It's been known for decades that "Stalin sent food to the west," that was how he was going to get hard currency to finance industrialization, including the building of tractors to mechanize production on collective farms.
Food continued to be shipped out of the Ukraine during the famine because Ukrainian officials were telling lies to the central authorities, including Stalin, that things were going just fine and that what food shortages existed were relatively minor.
"Famine in the USSR: 1929-1934: New Documentary Evidence" which was put out some years ago gives ample examples of this, a few I will quote:
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Excerpt from the protocol number of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party (Bolsheviks) “Regarding Measures to Prevent Failure to Sow in Ukraine. Copy of the Original document. March 16th, 1932. Provided by the Archive of the President of the Russian Federation. Fond 3, Record Series 40, File 80, Page 58.
The Political Bureau believes that shortage of seed grain in Ukraine is many times worse than what was described in comrade Kosior’s telegram; therefore, the Political Bureau recommends the Central Committee of the Communist party of Ukraine to take all measures within its reach to prevent the threat of failing to sow [field crops] in Ukraine.
Signed: Secretary of the Central Committee – J. STALIN
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Letter to Joseph Stalin from Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central committee of the Communist party of Ukraine regarding the course and the perspectives of the sowing campaign in Ukraine. Original document. April 26th, 1932.
There are also isolated cases of starvation, and even whole villages [starving]; however, this is only the result of bungling on the local level, deviations [from the party line], especially in regard of kolkhozes. All rumours about “famine” in Ukraine must be unconditionally rejected. The crucial help that was provided for Ukraine will give us the opportunity to eradicate all such outbreaks [of starvation].
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Letter from Joseph Stalin to Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Central committee of the Communist party of Ukraine. Copy. April 26th, 1932.
Comrade Kosior!
You must read attached summaries. Judging by this information, it looks like the Soviet authority has ceased to exist in some areas of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic. Can this be true? Is the situation invillages in Ukraine this bad? Where are the operatives of the OGPU [Joint Main Political Directorate], what are they doing?
Could you verify this information and inform the Central Committee of
the All-Union Communist party about taken measures.
Sincerely, J. Stalin
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Memorandum of Alexeev, secretary of the Vinnitsa provincial committee of the Communist party of Ukraine to Stanislaw Kosior, 1st secretary of the Communist party of Ukraine regarding content of speeches by Semyon Budyenny made during visits to Ukrainian villages. (This copy of the letter was forwarded to Lazar Kaganovich, secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist party in Moscow). Verified copy of the original document. June 27th, 1932.
[…] in his conversations with collective farmers, comrade Budyenny said: “Your predicament is that the authorities do not know that you have no bread, your “Ukrainian” and local leaders are to blame, they over-promised [to the Central authorities] all these ‘self-imposed extensions’ of quotas for grain procurement, and took your grain, and left you without bread”.
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The famine was clearly unintentional. The claim that it was a "genocide" is absurd, even the conservative anti-communist Robert Conquest doesn't argue that.
For more info see:
* http://h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-russia&month=0205&week=a&msg=G9gRj0I/eXnblGCPQyYXlA&user=&pw
* https://msuweb.montclair.edu/~furrg/vv.html
* http://rationalrevolution.net/special/library/tottlefraud.pdf
For the latest academic assessment in English see "The Years of Hunger" by Davies and Wheatcroft. There's also the writings of Mark Tauger.
None of these people (Getty, Coplon, Tottle, Davies, Wheatcroft, Tauger) hold Stalin in high regard. In fact out of all of them Tottle is the only one that would describe himself as a Marxist.
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