We see and hear on a daily basis the horrors Vladimir Putin is carrying out in Ukraine. Bombing and shelling of refugee centers, hospitals, theaters, people gunned down in bread lines, and similar atrocities.

But as in most things, history has a deeper lesson when it comes to the way communist Russians deal with Ukraine. Now, some of you are saying Putin is a thug, but no communist, given he surrounds himself with capitalist oligarchs. Think about that again.

Here’s a man who came of age as a Soviet KGB officer, a man who has said that the fall of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical tragedy, and a man who recently said this, “The Russian people will always be able to distinguish true patriots from scum and traitors and simply spit them out like a fly that accidentally flew into their mouths,” Putin said Wednesday. “I am convinced that such a natural and necessary self-purification of society will only strengthen our country, our solidarity, cohesion and readiness to respond to any challenges.” So he’s getting ready for a Stalinist purge. He’s already started purging his top intelligence and military officers. He may associate with crony capitalists. But Vladimir Putin is true classic hammer and sickle red and what he’s doing in Ukraine is right out of Stalin’s playbook. I reference the Holodomor.

From various souces: “The Holodomor is derived from морити голодом, moryty holodom, or ‘to kill by starvation’), also known as the Terror-Famine or the Great Famine, was a famine in Soviet Ukraine from 1932 to 1933 that killed 3.5 million Ukrainians. The term Holodomor emphasises the famine’s man-made and allegedly intentional aspects such as rejection of outside aid, confiscation of all household foodstuffs and restriction of population movement. As a large part of the wider Soviet famine of 1932–1933 which affected the major grain-producing areas of the country, millions of inhabitants of Ukraine, the majority of whom were ethnic Ukrainians, died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine. Since 2006, the Holodomor has been recognized by Ukraine and 15 other countries as a genocide of the Ukrainian people carried out by the Soviet government.”

Stalin raped the country of resources. Shot farmers. Then he carried away all the food there he could find, surrounded the Ukrainian border with Russian troops, and wouldn’t let anybody in or out. You can guess the consequences. For him it was a threefer, more food for Russia, the advancement of his plan for brutal national collectivization, and the destruction by starvation of Ukrainian resistance to rule from Moscow.

This history is not taught in many schools. As the aggressor was a communist and many public school officials side with any socialist, this chapter of socialist history was and is not deemed PC enough to teach. But it remains history and a sign post along the way of socialist man’s inherent inhumanity towards all mankind.