The Holodomor

7 million dead

Holodomor
The Ukrainian Famine-Genocide

Because the Holodomor, the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide was carried out behind the Iron Curtain, it is one of the least known crimes against humanity committed by the Stalinist government of the former Soviet Union. Its magnitude is comparable to the Jewish Holocaust, yet due to the isolation of the Soviet Union from the world for over 70 years and the intricate web of lies manufactured by Soviet historians, the memory of this tragedy was suppressed and the evidence concealed. It is the Ukrainian American community's duty to share this tragic page of history with the world and ensure that the catastrophe that befell Ukraine never happen again.

The Famine-Genocide of the Ukrainian nation occurred as a result of a direct Soviet policy to crush the nationally conscious Ukrainian people. By introducing unrealistically large quotas on grain (accounting for 27% of the Soviet Union harvest, Ukraine was responsible for 38% of the quotas) and other agricultural products, the Soviet Government stripped the peasants of their food supply - causing a famine that claimed the lives of between 7 to 10 million innocent victims.

Moreover, having officially sealed the borders of Ukraine to prevent any migration or relief efforts, the Soviet government could continue its barbarism without criticism from the outside world. In August 1932, members of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) received authorization to officially confiscate grain from peasant households. Later that same month, a law that carried the death penalty for the theft of "social property" was introduced. Thousands of starving people caught taking even a handful of grain from a collective silo or farm were executed on the spot. Under extenuating circumstances these so called "crimes against the state" were punished by 10 years in Soviet labor camps.

At the height of the Famine:

Ukrainian villages were dying at the rate of 25,000 per day or 1,000 per hour or 17 per minute;

The Soviet regime dumped 1.7 million tons of grain on the Western markets - nearly a quarter of a ton of grain for every Ukrainian who starved to death;

Among the children, one in three perished as a result of rapid collectivization and the forced famine-genocide; and,

The 1933 Famine-Genocide was geographically focused for political ends as it stopped precisely at the Ukrainian-Russian ethnographic border

This Soviet policy of terror was a political move aimed at crushing the peasants and landowners - those who most fervently resisted collectivization and supported the independence of Ukraine from the Soviet Union. The pre-meditated nature and the political motives of the Soviets are apparent in the communist writings of the time. One of the leading communist papers in Ukraine carried an article, which stated: "collectivization in Ukraine has a special task … to destroy the social basis of Ukrainian nationalism - individually owned peasant agriculture." Stalin openly spoke of his plans to liquidate the individual farmers as a class in a conversation with Winston Churchill stating, "… the Collective Farm policy was a terrible struggle… Ten million. It was fearful. Four years it lasted. It was absolutely necessary…" Based on this, it is obvious that the goal of collectivization and the unrealistic agricultural quotas placed on farmers were a means of totally eliminating the Ukrainian peasantry. Nearly a forth of Ukraine's rural population paid with their lives because of their desire for freedom. This heinous Soviet crime left a great wound in the psychological and social development of the Ukrainian nation, which is still felt today.

International Intervention at the Time of Famine-Genocide

Regrettably, the world did not make any substantial efforts to assist or relieve the Ukraine nation or dispute the genocidal policies of the Soviets. The United States, in particular, did not interfere due to the fact that the Great Depression fostered strong sympathies towards the Soviet Union. Many Western intellectuals were not ready to hear the truth, and thus ignored evidence of the Soviet government's implementation of sadistic policies.

The general attitude of the democratic Western states was similar to that expressed in a document compiled by the British Foreign Service: "The truth of the matter is, of course, that we have a certain amount of information about famine conditions in the south of Russia [sic], similar to that which has appeared in the press … We do not want to make it public, however, because the Soviet government would resent it and our relations with them would be prejudiced."

Regrettably, the world did not make any substantial efforts to assist or relieve the Ukraine nation or dispute the genocidal policies of the Soviets. The United States, in particular, did not interfere due to the fact that the Great Depression fostered strong sympathies towards the Soviet Union. Many Western intellectuals were not ready to hear the truth, and thus ignored evidence of the Soviet government's implementation of sadistic policies. The general attitude of the democratic Western states was similar to that expressed in a document compiled by the British Foreign Service: "The truth of the matter is, of course, that we have a certain amount of information about famine conditions in the south of Russia [sic], similar to that which has appeared in the press … We do not want to make it public, however, because the Soviet government would resent it and our relations with them would be prejudiced."

Furthermore, some prominent journalists of the time, such as New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty, aided the Soviets in concealing their crimes by proliferating their propaganda in the West and slandering those who reported on the Famine in Ukraine. Mr. Duranty was even awarded the Pulitzer Prize for ?'Excellence in Journalism' for his reports on the Soviet Union and its "successful development," while in private admitting that up to 10 million people might have starved to death.

The Ukrainian American community has initiated a campaign to revoke Walter Duranty's prestigious Pulitzer Prize awarded for "excellence in journalism." We consider it an outrage that a reporter who knowingly concealed an act of genocide continues to be honored with journalism's highest honor. Moreover, in a recently published book by Leonard Leshuk titled U.S. Intelligence Perceptions of Soviet Power: 1926-1946 the author provides evidence that Walter Duranty "admitted to Mr. A.W. Klieforth of the U.S. Embassy in Berlin in June of 1931 that, "in agreement between The New York Times and the Soviet authorities" his dispatches reflected the official opinion of the Soviet regime and not his own." It is time that the true history is revealed and the Pulitzer Prize be revoked from a person who compromised his own moral principles and those of his profession and entered into a pact with an evil and oppressive regime.
Unfortunately, the U.S. media heavily influenced the opinions of U.S. intelligence, policy makers, and the public, regarding the Soviet Union. Duranty's dispatches may have influenced the U.S. government's formal recognition of the Soviet Union in 1933 - at the height of the Famine-Genocide. This official recognition sanctioned Stalin's repressive regime, which led to decades of continued brutality and the slaughter of untold millions.