3: 3. Post-Revolution Collapse, Failed Statehood, and the Holodomor Following the collapse of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires after World War I, Ukrainians sought independence. The Ukrainian

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        3. Post-Revolution Collapse, Failed Statehood, and the Holodomor Following the collapse of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires after World War I, Ukrainians sought independence. The Ukrainian People's Republic emerged from the Russian collapse as a democratic state with liberal policies. However, it quickly collapsed internally, as its bureaucrats were heavily Russified, and externally, as various Russian armies (communist, monarchist, or liberal) immediately invaded, united by the belief that Ukraine must be part of Russia. Separately, the West Ukrainian People's Republic was defeated and incorporated into Poland. Later, Stalin, fearing internal Ukrainian dissent and needing grain exports for military modernization, implemented forced collectivization. This led to the purposeful famine of the Holodomor (1932-1933), resulting in deaths of an estimated 3.5 to 5 million people. This tragedy served Stalin's goal of breaking the backbone of the Ukrainian peasantry to secure the region before World War II devastated the landscape.

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