The 1932–33 Famine emerged as a topic in Ukrainian public and political discourse during the mid-1980s and formed part of an overall critique of the Soviet past. The usual set of stereotypical clichés about the Holodomor and their discursive representations read just about as follows:

During 1932 and 1933 the Ukrainian nation was subject to genocide. Under Stalin's leadership a famine was planned and executed by the ruling elite in Moscow with the aim of breaking the Ukrainian nation's possible resistance to the building of communism. The main target of this organised famine was the individualistic and freedom-loving Ukrainian peasantry, and with it the ‘backbone of the nation’ was broken. At the same time, the national intelligentsia likewise faced repression and the nation was effectively beheaded. Between 7 and 10 million people died from starvation (this is at least the number that ex-president Yushchenko and politicians used to quote; scholars are more cautious and prefer to speak about three and a half to four million victims of the Famine). The Famine struck the Ukrainian nation and its genetic potential beyond remedy, and the consequences of this blow are felt to the present day.