There is no evidence that this was a deliberate act - the suggestion is that it was the cause of gross mismanagement of the collectivisation plan and the move to industrialisation.
The Genocide claim was based purely on the opposition to collectivisation by the Ukrainians - it remains unsubstantiated.
It occupies the same place in history as the 'Irish Holocaust'claim, the difference being that there is a mass of documented information to back the claim that The famine was deliberately mismanaged to turn a natural disater into a solution of "The Irish Question".
I in no way defend Stalin and his behavior, but I have little doubt that for the most part he believe that what he was doing was for the good of the Russian people, as twisted as those beliefs may have been.in doing so, he debased what I believe was a noble ideal.
Jim Carroll