I want to start by saying that's controversial. Famines were frequent in that area way before the Soviet Union even existed. Can you attribute these to Stalin's policies alone? Nobody would blame Coolidge for the Dust Bowl.
But you're right that 1.5 million is too small. I read again and there's about 3 million officially recorded victims. I cannot trust or distrust the higher figures, as these were reported either by western media or political dissidents, both of whom have very good reasons to demonise the USSR.
Just as the USSR spread a lot of lies about the Western world, I don't trust the Western media about these controversial subjects.
I suggest you read Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin.
The artifical famine of 1932-1933 was not a natural famine. It was a calculated effort by Stalin to undermine the Ukrainian peasant farmers, a class he viewed as a threat, and force them into collectivization.
It was perpetrated by the Communist party through the steady increase in grain quotas. It is a matter that of historic fact that Ukrainians starved to death while trains shipped away mountains of grain that they themselves had grown.
Feel free to distrust "Western media", but there are primary sources that support this narrative. For instance, Soviet defector Victor Kravchenko's account, or the narrative of American (and up to that point Soviet sympathizer) William H. Chamberlin (although perhaps you might not trust his account since he's a Westerner).
But you're right that 1.5 million is too small. I read again and there's about 3 million officially recorded victims. I cannot trust or distrust the higher figures, as these were reported either by western media or political dissidents, both of whom have very good reasons to demonise the USSR.
Just as the USSR spread a lot of lies about the Western world, I don't trust the Western media about these controversial subjects.