 Hunger, disease, and mass executions during dekulakization led to at least 530,000 to 600,000 deaths from 1929 to 1933, though higher estimates also exist, with historian Robert Conquest estimating in 1986 that 5 million people may have died.The results soon became known outside the Soviet Union.Joseph Stalin announced the "liquidation of the kulaks as a class" on 27 December 1929.