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Harvest of Independence

When in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary for one People to dissolve the Political Bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal Station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent Respect to the Opinions of Mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the Separation.[Declaration of Independence]


The internationally recognized Ukrainian People's Republic emerged from war in 1919, only to be engaged in the Ukrainian–Soviet War which followed. The Soviet conquerors created a socialist republic, which in 1922 became one of the republics of the Soviet Union. Initial Soviet policy in Ukrainian was lenient but in the 1930's the policies turned to socialist assimilation. Millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a politically induced famine called the Holodomor, or Extermination by Hunger.

This great famine was a hidden history in this fertile country, known as the bread basket of the Soviet Union. The Communist Regime had sought to eliminate any threat from Ukrainian nationalists, whom they feared had the potential to form a rebellion and to seek independence from the Soviet Union.[1] Ukrainian farmers refused to be collectivized, so the Soviet regime responded without mercy, imposing such high grain quotas on the farmers that there was nothing left for them to eat. An estimated 10 million people died during this period.

A sculpture of a thin girl on naked feet clasping a few ears of grain in her hands stands outside the Famine Monument in Kiev, UK. In the background is the monument, with crosses and birds representing the instruments of survival, it stands in memory of those who died. Few people in the West know about this tragedy. The famine has been recognized by independent Ukraine and other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people.

During the Nazi occupation of Ukraine during World War II the Soviet system of collective farming was left virtually unchanged, with work norms and delivery quotas rigorously enforced. Severe penalties, including execution, were inflicted on those who failed to deliver food to the occupation authorities.[2] In a ten year time span, the Nazi plan effectively called for the extermination, expulsion, assimilation, or enslavement of most or all Ukrainians.[3] Between 1941 and 1945, approximately 3,000,000 Ukrainian non-Jewish and other victims were killed as part of Nazi policies, along with 900,000 Jews who lived in the territory of modern Ukraine.[4

A harvest is the result or consequence of any act, process, or event. The result of the acts against Ukraine yields to the condition of its population, or some portion thereof, to exercise self-government and sovereignty over it's territory. A harvest of independence, anything else would mean to be a dependent nation and to suffer the consequences.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new Government, laying its Foundation on such Principles, and organizing its Powers in such Form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."[United States Declaration of Independence]

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