Tributes are left at the monument commemorating the millions who died during the 1932-33 famine in Kiev

The warning signs were ample. By the early spring of 1932 the peasants of Ukraine were beginning to starve. Secret police reports and letters from the grain-growing districts all across the Soviet Union spoke of children swollen with hunger, of families eating grass and acorns and of peasants fleeing home in search of food. In March a medical commission found corpses lying on the street in a village near Odessa. No one was strong enough to bury them.

Some wrote directly to the Kremlin, finding it impossible to believe the Soviet state could be responsible:

“Every day, 10 to 20 families die from famine in the villages, children run off and railway stations are overflowing with fleeing villagers . . . The bourgeoisie has created