Victor Reacts: The USSR Tried This, A Lot of People Starved to Death. Now Mamdani Tries Again | Victor Nieves This has been done before, and between 5 and 8 million people starved to death. Soviet price controls are widely understood by historians to have contributed to mass starvation, like the 1932-1933 famine. Now, the golden boy of the radical left, NYC Mayor Mamdani, is on a mission to bring Soviet price controls to the Big Apple.