Soviet Prime Minister Who Starved Ukraine—Then Paid the Price

Vlas Chubar rose from a Ukrainian peasant family to become one of the most powerful political figures in Soviet Ukraine. A Bolshevik from his youth, he built his career during the Russian Revolution and Civil War before becoming chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1923 — effectively the head of its government. His years in power coincided with one of the darkest periods in Ukraine’s history. At the end of the 1920s, Joseph Stalin launched forced collectivisation across the Soviet Union. Private farms were absorbed into state-controlled collectives, grain quotas increased, and resistance was met with confiscations and deportations. In Soviet Ukraine, these policies contributed to the catastrophic famine of 1932–33 known as the Holodomor, in which millions of people died. Chubar occupied a deeply contradictory position. He saw the worsening conditions himself and warned Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov about widespread starvation. Yet after Moscow rejected his objections, he continued to implement the policies imposed by the Soviet leadership. Together with senior Communist Party figures including Stanislav Kosior, he signed measures connected with grain procurement, confiscations and restrictions that placed immense pressure on Ukrainian villages. His loyalty did not protect him. Chubar was transferred to Moscow, became a full member of the Politburo and served as Soviet People’s Commissar of Finance. During Stalin’s Great Terror, however, he was removed from office, arrested in July 1938 and condemned on fabricated political charges in February 1939. Decades later, his role in the Holodomor returned to public scrutiny. In 2010, the Kyiv Court of Appeal named Chubar alongside Stalin, Molotov, Kaganovich, Kosior and other Soviet officials it held responsible for the Holodomor. Join World History channel and get access to benefits: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKKy_pNKZBX4KcCct8505HA/join Disclaimer: All opini