The notion that Stalin caused the death of millions of people

Accepted. As Con has stated that the Pro should begin arguments in the first round--I will outline my opening case now.Although he has clarified the terms of the debate--he failed to provide a definition for 'responsible', which in a debate like this is pretty crucial. The key definition is:1.) responsible Answerable for an act performed or for its consequences; accountable; amenable, especially legally or politically. Being a primary cause or agent of some event or action; capable of being credited for something, or of being held liable for something. (1.) http://www.yourdictionary.com... As well as taking into account this particular word, I will also be arguing as per the resolution, that it is in fact not a notion but an actual reality that millions of Ukrainians died in a famine, directly caused by Josef Stalin--then leader of the Soviet Union, of which Ukraine belonged to.**Opening Argument**In 1928, four years after coming to power, Stalin finalised his plan to introduce a new agricultural program/policy that was to assume control of all private-owned farmland and basically to make a large-scale nationalised industrial farming network (2.) https://www.loc.gov...In the Ukraine, an estimated 80% of households were farming households. (3.) http://www.historyplace.com...Some of these farmers were indeed fairly wealthy, and earned the name 'Kulaks' (wealthy peasants) from the Stalin-led communist regime. In relation to the collectivised and non-privately owned farming program that was to exist, the plan, was to destroy the ideal of wealth aspiration among farmers and peasants. Although only 20% of land was nationalised in the first five years (1928-1933), in the very early stages of program, around five million people belonging to wealthier Kulak households were deported into Siberia and are believed to have famished there (see link 3.)In regards to these more industrious farmers, Stalin even gave a public speech at a 'conference for Marxist students', it was referred to as Problems of Agrarian Policy in the USSR--the speech happened on December 27th, 1939, and Stalin stated:'Now we are able to carry on a determined offensive against the kulaks, to break their resistance, to eliminate them as a class and substitute for their output the output of the collective farms and state farms. ''Now, the kulaks are being expropriated by the masses of poor and middle peasants themselves, by the masses who are putting solid collectivization into practice. Now, the expropriation of the kulaks in the regions of solid collectivization is no longer just an administrative measure. ''Now, the expropriation of the kulaks is an integral part of the formation and development of the collective farms. Consequently it is now ridiculous and foolish to discourse on the expropriation of the kulaks. You do not lament the loss of the hair of one who has been beheaded.'(4.) http://soviethistory.msu.edu...So, it was pretty obvious that Stalin was prepared to rid this class through violent means, and do whatever it takes to implement this new system.What is also apparent, is that the more middle and lower class farmers were being worked up against the Kulaks. In deporting the Kulaks, the problem (of them) was largely solved--that a mass deportation took place and eventual genocide (through forced hunger in Siberia) took place is again indisputable. (5.) http://www.indepthinfo.com...Just to clarify, these particular kulaks were ethnic Ukrainian~~not Russian.The link is correct, however, in saying that what happened to these Kulaks was extremely inhumane.Some time later--and this is what Con is mainly getting at--the less wealthy Ukrainian farmers began to suffer greatly due to dismal production; overwork, hunger, and disease. And other farmers who failed to comply, were simply executed.One survivor from this long famine is actually quoted as saying:'In 1933, just before Christmas, brigades came to our village to search for bread. They took everything they could find to eat.That day they found potatoes that we had planted in our grandfather's garden, and because of that they took everything from grandfather and all the seeds that grandmother had gathered for sowing the following autumn.And the next day, the first day of Christmas, they came to us, tore out our windows and doors and took everything to the collective farm.'Another survivor, a man named Fedir Burtianski, also said:'At Dnipropetrovsk we got out of the carriages. I got off the wagon and I saw very many people swollen and half-dead. And some who were lying on the ground and just shaking. Probably they were going to die within a few minutes. Then the railway NKVD [secret police] quickly herded us back into the wagons.'The NKVD were the Stalinist-era secret police, they acted on Stalin's demand and were responsible for any shootings, deportations, and outside-stealing of food.Due to how severe and widespread the starvation was--we are talking all of Ukraine, a country more or less France's size--cannibalism become the only option for many Ukrainians, they would have to eat people that had already died as a result of the starvation/disease, or, some families were even forced to kill their weakest child.Burtianski actually described how I'm one trial, a son described eating his own mother.The son in question said, during the trial:'Thank you to Father Stalin for depriving us of food. Our mother died of hunger and we ate her, our own dead mother. And after our mother we did not take pity on anyone. We would not have spared Stalin himself.'Going back to the vast numbers that were dying, Mykhaylo Naumenko, another survivor, said the following:'A tragedy developed. People became swollen, they died by the tens each day. The collective farm authorities appointed six men to collect and bury the dead. From our village of 75 homes, by May 24 houses were empty where all the inhabitants had died.'Mykhaylo's own father was in fact executed by the NKVD, for refusing to work at a local 'collective' farm.In his account, he states how people were shot for attempting to steal any remaining grain or potatoes from 'collective' farms, which usually were surrounded by barbed wire.Mykhaylo also was witness to the cannibalism that was occurring, when he found that his neighbours were eating human remains.After he had helped bury the father of one neighbour, he had asked for what he assumed was chicken meat--but was refused, as the meat was fully human.He said:'I saw Tetyana (neighbour) eating chicken meat and saw there was a lot of it. I approached her and asked her for some, but she refused to give me any. Because it was human flesh.'The survivor Olena Mukiak, gave an insight into her own village life at that time and stated that some people had to go through 'horse manure, stewed boots, toasted leaves and tree bark' to actually find some grain to eat.Her own family, used to live on toasted birch leaves.She stated how her own brother died due to starvation:'My brother died from starvation. He was small and there was nothing to eat. What could our mother give us to eat when there was nothing?''My sister brought us a little piece of bread once a day and we gulped it down and waited until the next day. But you wanted food all the time. My brother was younger than I and he died because he needed to eat. And our mother could give nothing.'(6.) https://www.rferl.org...(For included witness testimonies, etc.)Con states in round one that he wants Pro to argue for some kind of official number, but that people died and suffered greatly through an authoritarian regime and forced starvation, is what should really matter. As with any genocide, the estimates vary and for one of this enormous scale it is hard to specify an exact count.But, for arguments sake, I would give an estimate of 7-10 million people; including the earlier Kulaks who were deported by force. It is largely agreed upon that at least 7 million were died but the numbers likely go higher. What is also important to note, is that this was a man-made famine. The Ukrainians did not suddenly decide to destroy their livlihoods, their livestock, and their entire farming community--after all, why would they? As I highlighted previously in the debate, farmers made up most of Ukraine's population at that time, so they knew how to operate their farms, and if anything, the Kulaks show that many made a success of it. Therefore, due to the implentation of Stalin's plan and the fact so many were puroposely deported and killed, this genocide was very obviously NOT self-inflicted but was a direct of the Stalin's new policy on farming. From this, one can conclude that he was responsible.