Zákon pěti klasů - Řízený hladomor na Ukrajině ve 20.století – Mahdal Martin (2022)

The conflict in Ukraine, which has been ongoing in various forms since 2014 and peaked with Russian aggression in April 2022, has many layers, affecting all areas of society, like any political and war conflict. However, it also has much deeper roots than we can imagine. The book by Martin Mahdal and Markéta Adamcová, The Law of Five Ears, returns to these deep historical roots in a documentary form. The main theme is the artificially induced famine that broke out in Ukraine in the 1930s after the Soviet Union annexed Ukraine and established a Bolshevik regime there. One of the results was the so-called 'dekulakization,' which involved the elimination of private land ownership and an attempt to create centralized agriculture. In Ukraine, this process escalated into madness and terror. The constant increase in quotas led to shortages of even basic foodstuffs, yet the state apparatus insisted on its demands, even when people had neither seeds for the next year nor anything to eat. The 'law of five ears' came into effect – anyone found with five ears of grain was arrested. Thousands of people ended up in prisons, and thousands more disappeared due to the Soviet security forces. Even more Ukrainians died of hunger, from which people tried to escape...