Yes, definitions are needed. Genocide: an intentional eradication of a people. So, a question could be: Did Stalin's policies cause millions of people in all former republics to die of starvation? The Great Famine, and other famines, together with other conditions imposed on Soviet citizens throughout the country in governing policies in cities and in villages, and by sending people to gulags, or of attempting to eliminate disention wherever it occurred: thinkers, leaders in education, in leadership of all areas of the Soviet Union. The prime purpose was to wipe out individuality of thinking and of ethnic affiliation, so that there could be a "Soviet Man" created - all these methods were part of Stalin's Plan to create the "Soviet Man." All was allowed in order to achieve the ideal end goal of a unified and powerful Soviet Union. Industrialization by force. Cooperation for all his agenda or death. And even adherence and devotion did not guarantee safety in Soviet society. Fear dominated life in Soviet Union. Without the various ethnic diasporas of the various ethnic groups from around the world continuing to be the voice of the people in the Soviet Union, Stalin might have succeeded in creating genocide of all the ethnic groups of the Soviet Union. Whether we can prove that Stalin intentionally committed genocide is not what's most important here. Rather it was his policies, beliefs and values, and those of all who also believed in a totalitarian Socialist State without regard to the human sufferings and carried out or went along with his policie. They and the System of government did threaten genocide.