From what I've read, Stalin was OK with encouraging national diversity in the 20s.
But not so in the 30s when Ukrainian nationalism was decried as 'bourgeois nationalism', subverting an over-arching Soviet identity.
Many see the Holodomor famine of the early 30s as a deliberately engineered genocide against the Ukrainian people.
Stalin saw the failure to meet grain quotas as part of a resistance to 'forced collectivisation' by a recalcitrant peasantry. But, it is more likely to be the result of unrealistic demands.
The overriding objective in the 30s was to industrialise as quickly as possible. The suffering of the peasantry was an unfortunate side-effect.
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