kazakhstan]] and the Volga region were also hit by the famine. Stalin had full knowledge of the destructive force of the famine. It was a by-product of his war on the peasantry that began with collectivization and dekulakization and as an attempt to eradicate peasant culture in its entirety. Ellman explains the causes for the excess deaths in rural areas of Russia, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan during 1931-34 by dividing the causes into three groups: objective nonpolicy-related factors, like the drought of 1931 and poor weather in 1932; inadvertent result of policies with other objectives, like rapid industrialization, socialization of livestock, and neglected crop rotation patterns; and deaths caused intentionally by a starvation policy. The Communist leadership perceived famine not as a humanitarian catastrophe but as a means of [[class struggle]] and used starvation as a punishment tool to teach peasants to work well in the collective farms.<ref>Michael Ellman, "The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1934." ''Europe-Asia Studies'' 2005 57(6): 823-841. Issn: 0966-8136 Fulltext in [[Ebsco]]</ref>