He deported a shitload of people to Siberia from the newly annexed Western Ukraine . He deported Crimean Tatars in 1944 and then encouraged partyloving Russians and Ukrainians to move to Crimea and occupy the newly vacated properties . He continued the policy of terror by imprisoning , executing and sending people to Gulags . Also the party was particularly cruel to POWs returning from German campsforced labor arrangements by sending them to camps in Siberia . But for some people it is all ok , as long as USSR had Sputnik . Oh and prior to WW 2 , the great spike in USSR ' s GDP was largely due to Holodomor i . e . Stalinmade famine that affected for the most part Ukraine and parts of Kazakhstan . The party confiscated the entire harvest , including the seeds for the next year ' s planting , to export grains to Western countries . As a result of this policy between 310 million people died in Ukraine alone .