Stanisław Kosior: Top Soviet Official Behind Ukraine’s Man-Made Famine Executed in Stalin’s Purge

World History: True Stories of the 20th Century · Apr 18, 2026 · 17m

Stanisław Kosior, Soviet leader in Ukraine and one of the key figures behind the Holodomor, was later executed during Stalin’s Great Purge. Stanisław Kosior rose from a poor factory family to become one of the most powerful men in Stalin’s Soviet Union — and one of the central architects of one of the greatest human catastrophes of the 20th century. As First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine, Kosior helped drive forward forced collectivization, the brutal campaign that stripped farmers of land, food, and freedom. What followed was the Holodomor: a man-made famine that killed…