Holodomor
Encyclopedia
The Holodomor was a man-made famine
in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine
.
Early estimates of the death toll by scholars and government officials varied greatly; anywhere from 1.8 to 12 million ethnic Ukrainians were said to have been killed as a result of the famine. Recent research has since narrowed the estimates to between 2.4 and 7.5 million. The exact number of deaths is hard to determine, due to a lack of records, but the number increases significantly when the deaths inside heavily Ukrainian-populated Kuban
are included. The demographic deficit caused by unborn or unrecorded births is said to be as high as 6 million. Older estimates are still often cited in political commentary.
Scholars disagree on the relative importance of natural factors and bad economic policies as causes of the famine and the degree to which the destruction of the Ukrainian peasantry was premeditated on the part of Joseph Stalin
. Scholars and politicians using the word Holodomor emphasize the man-made aspects of the famine, arguing that it was genocide
; some consider the resultant loss of life comparable to the Holocaust. They argue that the Soviet policies were an attack on the rise of Ukrainian nationalism
and therefore fall under the legal definition of genocide
. Other scholars argue that the Holodomor was a consequence of the economic problems associated with radical economic changes implemented during the period of Soviet industrialization.
. The joint statement at the United Nations
in 2003 has defined the famine as the result of actions and policies of the totalitarian regime that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians, Russians, Kazakhs
and other nationalities in the USSR. On 28 November 2006, the Verkhovna Rada
(Ukrainian Parliament) narrowly passed a law defining the Holodomor as a deliberate act of genocide and made public denial illegal. Even though in April 2010 newly elected president Yanukovych reversed Yushchenko
's policy on the Holodomor famine, the law has not been repealed and remains in force. On 23 October 2008, the European Parliament
adopted a resolution that recognized the Holodomor as a crime against humanity
.
On 12 January 2010, the court of appeals in Kiev
opened hearings into the "fact of genocide-famine Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932-33". In May 2009 the Security Service of Ukraine started a criminal case "in relation to the genocide in Ukraine in 1932-33". In a ruling on 13 January 2010 the court found Joseph Stalin
and other Bolshevik
leaders guilty of genocide against the Ukrainians. The court dropped criminal proceedings against the leaders, Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov
, Lazar Kaganovich
, Stanislav Kosior
, Pavel Postyshev
and others, who had all died years before. This decision became effective on 21 January 2010.
On 27 April 2010, a draft Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
resolution declared the famine was caused by the "cruel and deliberate actions and policies of the Soviet regime" and was responsible for the deaths of "millions of innocent people" in Ukraine, Belarus
, Kazakhstan
, Moldova
and Russia. Even though PACE found Stalin guilty of causing the famine, they rejected several amendments to the resolution, which proposed the Holodomor be recognized as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people.
In Ukrainian
the word holod means "hunger
", and mor means "plague". The expression moryty holodom means "to inflict death by hunger." The Ukrainian verb "moryty" (морити) means "to poison somebody, drive to exhaustion or to torment somebody". The perfective form of the verb "moryty" is "zamoryty" "kill or drive to death by hunger, exhausting work".
The word “Holodomor” is given in the modern, two-volume dictionary of the Ukrainian language as "artificial hunger, organised in vast scale by the criminal regime against the country's population." Sometimes the expression is translated into English as "murder by hunger or starvation."
as well as the Moldavian ASSR
(a part of the Ukrainian S.S.R. at the time) in the spring of 1932 and from February to July 1933, with the greatest number of victims recorded in the spring of 1933. The population in every part of the territory did not suffer from the Holodomor for the whole period.
There are reports that famine stopped directly at the border between Ukraine and the Russian (and Belarusian) republics. Between 1926 and 1939, the Ukrainian population increased by 6.6%, whereas Russia and Belarus grew by 16.9% and 11.7%, respectively.
From the 1932 harvest Soviet authorities were able to procure only 4.3 million tons as compared with 7.2 million tons obtained from the 1931 harvest. Rations in town were drastically cut back, and in the winter of 1932-33 and spring of 1933 many urban areas were starved.
The urban workers were supplied by a rationing
system (and therefore could occasionally assist their starving relatives of the countryside), but rations were gradually cut and by the spring of 1933, the urban residents also faced starvation. At the same time, workers were shown agitprop
movies, where all peasants were portrayed as counterrevolutionaries hiding grain and potatoes at the time when workers, who are constructing the “bright future” of socialism, were starving.
The first reports of mass malnutrition and deaths from starvation emerged from two urban areas of Uman
, reported in January 1933 by the Vinnytsya
and Kiev
oblast
s. By mid-January 1933 there were reports about mass “difficulties” with food in urban areas, which had been undersupplied through the rationing system, and deaths from starvation among people who were withdrawn from the rationing supply. This was to comply with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Decree December 1932. By the beginning of February 1933, according to reports from local authorities and Ukrainian GPU, the most affected area was Dnipropetrovsk Oblast
, which also suffered from epidemics of typhus
and malaria
. Odessa
and Kiev oblasts were second and third, respectively. By mid-March, most reports originated from Kiev Oblast.
By mid-April 1933, the Kharkiv Oblast
reached the top of the most affected list, while Kiev, Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa, Vinnytsya, Donetsk oblasts and Moldavian SSR followed it. Reports about mass deaths from starvation, dated mid-May through the beginning of June 1933, originated from raion
s in Kiev and Kharkiv oblasts. The “less affected” list noted the Chernihiv Oblast
and northern parts of Kiev and Vinnytsya oblasts. The Central Committee of the CP(b) of Ukraine Decree of 8 February 1933, said no hunger cases should have remained untreated. Local authorities had to submit reports about the numbers suffering from hunger, the reasons for hunger, number of deaths from hunger, food aid provided from local sources, and centrally provided food aid required. The GPU managed parallel reporting and food assistance in the Ukrainian SSR. (Many regional reports and most of the central summary reports are available from present-day central and regional Ukrainian archives.)
Evidence of widespread cannibalism
was documented during the Holodomor. The Soviet regime printed posters declaring: "To eat your own children is a barbarian act." More than 2500 people were convicted of cannibalism during the Holodomor.
The Ukrainian Weekly, which was tracking the situation in 1933, reported the difficulties in communications and appalling situation in the Ukraine. In addition, on 1 December 1933 the newspaper reported a mass protest planned to take place in Syracuse, New York
.
historian Timothy Snyder
in his book Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010), were adopted in and largely limited to Ukraine at the end of 1932 and 1933. Snyder lists seven crucial policies that applied only, or mainly, to Soviet Ukraine. He states: "Each of them may seem like an anodyne administrative measure, and each of them was certainly presented as such at the time, and yet each had to kill":
and thus may fall under the legal definition of genocide
.
Several thousand Ukrainian peasants managed to cross the river Dniester
into Romania, and received asylum there. Many were killed during the crossing by Soviet border-guards.
long denied
that the famine had taken place. The NKVD
(and later KGB
) archives on the Holodomor period made records available very slowly. The exact number of the victims remains unknown and is probably impossible to estimate, even within a margin of error of a hundred thousand. The media sometimes report historians' estimates of fatalities as high as seven to ten million. and a number as high as ten. Some historians consider Holodomor to be just a part of a bigger genocide that took place against Ukrainians during the existence of the USSR, writing that up to twenty million were killed during the duration of the USSR. The former President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko
, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
have issued public statements giving the death toll at about 10 million. The use of this figure has been criticized by historians Timothy Snyder
and Stephen G. Wheatcroft
. Snyder wrote: "President Viktor Yushchenko does his country a grave disservice by claiming ten million deaths, thus exaggerating the number of Ukrainians killed by a factor of three; but it is true that the famine in Ukraine of 1932-1933 was a result of purposeful political decisions, and killed about three million people." In an email to Postmedia News, Wheatcroft wrote: "I find it regrettable that Stephen Harper and other leading Western politicians are continuing to use such exaggerated figures for Ukrainian famine mortality" and "There is absolutely no basis for accepting a figure of 10 million Ukrainians dying as a result of the famine of 1932-33."
Some estimates are based on the people who died within the 1933 borders of Ukraine; while others are based on deaths within current borders of Ukraine. Other estimates are based on deaths of Ukrainians in the Soviet Union. Some estimates use a simple methodology: based on the percentage of deaths reported in one area, they apply the percentage to the entire country. Others use more sophisticated techniques, including analyzing the demographic statistics based on various archival data. Some historians question the accuracy of Soviet censuses, since they may have been doctored to support Soviet propaganda. Other estimates come from recorded discussion between world leaders like Churchill and Stalin. In an August 1942 conversation, Stalin gave Churchill his estimates of the number of "kulak
s" who were repressed for resisting collectivization as 10 million, in all of the Soviet Union, rather than only in Ukraine. When using this number, Stalin implied that it included not only those who lost their lives, but also forcibly deported.
Additional variations were due to some estimates including the death toll from political repression: e.g., those who died in the Gulag labor camps
, while others estimated only those who starved to death. In addition, many of the estimates are based on different time periods. Thus, a definitive number of deaths continues to be a source of great debate.
The estimates prior to the opening of former Soviet archives also varied widely but the range was narrower: for example, 2.5 million (Volodymyr Kubiyovych
), 4.8 million (Vasyl Hryshko) and 5 million (Robert Conquest
).
One modern calculation that uses demographic data, including that recently available from Soviet archives, narrows the losses to about 3.2 million or, allowing for the lack of precise data, 3 million to 3.5 million.
The Soviet archives show that excess deaths in Ukraine in 1932-1933 numbered a minimum of 1.8 million (2.7 including birth losses). It should be noted that this source further states "Depending upon the estimations made concerning unregistered mortality and natality, these figures could be increased to a level of 2.8 million to a maximum of 4.8 million excess deaths and to 3.7 million to a maximum of 6.7 million population losses (including birth losses)". In 1932-1933, there were a combined 1.2 million cases of typhus
and 500,000 cases of typhoid fever
. All major types of disease, apart from cancer, tend to increase during famine as a result of undernourishment lowering resistance, as well as unsanitary conditions from populations too weak to care for themselves, or migrating to refugee camps; thus, these deaths resulted primarily from disease rather than starvation per se. In the years 1932–34, the largest rate of increase was recorded for typhus, which is spread by lice
. In conditions of harvest failure and increased poverty, lice are likely to increase. Gathering numerous refugees at railway stations, on trains and elsewhere facilitates the spread. In 1933, the number of recorded cases was 20 times the 1929 level. The number of cases per head of population recorded in Ukraine in 1933 was already considerably higher than in the USSR as a whole. By June 1933, incidence in Ukraine had increased to nearly 10 times the January level, and it was much higher than in the rest of the USSR.
The number of the recorded excess deaths extracted from the birth/death statistics from the Soviet archives is contradictory. The data fails to add up to the differences between the results of the 1927 Census and the 1937 Census
.
Kulchytsky summarized the natural population change. The declassified Soviet statistics show a decrease of 538,000 people in the population of Soviet Ukraine between 1926 census (28,925,976) and 1937 census (28,388,000). The number of births and deaths (in thousands) according to the declassified records are given in the table (right).
According to the correction for officially non-accounted child mortality
in 1933 by 150,000 calculated by Sergei Maksudov, the number of births for 1933 should be increased from 471,000 to 621,000. Assuming the natural mortality rates in 1933 to be equal to the average annual mortality rate in 1927-1930 (524,000 per year), a natural population growth for 1933 would have been 97,000. This was five times less than the growth in the previous three years (1927–1930). The natural population growth from 1927 to 1936 should have been 4.043 million, while the census data showed a decrease of 538,000. The sum of the two numbers gives an estimated total demographic loss of 4.581 million people.
Estimates of the human losses due to famine must account for the numbers involved in migration (including forced resettlement
). According to Soviet statistics, the migration balance for the population in Ukraine for 1927 - 1936 period was a loss of 1.343 million people. Even when the data was collected, the Soviet statistical institutions acknowledged that the precision was less than for the data of the natural population change. The total number of death in Ukraine due to unnatural causes for the given ten years was 3.238 million; accounting for the lack of precision, estimates of the human toll range from 2.2 million to 3.5 million deaths.
In addition to the direct losses from unnatural deaths, the indirect losses due to the decrease of the birth rate should be taken into account in consideration in estimating of the demographic consequences of the Famine for Ukraine. For instance, the natural population growth in 1927 was 662,000, while in 1933 it was 97,000, [this does not fit with the table, it had to be a decline of 1.379 thousand, i.e., approx. 1.4 million] in 1934 it was 88,000. The combination of direct and indirect losses from Holodomor gives 4.469 million, of which 3.238 million (or more realistically 3 to 3.5 million) is the number of the direct deaths according to this estimate.
A 2002 study by Vallin et al. utilizing some similar primary sources to Kulchytsky, and performing an analysis with more sophisticated demographic tools with forward projection of expected growth from the 1926 census and backward projection from the 1939 census estimate the amount of direct deaths for 1933 as 2.582 million. This number of deaths does not reflect the total demographic loss for Ukraine from these events as the fall of the birth rate during crisis and the out-migration contribute to the latter as well. The total population shortfall from the expected value between 1926 and 1939 estimated by Vallin amounted to 4.566 million. Of this number, 1.057 million is attributed to birth deficit, 930,000 to forced out-migration, and 2.582 million to the combination of excess mortality and voluntary out-migration. With the latter assumed to be negligible this estimate gives the number of deaths as the result of the 1933 famine about 2.2 million. According to this study the life expectancy
for those born in 1933 sharply fell to 10.8 years for females and to 7.3 years for males and remained abnormally low for 1934 but, as commonly expected for the post-crisis peaked in 1935–36.
According to historian Timothy Snyder
, the recorded figure of excess deaths was 2.4 million. However, Snyder claims that this figure is "substantially low" due to many deaths going unrecorded. Snyder states that demographic calculations carried out by the Ukrainian government provide a figure of 3.89 million dead, and opined that the actual figure is likely between these two figures, approximately 3.3 million deaths to starvation and disease related to the starvation in Ukraine from 1932-1933. Snyder also estimates that of the million people who died in Soviet Russia from famine at the same time, approximately 200,000 were ethnic Ukrainians due to Ukrainian-inhabited regions being particularly hard hit in Russia.
According to estimates about 81.3% of the famine victims in Ukrainian SRR were ethnic Ukrainians, 4.5% Russians
, 1.4% Jews
and 1.1% were Poles
. Many Belarusians
, Hungarians, Volga Germans and other nationalities became victims as well. The Ukrainian rural population was the hardest hit by the Holodomor. Since the peasantry constituted a demographic backbone of the Ukrainian nation, the tragedy deeply affected the Ukrainians for many years.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the overall number of Ukrainians who died from 1932-1933 famine is estimated as about four to five million out of six to eight million people who died in the Soviet Union as a whole.
, the author of the "Harvest of Sorrow", initially believed that the famine of 1932–33 was a deliberate act of mass murder
, if not genocide committed as part of Joseph Stalin
's collectivization program in the Soviet Union. In criticism of his work, Mark Tauger claims that Conquest's book on the famine is replete with errors and inconsistencies and that it deserves to be considered an example of Cold War lack of objectivity.
R.W. Davies and Stephen G. Wheatcroft
have interacted with Conquest and note that he no longer considers "that Stalin purposely inflicted the 1933 famine." They quoted the Conquest words where he argued "that with resulting famine imminent, he [Stalin] could have prevented it, but put 'Soviet interest' other than feeding the starving first - thus consciously abetting it." Conquest—and, by extension, Davies and Wheatcroft—believe that, had industrialization been abandoned, the famine would have been "prevented" (Conquest), or at least significantly alleviated:
They see the leadership under Stalin as making significant errors in planning for the industrialization of agriculture.
This retraction by Conquest is also noted by Kulchytsky.
Dr. Michael Ellman
of the University of Amsterdam argues that, in addition to deportations
, internment in the Gulag
and shootings (See: Law of Spikelets
), there is some evidence that Stalin used starvation as a weapon in his war against the peasantry. He analyses the actions of the Soviet authorities, two of commission and one of omission: (i) exporting 1.8 million tonnes of grain during the mass starvation (enough to feed more than five million people for one year), (ii) preventing migration from famine afflicted areas (which may have cost an estimated 150,000 lives) and (iii) making no effort to secure grain assistance from abroad (which caused an estimated 1.5 million excess deaths), as well as the attitude of the Stalinist regime in 1932–33 (that many of those starving to death were "counterrevolutionaries", "idlers" or "thieves" who fully deserved their fate). Based on this analysis he concludes, however, that the actions of Stalin's authorities against Ukrainians do not meet the standards of specific intent required to proof genocide as defined by the UN convention (the notable exception is the case of Kuban Ukrainians). Ellman further concluded that if the relaxed definition
of genocide is used, the actions of Stalin's authorities do fit such a definition of genocide. However, this more relaxed definition of genocide makes the latter the common historical event, according to Ellman.
Regarding the aforementioned actions taken by Stalin in the early 1930s, Ellman unambiguously states that, from the standpoint of contemporary international criminal law, Stalin is "clearly guilty" of "a series of crimes against humanity" and that, from the standpoint of national criminal law, the only way to defend Stalin from a charge of mass murder
is "to argue he was ignorant of the consequences of his actions." He also rebukes Davies and Wheatcroft for, among other things, their "very narrow understanding" of intent. He states:
Genocide scholar Adam Jones
stresses that, while controversial, some of the actions of the Soviet leadership during 1931-32 should be considered genocidal. Not only did the famine kill millions, it took place against "a backdrop of persecution, mass execution, and incarceration clearly aimed at undermining Ukrainians as a national group." Norman Naimark
, a historian at Stanford University
who specializes in modern East European history, genocide and ethnic cleansing
, argues that some of the actions of Stalin's regime, not only those during the Holodomor but also Dekulakization
and targeted campaigns
against particular ethnic groups, can be looked at as genocidal. In 2006, the Security Service of Ukraine declassified more than 5 thousand pages of Holodomor archives. These documents suggest that the Soviet regime singled out Ukraine by not giving it the same humanitarian aid given to regions outside it.
Some historians maintain that the famine was an unintentional consequence of collectivization, and that the associated resistance
to it by the Ukrainian peasantry exacerbated an already-poor harvest. Some researchers state that while the term Ukrainian Genocide is often used in application to the event, technically, the use of the term "genocide" is inapplicable.
The statistical distribution of famine's victims among the ethnicities closely reflects the ethnic distribution of the rural population of Ukraine Moldavian, Polish, German and Bulgarian population that mostly resided in the rural communities of Ukraine suffered in the same proportion as the rural Ukrainian population. While ethnic Russians in Ukraine lived mostly in urban areas and the cities were affected little by the famine, the rural Russian population was affected the same way as the rural population of any other ethnicity.
West Virginia University professor Dr Mark Tauger claims that any analysis that asserts that the harvests of 1931 and 1932 were not extraordinarily low and that the famine was a political measure intentionally imposed through excessive procurements is based on an insufficient source base and an uncritical approach to the official sources. Other scholars, such as Dr. David Marples, professor of history at the University of Alberta, have been critical of Tauger's claims. Wheatcroft states Tauger's view represents the opposite extreme in arguing the famine was totally accidental.
Author James Mace was one of the first to claim that the famine constituted genocide. But British economist Stephen Wheatcroft, who studied the famine, believed that Mace's work debased the field of Russian studies. However, Wheatcroft's characterization of the famine deaths as largely excusable, negligent homicide has been challenged by economist Steven Rosefielde
, who states:
Timothy Snyder
, Professor of History at Yale University
, asserts that in 1933 "Joseph Stalin was deliberately starving Ukraine" through a "heartless campaign of requisitions that began Europe's era of mass killing." He argues the Soviets themselves "made sure that the term genocide, contrary to Lemkin's intentions, excluded political and economic groups." Thus the Ukrainian famine can be presented as "somehow less genocidal because it targeted a class, kulaks, as well as a nation, Ukraine."
In his 1953 speech the "father of the [UN] Genocide Convention," Dr Raphael Lemkin
described "the destruction of the Ukrainian nation" as the "classic example of genocide," for "...the Ukrainian is not and never has been a Russian. His culture, his temperament, his language, his religion, are all different...to eliminate (Ukrainian) nationalism...the Ukrainian peasantry was sacrificed...a famine was necessary for the Soviet and so they got one to order...if the Soviet program succeeds completely, if the intelligentsia, the priest, and the peasant can be eliminated [then] Ukraine will be as dead as if every Ukrainian were killed, for it will have lost that part of it which has kept and developed its culture, its beliefs, its common ideas, which have guided it and given it a soul, which, in short, made it a nation...This is not simply a case of mass murder. It is a case of genocide, of the destruction, not of individuals only, but of a culture and a nation."
Mr.Chamberlin was a Moscow correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor for 10 years. In 1934 he was reassigned to the Far East
. After he left the Soviet Union
he wrote his account of the situation in Ukraine and North Caucasus (Poltava
, Bila Tserkva
, and Kropotkin). Chamberlin later published couple of books "Russia's Iron Age" and "The Ukraine: A Submerged Nation".
and Louis Fischer
. Denial of the famine by Soviet authorities was immediate and continued into the 1980s. The denial of the famine was a well orchestrated and highly successful disinformation
campaign by the Soviet government. Stalin "had achieved the impossible: he had silenced all the talk of hunger... Millions were dying, but the nation hymned the praises of collectivization", wrote Edvard Radzinsky
. This was the first major instance of Soviet authorities adopting Hitler
's Big Lie
propaganda technique to sway world opinion according to Robert Conquest
.
The famine remains a politically charged topic; hence, heated debates are likely to continue for a long time. Until around 1990, the debates were largely between the so called "denial camp" who refused to recognize the very existence of the famine or stated that it was caused by natural reasons (such as a poor harvest), scholars who accepted reports of famine but saw it as a policy blunder followed by the botched relief effort, and scholars who alleged that it was intentional and specifically anti-Ukrainian or even an act of genocide against the Ukrainians as a nation.
Nowadays, scholars agree that the famine affected millions. While it is also accepted that the famine affected other nationalities in addition to Ukrainians, the debate is still ongoing as to whether or not the Holodomor qualifies as an act of genocide, since the facts that the famine itself took place and that it was unnatural are not disputed. As far as the possible effect of the natural causes, the debate is restricted to whether the poor harvest or post-traumatic stress played any role at all and to what degree the Soviet actions were caused by the country's economic and military needs as viewed by the Soviet leadership.
In 2007, President
Viktor Yushchenko
declared he wants "a new law criminalising Holodomor denial," while Communist Party
head Petro Symonenko
said he "does not believe there was any deliberate starvation at all," and accused Yushchenko of "using the famine to stir up hatred." Few in Ukraine share Symonenko's interpretation of history and the number of Ukrainians who deny the famine or view it as caused by natural reasons is steadily falling.
On 10 November 2003 at the United Nations twenty-five countries including Russia, Ukraine and United States signed a joint statement on the seventieth anniversary of the Holodomor with the following preamble:
Nation-wide, the political repression of 1937 (The Great Purge
) under the guidance of Nikolay Yezhov were known for their ferocity and ruthlessness, but Lev Kopelev
wrote, "In Ukraine 1937 began in 1933", referring to the comparatively early beginning of the Soviet crackdown in Ukraine.
While the famine was well documented at the time
, its reality has been disputed for ideological
reasons, for instance by the Soviet government and its spokespeople (as well as apologists for the Soviet regime), by others due to being deliberately misled by the Soviet government (such as George Bernard Shaw
), and, in at least one case, Walter Duranty
, for personal gain.
An example of a late-era Holodomor objector is Canadian journalist
Douglas Tottle
, author of Fraud, Famine and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard (published by Moscow-based Soviet publisher Progress Publishers
in 1987). Tottle claims that while there were severe economic hardships in Ukraine, the idea of the Holodomor was fabricated as propaganda
by Nazi Germany
and William Randolph Hearst
to justify a German invasion
.
On 26 April 2010, newly elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych
, told Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
members that Holodomor was a common tragedy that struck Ukrainians and other Soviet peoples, and that it would be wrong to recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide against one nation. He stated that "The Holodomor was in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. It was the result of Stalin's totalitarian regime. But it would be wrong and unfair to recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide against one nation." In response to Yanukovych's statements, the Our Ukraine Party alleged that Yanukovych directly violated Ukrainian law which defines the Holodomor as genocide against the Ukrainian people and makes public denial of the Holodomor unlawful. Our Ukraine Party also asserted that Yanukovych "ignored a ruling of 13 January 2010 by Kiev's Court of Appeal, which recognized the leaders of the totalitarian Bolshevik regime as those guilty of 'genocide against the Ukrainian national group in 1932-33 through the artificial creation of living conditions intended for its partial physical destruction.'"
In 2006, the Holodomor Remembrance Day took place on 25 November. President
Viktor Yushchenko
directed, in decree No. 868/2006, that a minute of silence should be observed at 4 o'clock in the afternoon on that Saturday. The document specified that flags in Ukraine
should fly at half-staff
as a sign of mourning. In addition, the decree directed that entertainment events are to be restricted and television and radio programming adjusted accordingly.
In 2007, the 74th anniversary of the Holodomor was commemorated in Kiev for three days on the Maidan Nezalezhnosti
. As part of the three day event, from November 23-25th, video testimonies of the communist regime's crimes in Ukraine, and documentaries by famous domestic and foreign film directors are being shown. Additionally, experts and scholars gave lectures on the topic. Additionally, on 23 November 2007, the National Bank of Ukraine issued a set of two commemorative coins remembering the Holodomor.
As of September 2009, Ukrainian schoolchildren will take a more extensive course of the history of the Holodomor and OUN
and UPA fighters.
On 17 May 2010 President Viktor Yanukovych
and President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev
visited the Memorial to the Holodomor Victims in Kiev
to commemorate the victims of the famine.
s marked the beginning of National Holodomor Awareness Week. Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney
attended a vigil in Kiev
. In November 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited the Holodomor memorial in Kiev, however, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych did not join him.
On 9 April 2009 the Province of Ontario unanimously passed bill 147 – The Holodomor Memorial Day Act, which calls for the fourth Saturday in November to be a day of remembrance. This was the first piece of legislation in the Province’s history to be introduced with Tri-Partisan sponsorship: Dave Levac
, MPP for Brant (Liberal Party); Cheri DiNovo
, MPP for Parkdale—High Park (NDP); and Frank Klees
, MPP for Newmarket—Aurora (PC) were the joint initiators of the bill. MPP Levac was made a chevalier of Ukraine's Order of Merit
.
On 2 June 2010 the Province of Quebec unanimously passed bill 390 - "Memorial Day Act on the great Ukrainian famine and genocide (the Holodomor)."
A permanent monument was erected in Edmonton
in 1983.
A monument to the Holodomor has been erected on Calgary's Memorial Drive
, itself originally designated to honour Canadian servicemen of the First World War. The monument is located near Ukrainian Pioneer Park in the district of Renfrew
, which pays tribute to the contributions of Ukrainian immigrants to Canada.
On 25 September 2010, a new Holodomor monument "Dzvin Pam'yati - Holodomor Genocide by Famine in Ukraine 1932-1933" (ДЗВІН ПАМ'ЯТІ - ПО 10 000 000 ЖЕРТВ ГОЛОДОМОР ҐЕНОЦИДУ В УКРАЇНІ) was unveiled at St. Mary's Ukrainian Catholic Church, Mississauga, Canada.
in Chicago to commemorate the famine which took lives of seven million Ukrainian lives. The Ukrainian Weekly also reported about another meeting taking place on 27 February 1982 in the parish center of the Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of the Holy Family
in commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Great Famine caused by the Soviet authorities. Other events in commemoration were held in other places around the United States as well.
On 2 December 2008, a groundbreaking ceremony was held in Washington, D.C.
for the Holodomor Memorial. On 13 November 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama
released a statement on the Ukrainian Holodomor Remembrance Day. In this he said that "remembering the victims of the man-made catastrophe of Holodomor provides us an opportunity to reflect upon the plight of all those who have suffered the consequences of extremism and tyranny around the world". NSC Spokesman Mike Hammer released a similar statement on 20 November 2010.
Also on 2 December 2008, St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City had a ceremony for the Holodomor.
On 29 May 2008, the city of Baltimore
held a candlelight commemoration for the Holodomor at the War Memorial Plaza in front of City Hall. This ceremony was part of the larger international journey of the "International Holodomor Remembrance Torch", which began in Kiev and made its way though thirty-three countries. Twenty-two other US cities were also visited during the tour. Then-Mayor Sheila Dixon
presided over the ceremony and declared 29 May to be “Ukrainian Genocide Remembrance Day in Baltimore”. She referred to the Holodomor “among the worst cases of man’s inhumanity towards man”.
External links
Famine in Ukraine 1932–1933 at the Central State Archive of Ukraine (photos, links)
Famine
A famine is a widespread scarcity of food, caused by several factors including crop failure, overpopulation, or government policies. This phenomenon is usually accompanied or followed by regional malnutrition, starvation, epidemic, and increased mortality. Every continent in the world has...
in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine
History of Ukraine
The territory of Ukraine was a key center of East Slavic culture in the Middle Ages, before being divided between a variety of powers. However, the history of Ukraine dates back many thousands of years. The territory has been settled continuously since at least 5000 BC, and is also a candidate site...
.
Early estimates of the death toll by scholars and government officials varied greatly; anywhere from 1.8 to 12 million ethnic Ukrainians were said to have been killed as a result of the famine. Recent research has since narrowed the estimates to between 2.4 and 7.5 million. The exact number of deaths is hard to determine, due to a lack of records, but the number increases significantly when the deaths inside heavily Ukrainian-populated Kuban
Kuban
Kuban is a geographic region of Southern Russia surrounding the Kuban River, on the Black Sea between the Don Steppe, Volga Delta and the Caucasus...
are included. The demographic deficit caused by unborn or unrecorded births is said to be as high as 6 million. Older estimates are still often cited in political commentary.
Scholars disagree on the relative importance of natural factors and bad economic policies as causes of the famine and the degree to which the destruction of the Ukrainian peasantry was premeditated on the part of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
. Scholars and politicians using the word Holodomor emphasize the man-made aspects of the famine, arguing that it was genocide
Genocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
; some consider the resultant loss of life comparable to the Holocaust. They argue that the Soviet policies were an attack on the rise of Ukrainian nationalism
Ukrainian nationalism
Ukrainian nationalism refers to the Ukrainian version of nationalism.Although the current Ukrainian state emerged fairly recently, some historians, such as Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, Orest Subtelny and Paul Magosci have cited the medieval state of Kievan Rus' as an early precedents of specifically...
and therefore fall under the legal definition of genocide
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948 as General Assembly Resolution 260. The Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951. It defines genocide in legal terms, and is the culmination of...
. Other scholars argue that the Holodomor was a consequence of the economic problems associated with radical economic changes implemented during the period of Soviet industrialization.
Legal recognition
As of March 2008, several governments have recognized the actions of the Soviet government as an act of genocideGenocide
Genocide is defined as "the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious, or national group", though what constitutes enough of a "part" to qualify as genocide has been subject to much debate by legal scholars...
. The joint statement at the United Nations
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
in 2003 has defined the famine as the result of actions and policies of the totalitarian regime that caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians, Russians, Kazakhs
Kazakhs
The Kazakhs are a Turkic people of the northern parts of Central Asia ....
and other nationalities in the USSR. On 28 November 2006, the Verkhovna Rada
Verkhovna Rada
The Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine is Ukraine's parliament. The Verkhovna Rada is a unicameral parliament composed of 450 deputies, which is presided over by a chairman...
(Ukrainian Parliament) narrowly passed a law defining the Holodomor as a deliberate act of genocide and made public denial illegal. Even though in April 2010 newly elected president Yanukovych reversed Yushchenko
Yushchenko
Yushchenko is a Ukrainian surname.*Viktor Yushchenko, is the third President of Ukraine*Kateryna Yushchenko, the wife of Viktor Yushchenko...
's policy on the Holodomor famine, the law has not been repealed and remains in force. On 23 October 2008, the European Parliament
European Parliament
The European Parliament is the directly elected parliamentary institution of the European Union . Together with the Council of the European Union and the Commission, it exercises the legislative function of the EU and it has been described as one of the most powerful legislatures in the world...
adopted a resolution that recognized the Holodomor as a crime against humanity
Crime against humanity
Crimes against humanity, as defined by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court Explanatory Memorandum, "are particularly odious offenses in that they constitute a serious attack on human dignity or grave humiliation or a degradation of one or more human beings...
.
On 12 January 2010, the court of appeals in Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
opened hearings into the "fact of genocide-famine Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932-33". In May 2009 the Security Service of Ukraine started a criminal case "in relation to the genocide in Ukraine in 1932-33". In a ruling on 13 January 2010 the court found Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
and other Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
leaders guilty of genocide against the Ukrainians. The court dropped criminal proceedings against the leaders, Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Molotov
Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov was a Soviet politician and diplomat, an Old Bolshevik and a leading figure in the Soviet government from the 1920s, when he rose to power as a protégé of Joseph Stalin, to 1957, when he was dismissed from the Presidium of the Central Committee by Nikita Khrushchev...
, Lazar Kaganovich
Lazar Kaganovich
Lazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich was a Soviet politician and administrator and one of the main associates of Joseph Stalin.-Early life:Kaganovich was born in 1893 to Jewish parents in the village of Kabany, Radomyshl uyezd, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire...
, Stanislav Kosior
Stanislav Kosior
Stanislav Vikentyevich Kosior, sometimes spelled Kossior was one of three Kosior brothers, Polish-born Soviet politicians. He was General Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, deputy prime minister of the USSR, and a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union...
, Pavel Postyshev
Pavel Postyshev
Pavel Petrovich Postyshev was a Soviet politician. He is considered to be one of the principal architects of the so-called man-made famine of 1932–33, or Holodomor.Postyshev was born in Ivanovo-Voznesensk....
and others, who had all died years before. This decision became effective on 21 January 2010.
On 27 April 2010, a draft Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe , which held its first session in Strasbourg on 10 August 1949, can be considered the oldest international parliamentary assembly with a pluralistic composition of democratically elected members of parliament established on the basis of an...
resolution declared the famine was caused by the "cruel and deliberate actions and policies of the Soviet regime" and was responsible for the deaths of "millions of innocent people" in Ukraine, Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
, Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
, Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
and Russia. Even though PACE found Stalin guilty of causing the famine, they rejected several amendments to the resolution, which proposed the Holodomor be recognized as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people.
Etymology
The word "Holodomor" literally translated from Ukrainian means "death by hunger," or "to kill by hunger, to starve to death." The word was used in print as early as 1978 by Ukrainian immigrant organizations in the United States and Canada. An early public usage of the term in the Soviet Union was in February 1988, in a speech by Oleksiy Musiyenko, Deputy Secretary for ideological matters of the party organization of the Kiev branch of the Union of Soviet Writers in Ukraine, and may have first appeared in print in the Soviet Union on 18 July 1988, in his article on the topic.In Ukrainian
Ukrainian language
Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a variant of the Cyrillic alphabet....
the word holod means "hunger
Hunger
Hunger is the most commonly used term to describe the social condition of people who frequently experience the physical sensation of desiring food.-Malnutrition, famine, starvation:...
", and mor means "plague". The expression moryty holodom means "to inflict death by hunger." The Ukrainian verb "moryty" (морити) means "to poison somebody, drive to exhaustion or to torment somebody". The perfective form of the verb "moryty" is "zamoryty" "kill or drive to death by hunger, exhausting work".
The word “Holodomor” is given in the modern, two-volume dictionary of the Ukrainian language as "artificial hunger, organised in vast scale by the criminal regime against the country's population." Sometimes the expression is translated into English as "murder by hunger or starvation."
Scope and duration
The famine affected the Ukrainian SSRUkrainian SSR
The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic or in short, the Ukrainian SSR was a sovereign Soviet Socialist state and one of the fifteen constituent republics of the Soviet Union lasting from its inception in 1922 to the breakup in 1991...
as well as the Moldavian ASSR
Moldavian ASSR
The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic , shortened to Moldavian ASSR or, less frequently, Moldovan ASSR, was an autonomous republic of the Ukrainian SSR between 12 October 1924 and 2 August 1940, encompassing modern Transnistria The Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic...
(a part of the Ukrainian S.S.R. at the time) in the spring of 1932 and from February to July 1933, with the greatest number of victims recorded in the spring of 1933. The population in every part of the territory did not suffer from the Holodomor for the whole period.
There are reports that famine stopped directly at the border between Ukraine and the Russian (and Belarusian) republics. Between 1926 and 1939, the Ukrainian population increased by 6.6%, whereas Russia and Belarus grew by 16.9% and 11.7%, respectively.
From the 1932 harvest Soviet authorities were able to procure only 4.3 million tons as compared with 7.2 million tons obtained from the 1931 harvest. Rations in town were drastically cut back, and in the winter of 1932-33 and spring of 1933 many urban areas were starved.
The urban workers were supplied by a rationing
Rationing
Rationing is the controlled distribution of scarce resources, goods, or services. Rationing controls the size of the ration, one's allotted portion of the resources being distributed on a particular day or at a particular time.- In economics :...
system (and therefore could occasionally assist their starving relatives of the countryside), but rations were gradually cut and by the spring of 1933, the urban residents also faced starvation. At the same time, workers were shown agitprop
Agitprop
Agitprop is derived from agitation and propaganda, and describes stage plays, pamphlets, motion pictures and other art forms with an explicitly political message....
movies, where all peasants were portrayed as counterrevolutionaries hiding grain and potatoes at the time when workers, who are constructing the “bright future” of socialism, were starving.
The first reports of mass malnutrition and deaths from starvation emerged from two urban areas of Uman
Uman
Uman is a city located in the Cherkasy Oblast in central Ukraine, to the east of Vinnytsia. The city rests on the banks of the Umanka River at around , and serves as the self-governing administrative center of the Umanskyi Raion ....
, reported in January 1933 by the Vinnytsya
Vinnytsia Oblast
Vinnytsia Oblast is an oblast of Ukraine. Its administrative center is Vinnytsia.-Geography:The area of the region is 26,500 km²; its population is 1.7 million....
and Kiev
Kiev Oblast
Kyiv Oblast, sometimes written as Kiev Oblast is an oblast in central Ukraine.The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Kyiv , also being the capital of Ukraine...
oblast
Oblast
Oblast is a type of administrative division in Slavic countries, including some countries of the former Soviet Union. The word "oblast" is a loanword in English, but it is nevertheless often translated as "area", "zone", "province", or "region"...
s. By mid-January 1933 there were reports about mass “difficulties” with food in urban areas, which had been undersupplied through the rationing system, and deaths from starvation among people who were withdrawn from the rationing supply. This was to comply with the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine Decree December 1932. By the beginning of February 1933, according to reports from local authorities and Ukrainian GPU, the most affected area was Dnipropetrovsk Oblast
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast
Dnipropetrovsk Oblast is an oblast of central Ukraine, the most important industrial region of the country. Its administrative center is Dnipropetrovsk....
, which also suffered from epidemics of typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and malaria
Malaria
Malaria is a mosquito-borne infectious disease of humans and other animals caused by eukaryotic protists of the genus Plasmodium. The disease results from the multiplication of Plasmodium parasites within red blood cells, causing symptoms that typically include fever and headache, in severe cases...
. Odessa
Odessa Oblast
Odesa Oblast, also written as Odessa Oblast , is the southernmost and largest oblast of south-western Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Odessa.-History:...
and Kiev oblasts were second and third, respectively. By mid-March, most reports originated from Kiev Oblast.
By mid-April 1933, the Kharkiv Oblast
Kharkiv Oblast
Kharkiv Oblast is an oblast in eastern Ukraine. The oblast borders Russia to the north, Luhansk Oblast to the east, Donetsk Oblast to the south-east, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast to the south-west, Poltava Oblast to the west and Sumy Oblast to the north-west...
reached the top of the most affected list, while Kiev, Dnipropetrovsk, Odessa, Vinnytsya, Donetsk oblasts and Moldavian SSR followed it. Reports about mass deaths from starvation, dated mid-May through the beginning of June 1933, originated from raion
Raion
A raion is a type of administrative unit of several post-Soviet countries. The term, which is from French rayon 'honeycomb, department,' describes both a type of a subnational entity and a division of a city, and is commonly translated in English as "district"...
s in Kiev and Kharkiv oblasts. The “less affected” list noted the Chernihiv Oblast
Chernihiv Oblast
Chernihiv Oblast is an oblast of northern Ukraine. The administrative center of the oblast is the city of Chernihiv.-Geography:The total area of the province is around 31,900 km²....
and northern parts of Kiev and Vinnytsya oblasts. The Central Committee of the CP(b) of Ukraine Decree of 8 February 1933, said no hunger cases should have remained untreated. Local authorities had to submit reports about the numbers suffering from hunger, the reasons for hunger, number of deaths from hunger, food aid provided from local sources, and centrally provided food aid required. The GPU managed parallel reporting and food assistance in the Ukrainian SSR. (Many regional reports and most of the central summary reports are available from present-day central and regional Ukrainian archives.)
Evidence of widespread cannibalism
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
was documented during the Holodomor. The Soviet regime printed posters declaring: "To eat your own children is a barbarian act." More than 2500 people were convicted of cannibalism during the Holodomor.
The Ukrainian Weekly, which was tracking the situation in 1933, reported the difficulties in communications and appalling situation in the Ukraine. In addition, on 1 December 1933 the newspaper reported a mass protest planned to take place in Syracuse, New York
Syracuse, New York
Syracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...
.
The special nature of famine in Ukraine
Although famine, caused by collectivization, raged in many parts of the Soviet Union in 1932, special and particularly lethal policies, described by YaleYALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
historian Timothy Snyder
Timothy Snyder
Timothy D. Snyder is an American professor of history at Yale University, specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the Holocaust...
in his book Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin (2010), were adopted in and largely limited to Ukraine at the end of 1932 and 1933. Snyder lists seven crucial policies that applied only, or mainly, to Soviet Ukraine. He states: "Each of them may seem like an anodyne administrative measure, and each of them was certainly presented as such at the time, and yet each had to kill":
- From 18 November 1932 peasants from Ukraine were required to return extra grain they had previously earned for meeting their targets. State police and party brigades were sent into these regions to root out any food they could find.
- Two days later, a law was passed forcing peasants who could not meet their grain quotas to surrender any livestock they had.
- Eight days later, collective farms that failed to meet their quotas were placed on "blacklists" in which they were forced to surrender 15 times their quota. These farms were picked apart for any possible food by party activists. Blacklisted communes had no right to trade or to receive deliveries of any kind, and became death zones.
- On 5 December 1932, Stalin's security chief presented the justification for terrorizing Ukrainian party officials to collect the grain. It was considered treason if anyone refused to do their part in grain requisitions for the state.
- In November 1932 Ukraine was required to provide 1/3 of the grain collection of the entire Soviet Union. As Lazar KaganovichLazar KaganovichLazar Moiseyevich Kaganovich was a Soviet politician and administrator and one of the main associates of Joseph Stalin.-Early life:Kaganovich was born in 1893 to Jewish parents in the village of Kabany, Radomyshl uyezd, Kiev Governorate, Russian Empire...
put it, the Soviet state would fight "ferociously" to fulfill the plan. - In January 1933 Ukraine's borders were sealed in order to prevent Ukrainian peasants from fleeing to other republics. By the end of February 1933 approximately 190,000 Ukrainian peasants had been caught trying to flee Ukraine and were forced to return to their villages to starve.
- The collection of grain continued even after the annual requisition target for 1932 was met in late January 1933.
Causes
The reasons for the famine are a subject of scholarly and political debate. Some scholars suggest that the famine was a consequence of the economic problems associated with economic changes implemented during the period of Soviet industrialization. However, it has been suggested by other historians that the Soviet leadership used the famine to attack Ukrainian nationalismUkrainian nationalism
Ukrainian nationalism refers to the Ukrainian version of nationalism.Although the current Ukrainian state emerged fairly recently, some historians, such as Mykhailo Hrushevskyi, Orest Subtelny and Paul Magosci have cited the medieval state of Kievan Rus' as an early precedents of specifically...
and thus may fall under the legal definition of genocide
Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide
The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948 as General Assembly Resolution 260. The Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951. It defines genocide in legal terms, and is the culmination of...
.
Implementation and abuse
On 7 August 1932 a law came into force that stipulated that all food was state property and that mere possession of food was evidence of a crime. Among the most enthusiastic enforcers of the law were urban members of youth organizations, educated under the Soviet system, who fanned out into the countryside in order to prevent the "theft" of state property. They constructed and staffed watchtowers (over 700 in the Odessa region alone) to ensure that no peasants took food home from the fields. The youth brigades lived off the land, eating what they confiscated from the peasants. They often humiliated the starving peasants by forcing them to box each other for sport, or forcing them to crawl and bark like dogs. Under the pretext of grain confiscation, the brigades routinely raped women living alone.Several thousand Ukrainian peasants managed to cross the river Dniester
Dniester
The Dniester is a river in Eastern Europe. It runs through Ukraine and Moldova and separates most of Moldova's territory from the breakaway de facto state of Transnistria.-Names:...
into Romania, and received asylum there. Many were killed during the crossing by Soviet border-guards.
Death toll
By the end of 1933, millions of people had starved to death or had otherwise died unnaturally in Ukraine, as well as in other Soviet republics. The total estimate of the famine victims Soviet-wide is given as 6-7 million or 6-8 million. The Soviet UnionSoviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
long denied
Denial of the Holodomor
Denial of the Holodomor is the assertion that the 1932-1933 Holodomor, an artificial famine in Soviet Ukraine, recognized as a crime against humanity by the European Parliament, did not occur....
that the famine had taken place. The NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
(and later KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
) archives on the Holodomor period made records available very slowly. The exact number of the victims remains unknown and is probably impossible to estimate, even within a margin of error of a hundred thousand. The media sometimes report historians' estimates of fatalities as high as seven to ten million. and a number as high as ten. Some historians consider Holodomor to be just a part of a bigger genocide that took place against Ukrainians during the existence of the USSR, writing that up to twenty million were killed during the duration of the USSR. The former President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is a former President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005, following a period of popular unrest known as the Orange Revolution...
, and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper
Stephen Harper
Stephen Joseph Harper is the 22nd and current Prime Minister of Canada and leader of the Conservative Party. Harper became prime minister when his party formed a minority government after the 2006 federal election...
have issued public statements giving the death toll at about 10 million. The use of this figure has been criticized by historians Timothy Snyder
Timothy Snyder
Timothy D. Snyder is an American professor of history at Yale University, specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the Holocaust...
and Stephen G. Wheatcroft
Stephen G. Wheatcroft
Steven G. Wheatcroft is professor of the School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne. His research interests include Russian pre-revolutionary and Soviet social, economic and demographic history , as well as famine and food supply problems in modern world history, the impact of media on...
. Snyder wrote: "President Viktor Yushchenko does his country a grave disservice by claiming ten million deaths, thus exaggerating the number of Ukrainians killed by a factor of three; but it is true that the famine in Ukraine of 1932-1933 was a result of purposeful political decisions, and killed about three million people." In an email to Postmedia News, Wheatcroft wrote: "I find it regrettable that Stephen Harper and other leading Western politicians are continuing to use such exaggerated figures for Ukrainian famine mortality" and "There is absolutely no basis for accepting a figure of 10 million Ukrainians dying as a result of the famine of 1932-33."
Some estimates are based on the people who died within the 1933 borders of Ukraine; while others are based on deaths within current borders of Ukraine. Other estimates are based on deaths of Ukrainians in the Soviet Union. Some estimates use a simple methodology: based on the percentage of deaths reported in one area, they apply the percentage to the entire country. Others use more sophisticated techniques, including analyzing the demographic statistics based on various archival data. Some historians question the accuracy of Soviet censuses, since they may have been doctored to support Soviet propaganda. Other estimates come from recorded discussion between world leaders like Churchill and Stalin. In an August 1942 conversation, Stalin gave Churchill his estimates of the number of "kulak
Kulak
Kulaks were a category of relatively affluent peasants in the later Russian Empire, Soviet Russia, and early Soviet Union...
s" who were repressed for resisting collectivization as 10 million, in all of the Soviet Union, rather than only in Ukraine. When using this number, Stalin implied that it included not only those who lost their lives, but also forcibly deported.
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
, while others estimated only those who starved to death. In addition, many of the estimates are based on different time periods. Thus, a definitive number of deaths continues to be a source of great debate.
The estimates prior to the opening of former Soviet archives also varied widely but the range was narrower: for example, 2.5 million (Volodymyr Kubiyovych
Volodymyr Kubiyovych
Volodymyr Mykhailovych Kubiyovych, also spelled Kubiiovych or Kubijovyč , Austria-Hungary - 2 November 1985, Paris, France) was a Ukrainian geographer with a specialty in demography, a cartographer, an encyclopedist, politician, and statesman...
), 4.8 million (Vasyl Hryshko) and 5 million (Robert Conquest
Robert Conquest
George Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...
).
One modern calculation that uses demographic data, including that recently available from Soviet archives, narrows the losses to about 3.2 million or, allowing for the lack of precise data, 3 million to 3.5 million.
The Soviet archives show that excess deaths in Ukraine in 1932-1933 numbered a minimum of 1.8 million (2.7 including birth losses). It should be noted that this source further states "Depending upon the estimations made concerning unregistered mortality and natality, these figures could be increased to a level of 2.8 million to a maximum of 4.8 million excess deaths and to 3.7 million to a maximum of 6.7 million population losses (including birth losses)". In 1932-1933, there were a combined 1.2 million cases of typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
and 500,000 cases of typhoid fever
Typhoid fever
Typhoid fever, also known as Typhoid, is a common worldwide bacterial disease, transmitted by the ingestion of food or water contaminated with the feces of an infected person, which contain the bacterium Salmonella enterica, serovar Typhi...
. All major types of disease, apart from cancer, tend to increase during famine as a result of undernourishment lowering resistance, as well as unsanitary conditions from populations too weak to care for themselves, or migrating to refugee camps; thus, these deaths resulted primarily from disease rather than starvation per se. In the years 1932–34, the largest rate of increase was recorded for typhus, which is spread by lice
Louse
Lice is the common name for over 3,000 species of wingless insects of the order Phthiraptera; three of which are classified as human disease agents...
. In conditions of harvest failure and increased poverty, lice are likely to increase. Gathering numerous refugees at railway stations, on trains and elsewhere facilitates the spread. In 1933, the number of recorded cases was 20 times the 1929 level. The number of cases per head of population recorded in Ukraine in 1933 was already considerably higher than in the USSR as a whole. By June 1933, incidence in Ukraine had increased to nearly 10 times the January level, and it was much higher than in the rest of the USSR.
The number of the recorded excess deaths extracted from the birth/death statistics from the Soviet archives is contradictory. The data fails to add up to the differences between the results of the 1927 Census and the 1937 Census
Soviet Census (1937)
The Soviet Census held on January 6, 1937 was the most controversial of the censuses taken within the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. The census results were destroyed and its organizers were sent to the Gulag as saboteurs because the census showed much lower population figures than...
.
| Year | Typhus | Typhoid Fever | Relapsing Fever | Smallpox | Malaria |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1913 | 120 | 424 | 30 | 67 | 3600 |
| 1918-22 | 1300 | 293 | 639 | 106 | 2940 (average) |
| 1929 | 40 | 170 | 6 | 8 | 3000 |
| 1930 | 60 | 190 | 5 | 10 | 2700 |
| 1931 | 80 | 260 | 4 | 30 | 3200 |
| 1932 | 220 | 300 | 12 | 80 | 4500 |
| 1933 | 800 | 210 | 12 | 38 | 6500 |
| 1934 | 410 | 200 | 10 | 16 | 9477 |
| 1935 | 120 | 140 | 6 | 4 | 9924 |
| 1936 | 100 | 120 | 3 | 0.5 | 6500 |
Kulchytsky summarized the natural population change. The declassified Soviet statistics show a decrease of 538,000 people in the population of Soviet Ukraine between 1926 census (28,925,976) and 1937 census (28,388,000). The number of births and deaths (in thousands) according to the declassified records are given in the table (right).
According to the correction for officially non-accounted child mortality
Child mortality
Child mortality, also known as under-5 mortality, refers to the death of infants and children under the age of five. In 2010, 7.6 million children under five died , down from 8.1 million in 2009, 8.8 million in 2008, and 12.4 million in 1990. About half of child deaths occur in Africa....
in 1933 by 150,000 calculated by Sergei Maksudov, the number of births for 1933 should be increased from 471,000 to 621,000. Assuming the natural mortality rates in 1933 to be equal to the average annual mortality rate in 1927-1930 (524,000 per year), a natural population growth for 1933 would have been 97,000. This was five times less than the growth in the previous three years (1927–1930). The natural population growth from 1927 to 1936 should have been 4.043 million, while the census data showed a decrease of 538,000. The sum of the two numbers gives an estimated total demographic loss of 4.581 million people.
Estimates of the human losses due to famine must account for the numbers involved in migration (including forced resettlement
Population transfer in the Soviet Union
Population transfer in the Soviet Union may be classified into the following broad categories: deportations of "anti-Soviet" categories of population, often classified as "enemies of workers," deportations of entire nationalities, labor force transfer, and organized migrations in opposite...
). According to Soviet statistics, the migration balance for the population in Ukraine for 1927 - 1936 period was a loss of 1.343 million people. Even when the data was collected, the Soviet statistical institutions acknowledged that the precision was less than for the data of the natural population change. The total number of death in Ukraine due to unnatural causes for the given ten years was 3.238 million; accounting for the lack of precision, estimates of the human toll range from 2.2 million to 3.5 million deaths.
| Year | Births | Deaths | Natural change |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1927 | 1184 | 523 | 661 |
| 1928 | 1139 | 496 | 643 |
| 1929 | 1081 | 539 | 542 |
| 1930 | 1023 | 536 | 487 |
| 1931 | 975 | 515 | 460 |
| 1932 | 782 | 668 | 114 |
| 1933 | 471 | 1850 | -1379 |
| 1934 | 571 | 483 | 88 |
| 1935 | 759 | 342 | 417 |
| 1936 | 895 | 361 | 534 |
In addition to the direct losses from unnatural deaths, the indirect losses due to the decrease of the birth rate should be taken into account in consideration in estimating of the demographic consequences of the Famine for Ukraine. For instance, the natural population growth in 1927 was 662,000, while in 1933 it was 97,000, [this does not fit with the table, it had to be a decline of 1.379 thousand, i.e., approx. 1.4 million] in 1934 it was 88,000. The combination of direct and indirect losses from Holodomor gives 4.469 million, of which 3.238 million (or more realistically 3 to 3.5 million) is the number of the direct deaths according to this estimate.
A 2002 study by Vallin et al. utilizing some similar primary sources to Kulchytsky, and performing an analysis with more sophisticated demographic tools with forward projection of expected growth from the 1926 census and backward projection from the 1939 census estimate the amount of direct deaths for 1933 as 2.582 million. This number of deaths does not reflect the total demographic loss for Ukraine from these events as the fall of the birth rate during crisis and the out-migration contribute to the latter as well. The total population shortfall from the expected value between 1926 and 1939 estimated by Vallin amounted to 4.566 million. Of this number, 1.057 million is attributed to birth deficit, 930,000 to forced out-migration, and 2.582 million to the combination of excess mortality and voluntary out-migration. With the latter assumed to be negligible this estimate gives the number of deaths as the result of the 1933 famine about 2.2 million. According to this study the life expectancy
Life expectancy
Life expectancy is the expected number of years of life remaining at a given age. It is denoted by ex, which means the average number of subsequent years of life for someone now aged x, according to a particular mortality experience...
for those born in 1933 sharply fell to 10.8 years for females and to 7.3 years for males and remained abnormally low for 1934 but, as commonly expected for the post-crisis peaked in 1935–36.
According to historian Timothy Snyder
Timothy Snyder
Timothy D. Snyder is an American professor of history at Yale University, specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the Holocaust...
, the recorded figure of excess deaths was 2.4 million. However, Snyder claims that this figure is "substantially low" due to many deaths going unrecorded. Snyder states that demographic calculations carried out by the Ukrainian government provide a figure of 3.89 million dead, and opined that the actual figure is likely between these two figures, approximately 3.3 million deaths to starvation and disease related to the starvation in Ukraine from 1932-1933. Snyder also estimates that of the million people who died in Soviet Russia from famine at the same time, approximately 200,000 were ethnic Ukrainians due to Ukrainian-inhabited regions being particularly hard hit in Russia.
According to estimates about 81.3% of the famine victims in Ukrainian SRR were ethnic Ukrainians, 4.5% Russians
Russians
The Russian people are an East Slavic ethnic group native to Russia, speaking the Russian language and primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries....
, 1.4% Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
and 1.1% were Poles
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
. Many Belarusians
Belarusians
Belarusians ; are an East Slavic ethnic group who populate the majority of the Republic of Belarus. Introduced to the world as a new state in the early 1990s, the Republic of Belarus brought with it the notion of a re-emerging Belarusian ethnicity, drawn upon the lines of the Old Belarusian...
, Hungarians, Volga Germans and other nationalities became victims as well. The Ukrainian rural population was the hardest hit by the Holodomor. Since the peasantry constituted a demographic backbone of the Ukrainian nation, the tragedy deeply affected the Ukrainians for many years.
According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the overall number of Ukrainians who died from 1932-1933 famine is estimated as about four to five million out of six to eight million people who died in the Soviet Union as a whole.
Genocide question
Robert ConquestRobert Conquest
George Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...
, the author of the "Harvest of Sorrow", initially believed that the famine of 1932–33 was a deliberate act of mass murder
Mass murder
Mass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people , typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders...
, if not genocide committed as part of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's collectivization program in the Soviet Union. In criticism of his work, Mark Tauger claims that Conquest's book on the famine is replete with errors and inconsistencies and that it deserves to be considered an example of Cold War lack of objectivity.
R.W. Davies and Stephen G. Wheatcroft
Stephen G. Wheatcroft
Steven G. Wheatcroft is professor of the School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne. His research interests include Russian pre-revolutionary and Soviet social, economic and demographic history , as well as famine and food supply problems in modern world history, the impact of media on...
have interacted with Conquest and note that he no longer considers "that Stalin purposely inflicted the 1933 famine." They quoted the Conquest words where he argued "that with resulting famine imminent, he [Stalin] could have prevented it, but put 'Soviet interest' other than feeding the starving first - thus consciously abetting it." Conquest—and, by extension, Davies and Wheatcroft—believe that, had industrialization been abandoned, the famine would have been "prevented" (Conquest), or at least significantly alleviated:
They see the leadership under Stalin as making significant errors in planning for the industrialization of agriculture.
This retraction by Conquest is also noted by Kulchytsky.
Dr. Michael Ellman
Michael Ellman
Michael Ellman has been a professor of economics at the University of Amsterdam since 1978. He has written extensively on the economics of the Soviet Union, transition economics, Russia and comparative economic systems.- Prizes and honours :* Foreign member of the Russian Academy of Economic...
of the University of Amsterdam argues that, in addition to deportations
Population transfer in the Soviet Union
Population transfer in the Soviet Union may be classified into the following broad categories: deportations of "anti-Soviet" categories of population, often classified as "enemies of workers," deportations of entire nationalities, labor force transfer, and organized migrations in opposite...
, internment in the Gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
and shootings (See: Law of Spikelets
Law of Spikelets
Law of Spikelets or Law of Three Spikelets was a common name of the Soviet law to protect state property of kolkhozes. The common name came into use because the law was used to prosecute not only property thieves but also anyone who collected as little as a handful of grain or "spikelets" left...
), there is some evidence that Stalin used starvation as a weapon in his war against the peasantry. He analyses the actions of the Soviet authorities, two of commission and one of omission: (i) exporting 1.8 million tonnes of grain during the mass starvation (enough to feed more than five million people for one year), (ii) preventing migration from famine afflicted areas (which may have cost an estimated 150,000 lives) and (iii) making no effort to secure grain assistance from abroad (which caused an estimated 1.5 million excess deaths), as well as the attitude of the Stalinist regime in 1932–33 (that many of those starving to death were "counterrevolutionaries", "idlers" or "thieves" who fully deserved their fate). Based on this analysis he concludes, however, that the actions of Stalin's authorities against Ukrainians do not meet the standards of specific intent required to proof genocide as defined by the UN convention (the notable exception is the case of Kuban Ukrainians). Ellman further concluded that if the relaxed definition
Genocide definitions
This is a list of scholarly and international legal definitions of genocide, a word coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1944. While there are various definitions of the term, almost all international bodies of law officially adjudicate the crime of genocide pursuant to the Convention on the Prevention and...
of genocide is used, the actions of Stalin's authorities do fit such a definition of genocide. However, this more relaxed definition of genocide makes the latter the common historical event, according to Ellman.
Regarding the aforementioned actions taken by Stalin in the early 1930s, Ellman unambiguously states that, from the standpoint of contemporary international criminal law, Stalin is "clearly guilty" of "a series of crimes against humanity" and that, from the standpoint of national criminal law, the only way to defend Stalin from a charge of mass murder
Mass murder
Mass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people , typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders...
is "to argue he was ignorant of the consequences of his actions." He also rebukes Davies and Wheatcroft for, among other things, their "very narrow understanding" of intent. He states:
Genocide scholar Adam Jones
Adam Jones (Canadian scholar)
Adam Jones is a political scientist, writer, and photojournalist based at the University of British Columbia Okanagan in Kelowna, BC, Canada. He is executive director of the nongovernmental organization Gendercide Watch...
stresses that, while controversial, some of the actions of the Soviet leadership during 1931-32 should be considered genocidal. Not only did the famine kill millions, it took place against "a backdrop of persecution, mass execution, and incarceration clearly aimed at undermining Ukrainians as a national group." Norman Naimark
Norman Naimark
Norman M. Naimark is an American historian, and author who specializes in modern Eastern European history, and genocide and ethnic cleansing in the region....
, a historian at Stanford University
Stanford University
The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...
who specializes in modern East European history, genocide and ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
, argues that some of the actions of Stalin's regime, not only those during the Holodomor but also Dekulakization
Dekulakization
Dekulakization was the Soviet campaign of political repressions, including arrests, deportations, and executions of millions of the better-off peasants and their families in 1929-1932. The richer peasants were labeled kulaks and considered class enemies...
and targeted campaigns
Polish operation of the NKVD
The Genocide of Poles in the Soviet Union often referred to as, the Polish operation of the NKVD, was a coordinated action of the Soviet NKVD and the Communist Party in 1937–1938 against the entire Polish minority living in the Soviet Union, representing only 0.4 percent of Soviet citizens...
against particular ethnic groups, can be looked at as genocidal. In 2006, the Security Service of Ukraine declassified more than 5 thousand pages of Holodomor archives. These documents suggest that the Soviet regime singled out Ukraine by not giving it the same humanitarian aid given to regions outside it.
Some historians maintain that the famine was an unintentional consequence of collectivization, and that the associated resistance
Resistance movement
A resistance movement is a group or collection of individual groups, dedicated to opposing an invader in an occupied country or the government of a sovereign state. It may seek to achieve its objects through either the use of nonviolent resistance or the use of armed force...
to it by the Ukrainian peasantry exacerbated an already-poor harvest. Some researchers state that while the term Ukrainian Genocide is often used in application to the event, technically, the use of the term "genocide" is inapplicable.
The statistical distribution of famine's victims among the ethnicities closely reflects the ethnic distribution of the rural population of Ukraine Moldavian, Polish, German and Bulgarian population that mostly resided in the rural communities of Ukraine suffered in the same proportion as the rural Ukrainian population. While ethnic Russians in Ukraine lived mostly in urban areas and the cities were affected little by the famine, the rural Russian population was affected the same way as the rural population of any other ethnicity.
West Virginia University professor Dr Mark Tauger claims that any analysis that asserts that the harvests of 1931 and 1932 were not extraordinarily low and that the famine was a political measure intentionally imposed through excessive procurements is based on an insufficient source base and an uncritical approach to the official sources. Other scholars, such as Dr. David Marples, professor of history at the University of Alberta, have been critical of Tauger's claims. Wheatcroft states Tauger's view represents the opposite extreme in arguing the famine was totally accidental.
Author James Mace was one of the first to claim that the famine constituted genocide. But British economist Stephen Wheatcroft, who studied the famine, believed that Mace's work debased the field of Russian studies. However, Wheatcroft's characterization of the famine deaths as largely excusable, negligent homicide has been challenged by economist Steven Rosefielde
Steven Rosefielde
Steven Rosefielde is a Professor of Comparative Economic Systems at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.. He is also a member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.-Selected works:...
, who states:
Timothy Snyder
Timothy Snyder
Timothy D. Snyder is an American professor of history at Yale University, specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the Holocaust...
, Professor of History at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, asserts that in 1933 "Joseph Stalin was deliberately starving Ukraine" through a "heartless campaign of requisitions that began Europe's era of mass killing." He argues the Soviets themselves "made sure that the term genocide, contrary to Lemkin's intentions, excluded political and economic groups." Thus the Ukrainian famine can be presented as "somehow less genocidal because it targeted a class, kulaks, as well as a nation, Ukraine."
In his 1953 speech the "father of the [UN] Genocide Convention," Dr Raphael Lemkin
Raphael Lemkin
Raphael Lemkin was a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent. He is best known for his work against genocide, a word he coined in 1943 from the root words genos and -cide...
described "the destruction of the Ukrainian nation" as the "classic example of genocide," for "...the Ukrainian is not and never has been a Russian. His culture, his temperament, his language, his religion, are all different...to eliminate (Ukrainian) nationalism...the Ukrainian peasantry was sacrificed...a famine was necessary for the Soviet and so they got one to order...if the Soviet program succeeds completely, if the intelligentsia, the priest, and the peasant can be eliminated [then] Ukraine will be as dead as if every Ukrainian were killed, for it will have lost that part of it which has kept and developed its culture, its beliefs, its common ideas, which have guided it and given it a soul, which, in short, made it a nation...This is not simply a case of mass murder. It is a case of genocide, of the destruction, not of individuals only, but of a culture and a nation."
Mr.Chamberlin was a Moscow correspondent of the Christian Science Monitor for 10 years. In 1934 he was reassigned to the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
. After he left the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
he wrote his account of the situation in Ukraine and North Caucasus (Poltava
Poltava
Poltava is a city in located on the Vorskla River in central Ukraine. It is the administrative center of the Poltava Oblast , as well as the surrounding Poltava Raion of the oblast. Poltava's estimated population is 298,652 ....
, Bila Tserkva
Bila Tserkva
Bila Tserkva is a city located on the Ros' River in the Kiev Oblast in central Ukraine, approximately south of the capital, Kiev. Population 203,300 Area 34 km².-Administrative status:...
, and Kropotkin). Chamberlin later published couple of books "Russia's Iron Age" and "The Ukraine: A Submerged Nation".
Soviet and Western denial
Holodomor denials are the assertions that the 1932-1933 famine in Soviet Ukraine did not occur. Denying the existence of the famine was the Soviet state's position, and reflected in both Soviet propaganda and the work of some Western journalists and intellectuals including Walter DurantyWalter Duranty
Walter Duranty was a Liverpool-born British journalist who served as the Moscow bureau chief of the New York Times from 1922 through 1936. Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for a set of stories written in 1931 on the Soviet Union...
and Louis Fischer
Louis Fischer
Louis Fischer was a Jewish-American journalist. Among his works were a contribution to the ex-Communist treatise The God that Failed, The Life of Lenin, which won a 1965 National Book Award, as well as a biography of Mahatma Gandhi entitled The Life of Mahatma Gandhi...
. Denial of the famine by Soviet authorities was immediate and continued into the 1980s. The denial of the famine was a well orchestrated and highly successful disinformation
Disinformation
Disinformation is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately. For this reason, it is synonymous with and sometimes called black propaganda. It is an act of deception and false statements to convince someone of untruth...
campaign by the Soviet government. Stalin "had achieved the impossible: he had silenced all the talk of hunger... Millions were dying, but the nation hymned the praises of collectivization", wrote Edvard Radzinsky
Edvard Radzinsky
Edvard Stanislavovich Radzinsky is a Russian playwright, writer, TV personality, and film screenwriter. He is also known as an author of several books on history which were characterized as "folk history" by journalists and academic historians.-Biography:Edvard Stanislavovich Radzinsky was born...
. This was the first major instance of Soviet authorities adopting Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
's Big Lie
Big Lie
The Big Lie is a propaganda technique. The expression was coined by Adolf Hitler, when he dictated his 1925 book Mein Kampf, about the use of a lie so "colossal" that no one would believe that someone "could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously." Hitler asserted the technique was...
propaganda technique to sway world opinion according to Robert Conquest
Robert Conquest
George Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...
.
In modern politics
Nowadays, scholars agree that the famine affected millions. While it is also accepted that the famine affected other nationalities in addition to Ukrainians, the debate is still ongoing as to whether or not the Holodomor qualifies as an act of genocide, since the facts that the famine itself took place and that it was unnatural are not disputed. As far as the possible effect of the natural causes, the debate is restricted to whether the poor harvest or post-traumatic stress played any role at all and to what degree the Soviet actions were caused by the country's economic and military needs as viewed by the Soviet leadership.
In 2007, President
President of Ukraine
Prior to the formation of the modern Ukrainian presidency, the previous Ukrainian head of state office was officially established in exile by Andriy Livytskyi. At first the de facto leader of nation was the president of the Central Rada at early years of the Ukrainian People's Republic, while the...
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is a former President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005, following a period of popular unrest known as the Orange Revolution...
declared he wants "a new law criminalising Holodomor denial," while Communist Party
Communist Party of Ukraine
The Communist Party of Ukraine is a political party in Ukraine, currently led by Petro Symonenko.The party fights the Ukrainian national self-determination by identifying any Ukrainian national parties as the National-Fascist ones The Communist Party of Ukraine is a political party in Ukraine,...
head Petro Symonenko
Petro Symonenko
Petro Mykolayovych Symonenko is a Ukrainian politician and the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Ukraine. Symonenko was the Communist Party's candidate in both the 1999 and 2004 presidential elections. During the Ukrainian presidential election, 2010 he was the candidate of the Election...
said he "does not believe there was any deliberate starvation at all," and accused Yushchenko of "using the famine to stir up hatred." Few in Ukraine share Symonenko's interpretation of history and the number of Ukrainians who deny the famine or view it as caused by natural reasons is steadily falling.
On 10 November 2003 at the United Nations twenty-five countries including Russia, Ukraine and United States signed a joint statement on the seventieth anniversary of the Holodomor with the following preamble:
In the former Soviet Union millions of men, women and children fell victims to the cruel actions and policies of the totalitarian regime. The Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine (Holodomor), which took from 7 million to 10 million innocent lives and became a national tragedy for the Ukrainian people. In this regard we note activities in observance of the seventieth anniversary of this Famine, in particular organized by the Government of Ukraine.
Honouring the seventieth anniversary of the Ukrainian tragedy, we also commemorate the memory of millions of Russians, Kazakhs and representatives of other nationalities who died of starvation in the Volga River region, Northern Caucasus, KazakhstanKazakhstanKazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
and in other parts of the former Soviet Union, as a result of civil war and forced collectivization, leaving deep scars in the consciousness of future generations.
Nation-wide, the political repression of 1937 (The Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
) under the guidance of Nikolay Yezhov were known for their ferocity and ruthlessness, but Lev Kopelev
Lev Kopelev
Lev Zalmanovich Kopelev was a Soviet author and a dissident.- Biography :...
wrote, "In Ukraine 1937 began in 1933", referring to the comparatively early beginning of the Soviet crackdown in Ukraine.
While the famine was well documented at the time
Gareth Jones (journalist)
Gareth Richard Vaughan Jones was a Welsh journalist who first publicised the existence of the Great Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33, the Holodomor, in the Western world.-Life and career:...
, its reality has been disputed for ideological
Ideology
An ideology is a set of ideas that constitutes one's goals, expectations, and actions. An ideology can be thought of as a comprehensive vision, as a way of looking at things , as in common sense and several philosophical tendencies , or a set of ideas proposed by the dominant class of a society to...
reasons, for instance by the Soviet government and its spokespeople (as well as apologists for the Soviet regime), by others due to being deliberately misled by the Soviet government (such as George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
), and, in at least one case, Walter Duranty
Walter Duranty
Walter Duranty was a Liverpool-born British journalist who served as the Moscow bureau chief of the New York Times from 1922 through 1936. Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for a set of stories written in 1931 on the Soviet Union...
, for personal gain.
An example of a late-era Holodomor objector is Canadian journalist
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
Douglas Tottle
Douglas Tottle
Douglas Tottle is a Canadian trade union activist and the author of a book about the Ukrainian famine of 1932–1933 entitled Fraud, Famine, and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard...
, author of Fraud, Famine and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard (published by Moscow-based Soviet publisher Progress Publishers
Progress Publishers
Progress Publishers was a Moscow-based Soviet publisher founded in 1931.It was noted for its English-language editions of books on Marxism-Leninism....
in 1987). Tottle claims that while there were severe economic hardships in Ukraine, the idea of the Holodomor was fabricated as propaganda
Propaganda
Propaganda is a form of communication that is aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause or position so as to benefit oneself or one's group....
by Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
to justify a German invasion
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
.
On 26 April 2010, newly elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych
Viktor Yanukovych
Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a Ukrainian politician who has been the President of Ukraine since February 2010.Yanukovych served as the Governor of Donetsk Oblast from 1997 to 2002...
, told Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe , which held its first session in Strasbourg on 10 August 1949, can be considered the oldest international parliamentary assembly with a pluralistic composition of democratically elected members of parliament established on the basis of an...
members that Holodomor was a common tragedy that struck Ukrainians and other Soviet peoples, and that it would be wrong to recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide against one nation. He stated that "The Holodomor was in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Kazakhstan. It was the result of Stalin's totalitarian regime. But it would be wrong and unfair to recognize the Holodomor as an act of genocide against one nation." In response to Yanukovych's statements, the Our Ukraine Party alleged that Yanukovych directly violated Ukrainian law which defines the Holodomor as genocide against the Ukrainian people and makes public denial of the Holodomor unlawful. Our Ukraine Party also asserted that Yanukovych "ignored a ruling of 13 January 2010 by Kiev's Court of Appeal, which recognized the leaders of the totalitarian Bolshevik regime as those guilty of 'genocide against the Ukrainian national group in 1932-33 through the artificial creation of living conditions intended for its partial physical destruction.'"
Remembrance
To honour those who perished in the Holodomor, monuments have been dedicated and public events held annually in Ukraine and worldwide. The first public monument to the Holodomor was erected and dedicated outside City Hall in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada in 1983 to mark the 50th anniversary of the famine-genocide. Since then, the fourth Saturday in November has in many jurisdictions been marked as the official day of remembrance for people who died as a result of the 1932-33 Holodomor and political repression.In 2006, the Holodomor Remembrance Day took place on 25 November. President
President of Ukraine
Prior to the formation of the modern Ukrainian presidency, the previous Ukrainian head of state office was officially established in exile by Andriy Livytskyi. At first the de facto leader of nation was the president of the Central Rada at early years of the Ukrainian People's Republic, while the...
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Yushchenko
Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko is a former President of Ukraine. He took office on January 23, 2005, following a period of popular unrest known as the Orange Revolution...
directed, in decree No. 868/2006, that a minute of silence should be observed at 4 o'clock in the afternoon on that Saturday. The document specified that flags in Ukraine
Flag of Ukraine
The flag of Ukraine is the national flag of Ukraine. The national flag was officially adopted for the first time in 1918 by a short-lived Ukrainian People's Republic. At that time the commonly used yellow–blue flag had already turned into blue and yellow and sported a trident in the upper left...
should fly at half-staff
Half-staff
Half-staff is the American term for to describe a flag flying a flag below the summit of the flagpole . The rest of the English-speaking world uses the term half-mast. Technically the flag should be flown one breadth lower to allow for the invisible flag of death...
as a sign of mourning. In addition, the decree directed that entertainment events are to be restricted and television and radio programming adjusted accordingly.
In 2007, the 74th anniversary of the Holodomor was commemorated in Kiev for three days on the Maidan Nezalezhnosti
Maidan Nezalezhnosti
Maidan Nezalezhnosti is the central square of Kiev, the capital city of Ukraine. One of the main city squares, it is located on the Khreschatyk Street...
. As part of the three day event, from November 23-25th, video testimonies of the communist regime's crimes in Ukraine, and documentaries by famous domestic and foreign film directors are being shown. Additionally, experts and scholars gave lectures on the topic. Additionally, on 23 November 2007, the National Bank of Ukraine issued a set of two commemorative coins remembering the Holodomor.
As of September 2009, Ukrainian schoolchildren will take a more extensive course of the history of the Holodomor and OUN
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists
The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists is a Ukrainian political organization which as a movement originally was created in 1929 in Western Ukraine . The OUN accepted violence as an acceptable tool in the fight against foreign and domestic enemies particularly Poland and Russia...
and UPA fighters.
On 17 May 2010 President Viktor Yanukovych
Viktor Yanukovych
Viktor Fedorovych Yanukovych is a Ukrainian politician who has been the President of Ukraine since February 2010.Yanukovych served as the Governor of Donetsk Oblast from 1997 to 2002...
and President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev
Dmitry Medvedev
Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev is the third President of the Russian Federation.Born to a family of academics, Medvedev graduated from the Law Department of Leningrad State University in 1987. He defended his dissertation in 1990 and worked as a docent at his alma mater, now renamed to Saint...
visited the Memorial to the Holodomor Victims in Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
to commemorate the victims of the famine.
Canada
On 22 November 2008, Ukrainian CanadianUkrainian Canadian
A Ukrainian Canadian is a person of Ukrainian descent or origin who was born in or immigrated to Canada. In 2006, there were an estimated 1,209,085 persons residing in Canada of Ukrainian origin, making them Canada's ninth largest ethnic group; and giving Canada the world's third-largest...
s marked the beginning of National Holodomor Awareness Week. Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister Jason Kenney
Jason Kenney
Jason T. Kenney, PC, MP is Canada's current Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism. He has represented the riding of Calgary Southeast in the Canadian House of Commons since 1997....
attended a vigil in Kiev
Kiev
Kiev or Kyiv is the capital and the largest city of Ukraine, located in the north central part of the country on the Dnieper River. The population as of the 2001 census was 2,611,300. However, higher numbers have been cited in the press....
. In November 2010, Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited the Holodomor memorial in Kiev, however, Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych did not join him.
On 9 April 2009 the Province of Ontario unanimously passed bill 147 – The Holodomor Memorial Day Act, which calls for the fourth Saturday in November to be a day of remembrance. This was the first piece of legislation in the Province’s history to be introduced with Tri-Partisan sponsorship: Dave Levac
Dave Levac
David Joseph "Dave" Levac is a politician in Ontario, Canada. He is a member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, representing the riding of Brant for the Ontario Liberal Party...
, MPP for Brant (Liberal Party); Cheri DiNovo
Cheri DiNovo
Cheri DiNovo, MPP, is a Canadian social democratic politician. She is an United Church of Canada minister and previously headed the Emmanuel-Howard Park congregation in Toronto, Ontario. As the New Democratic Party of Ontario candidate in Parkdale–High Park, she was elected to the Legislative...
, MPP for Parkdale—High Park (NDP); and Frank Klees
Frank Klees
Frank Klees is a Canadian politician and the Progressive Conservative member of Provincial Parliament for the riding of Newmarket—Aurora north of Toronto. He was a candidate in the 2009 Progressive Conservative leadership election placing second behind victor Tim Hudak.-Early life:Klees was born...
, MPP for Newmarket—Aurora (PC) were the joint initiators of the bill. MPP Levac was made a chevalier of Ukraine's Order of Merit
Order of Merit (Ukraine)
The Order of Merit first, second or third class, is the Ukrainian award, given to individuals for outstanding achievements in economics, science, culture, military or political spheres of activity...
.
On 2 June 2010 the Province of Quebec unanimously passed bill 390 - "Memorial Day Act on the great Ukrainian famine and genocide (the Holodomor)."
A permanent monument was erected in Edmonton
Edmonton
Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...
in 1983.
A monument to the Holodomor has been erected on Calgary's Memorial Drive
Memorial Drive (Calgary)
Memorial Drive is a major road in Calgary, Alberta. Besides having an important role in city infrastructure, the tree lined sides of Memorial Drive serve as a living testament to the many soldiers who died during World War I and give it a parkway look on the western section...
, itself originally designated to honour Canadian servicemen of the First World War. The monument is located near Ukrainian Pioneer Park in the district of Renfrew
Renfrew, Calgary
Renfrew is a residential neighborhood in the north-east quadrant of Calgary, Alberta. It is located south of the Trans-Canada Highway, and north of the inner city community of Bridgeland...
, which pays tribute to the contributions of Ukrainian immigrants to Canada.
On 25 September 2010, a new Holodomor monument "Dzvin Pam'yati - Holodomor Genocide by Famine in Ukraine 1932-1933" (ДЗВІН ПАМ'ЯТІ - ПО 10 000 000 ЖЕРТВ ГОЛОДОМОР ҐЕНОЦИДУ В УКРАЇНІ) was unveiled at St. Mary's Ukrainian Catholic Church, Mississauga, Canada.
United States
On 20 March 1982 the Ukrainian Weekly was reporting about a multi-ethnic community meeting that was held on 15 February on the North Shore Drive at the Ukrainian VillageUkrainian Village
Ukrainian Village may refer to:*A village in Ukraine * Ukrainian Village, Chicago, Illinois, a neighborhood* The Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village museum in Alberta, Canada...
in Chicago to commemorate the famine which took lives of seven million Ukrainian lives. The Ukrainian Weekly also reported about another meeting taking place on 27 February 1982 in the parish center of the Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of the Holy Family
Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine of the Holy Family
The Ukrainian Catholic National Shrine is a Catholic church located at 4250 Harewood Rd. NE, Washington, D. C., and a member of one of the sui juris Eastern Catholic churches in communion with the Bishop of Rome....
in commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the Great Famine caused by the Soviet authorities. Other events in commemoration were held in other places around the United States as well.
On 2 December 2008, a groundbreaking ceremony was held in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
for the Holodomor Memorial. On 13 November 2009, U.S. President Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
released a statement on the Ukrainian Holodomor Remembrance Day. In this he said that "remembering the victims of the man-made catastrophe of Holodomor provides us an opportunity to reflect upon the plight of all those who have suffered the consequences of extremism and tyranny around the world". NSC Spokesman Mike Hammer released a similar statement on 20 November 2010.
Also on 2 December 2008, St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City had a ceremony for the Holodomor.
On 29 May 2008, the city of Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
held a candlelight commemoration for the Holodomor at the War Memorial Plaza in front of City Hall. This ceremony was part of the larger international journey of the "International Holodomor Remembrance Torch", which began in Kiev and made its way though thirty-three countries. Twenty-two other US cities were also visited during the tour. Then-Mayor Sheila Dixon
Sheila Dixon
Sheila Ann Dixon served as the forty-eighth Mayor of Baltimore, Maryland. When former Mayor Martin O'Malley was sworn in as Governor on January 17, 2007, Dixon, a Democrat, became mayor and served out the remaining year of O'Malley's term. In November 2007, she was elected mayor...
presided over the ceremony and declared 29 May to be “Ukrainian Genocide Remembrance Day in Baltimore”. She referred to the Holodomor “among the worst cases of man’s inhumanity towards man”.
See also
- Bloodlands: Europe Between Stalin and Hitler
- Great Leap ForwardGreat Leap ForwardThe Great Leap Forward of the People's Republic of China was an economic and social campaign of the Communist Party of China , reflected in planning decisions from 1958 to 1961, which aimed to use China's vast population to rapidly transform the country from an agrarian economy into a modern...
- Famine-33Famine-33Famine-33 is a 1991 film by Oles Yanchuk about the Holodomor famine in Ukraine, and based on the novel The Yellow Prince by Vasyl Barka. The film is told through the lives of the Katrannyks family of six...
- The Soviet StoryThe Soviet StoryThe Soviet Story is a 2008 documentary film about Soviet Communism and Soviet-German collaboration before 1941 written and directed by Edvīns Šnore and sponsored by the UEN Group in the European Parliament....
Declarations and legal acts
- Findings of the Commission on the Ukraine Famine, U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine, Report to Congress. Adopted by the Commission, 19 April 1988
- Joint declaration at the United Nations in connection with 70th anniversary of the Great Famine in Ukraine 1932-1933
- Address of the Verkhovna Rada to the Ukrainian nation on commemorating the victims of Holodomor 1932-1933 (in Ukrainian)
Books and articles
- Snyder, Timothy Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin Basic Books. 28 October 2010. ISBN 978-0465002399.
- Chastushka Journal of American folklore, Volume 89 Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., 1976
- Fürst, Juliane. Stalin's Last Generation: Soviet Post-War Youth and the Emergence of Mature Socialism Oxford University Press. 30 September 2010. ISBN 978-0199575060
- Kowalski, Ludwik. Hell on Earth: Brutality and Violence Under the Stalinist Regime Wasteland Press 30 July 2008. ISBN 978-1600472329
- Ammende, Ewald, Human life in Russia, (Cleveland: J.T. Zubal, 1984), Reprint, Originally published: London, England: Allen & Unwin, 1936.
- The Black Deeds of the Kremlin: a white book, S.O. Pidhainy, Editor-In-Chief, (Toronto: Ukrainian Association of Victims of Russian-Communist Terror, 1953), (Vol. 1 Book of testimonies. Vol. 2. The Great Famine in Ukraine in 1932–1933).
- Davies, R.W., The Socialist offensive: the collectivization of Soviet agriculture, 1929–1930, (London: Macmillan, 1980).
- Der ukrainische Hunger-Holocaust: Stalins verschwiegener Volkermond 1932/33 an 7 Millionen ukrainischen Bauern im Spiegel geheimgehaltener Akten des deutschen Auswartigen Amtes, (Sonnebuhl: H. Wild, 1988), By Dmytro Zlepko. [eine Dokumentation, herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Dmytro Zlepko].
- Luciuk, L. Y. (ed), "Holodomor: Reflections on the Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Soviet Ukraine" (Kingston: Kashtan Press, 200
- Dolot, Miron, Who killed them and why?: in remembrance of those killed in the Famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine, (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University, Ukrainian Studies Fund, 1984).
- Dushnyk, Walter, 50 years ago: the famine holocaust in Ukraine, (New York: Toronto: World Congress of Free Ukrainians, 1983).
- Famine in the Soviet Ukraine 1932–1933: a memorial exhibition, Widener Library, Harvard University, prepared by Oksana Procyk, Leonid Heretz, James E. Mace (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard College Library, distributed by Harvard University Press, 1986).
- Famine in Ukraine 1932-33, edited by Roman Serbyn and Bohdan Krawchenko (Edmonton: Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, 1986). (Selected papers from a conference held at the Universite du Quebec a Montreal in 1983).
- The Great Famine in Ukraine: the unknown holocaust: in solemn observance of the Ukrainian famine of 1932–1933, (Compiled and edited by the editors of the Ukrainian Weekly [Roma Hadzewycz, George B. Zarycky, Martha Kolomayets] Jersey City, N.J.: Ukrainian National Association, 1983).
- Gregorovich, Andrew, “Black Famine in Ukraine 1932-33: A Struggle for Existence”, Forum: A Ukrainian Review, No. 24, (Scranton: Ukrainian Workingmen's Association, 1974).
- Halii, Mykola, Organized famine in Ukraine, 1932–1933, (Chicago: Ukrainian Research and Information Institute, 1963).
- Holod na Ukraini, 1932–1933: vybrani statti, uporiadkuvala Nadiia Karatnyts'ka, (New York: Suchasnist', 1985).
- Hlushanytsia, Pavlo, "Tretia svitova viina Pavla Hlushanytsi The third world war of Pavlo Hlushanytsia, translated by Vera Moroz, (Toronto: Anabasis Magazine, 1986). [Bilingual edition in Ukrainian and English].
- Holod 1932-33 rokiv na Ukraini: ochyma istorykiv, movoij dokumentiv, (Kiev: Vydavnytstvo politychnoyi literatury Ukrainy, 1990).
- Hryshko, Vasyl, Ukrains'kyi 'Holokast', 1933, (New York: DOBRUS; Toronto: SUZHERO, 1978).
- Hryshko, Vasyl, The Ukrainian Holocaust of 1933, Edited and translated by Marco Carynnyk, (Toronto: Bahrianyi Foundation, SUZHERO, DOBRUS, 1983).
- International Commission of Inquiry into the 1932-33 Famine in Ukraine, Proceedings [transcript], May 23–27, 1988, Brussels, Belgium, [Jakob W.F. Sundberg, President; Legal Counsel, World Congress of Free Ukrainians: John Sopinka, Alexandra Chyczij; Legal Council for the Commission, Ian A. Hunter, 1988.
- International Commission of Inquiry into the 1932-33 Famine in Ukraine. Proceedings [transcript], 21 October – 5 November 1988, New York City, [Jakob W.F. Sundberg, President; Counsel for the Petitioner, William Liber; General Counsel, Ian A. Hunter], 1988.
- International Commission of Inquiry into the 1932–1933 Famine in Ukraine. Final report, [Jacob W.F. Sundberg, President], 1990. [Proceedings of the International Commission of Inquiry and its Final report are in typescript, contained in 6 vols. Copies available from the World Congress of Free Ukrainians, Toronto].
- Kalynyk, Oleksa, Communism, the enemy of mankind: documents about the methods and practise of Russian Bolshevik occupation in Ukraine, (London, England: The Ukrainian Youth Association in Great Britain, 1955).
- Klady, Leonard, “Famine Film Harvest of Despair”, Forum: A Ukrainian Review, No. 61, Spring 1985, (Scranton: Ukrainian Fraternal Association, 1985).
- Kolektyvizatsia і Holod na Ukraini 1929–1933: Zbirnyk documentiv і materialiv, Z.M. Mychailycenko, E.P. Shatalina, S.V. Kulcycky, eds., (Kiev: Naukova Dumka, 1992).
- Kostiuk, Hryhory, Stalinist rule in Ukraine: a study of the decade of mass terror, 1929–1939, (Munich: Institut zur Erforschung der UdSSSR, 1960).
- Kovalenko, L.B. & Maniak, B.A., eds., Holod 33: Narodna knyha-memorial, (Kiev: Radians'kyj pys'mennyk, 1991).
- Krawchenko, Bohdan, Social change and national consciousness in twentieth-century Ukraine, (Basingstoke: Macmillan in association with St. Anthony's College, Oxford, 1985).
- Luciuk, Lubomyr (and L Grekul), Holodomor: Reflections on the Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Soviet Ukraine (Kashtan Press, Kingston, 2008.)
- Lettere da Kharkov: la carestia in Ucraina e nel Caucaso del Nord nei rapporti dei diplomatici italiani, 1932-33, a cura di Andrea Graziosi, (Torino: Einaudi, 1991).
- Mace, James E., Communism and the dilemma of national liberation: national communism in Soviet Ukraine, 1918–1933, (Cambridge, Mass.: Distributed by Harvard University Press for the Ukrainian Research Institute and the Ukrainian Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S., 1983).
- Makohon, P., Svidok: Spohady pro 33-ho, (Toronto: Anabasis Magazine, 1983).
- Martchenko, Borys, La famine-genocide en Ukraine: 1932–1933, (Paris: Publications de l'Est europeen, 1983).
- Marunchak, Mykhailo H., Natsiia v borot'bi za svoie isnuvannia: 1932 і 1933 v Ukraini і diiaspori, (Winnipeg: Nakl. Ukrains'koi vil'noi akademii nauk v Kanadi, 1985).
- Memorial, compiled by Lubomyr Y. Luciuk and Alexandra Chyczij; translated into English by Marco Carynnyk, (Toronto: Published by Kashtan Press for Canadian Friends of “Memorial”, 1989). [Bilingual edition in Ukrainian and English. this is a selection of resolutions, aims and objectives, and other documents, pertaining to the activities of the Memorial Society in Ukraine].
- Mishchenko, Oleksandr, Bezkrovna viina: knyha svidchen, (Kiev: Molod', 1991).
- Naimark, Norman M.Norman NaimarkNorman M. Naimark is an American historian, and author who specializes in modern Eastern European history, and genocide and ethnic cleansing in the region....
Stalin's Genocides (Human Rights and Crimes against Humanity). Princeton University PressPrinceton University Press-Further reading:* "". Artforum International, 2005.-External links:* * * * *...
, 2010. ISBN 0-691-14784-1 - Oleksiw, Stephen, The agony of a nation: the great man-made famine in Ukraine, 1932–1933, (London: The National Committee to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Artificial Famine in Ukraine, 1932–1933, 1983).
- Pavel P. Postyshev, envoy of Moscow in Ukraine 1933–1934, [selected newspaper articles, documents, and sections in books], (Toronto: World Congress of Free Ukrainians, Secretariat, [1988], The 1932-33 Famine in Ukraine research documentation).
- Pidnayny, Alexandra, A bibliography of the great famine in Ukraine, 1932–1933, (Toronto: New Review Books, 1975).
- Pravoberezhnyi, Fedir, 8,000,000: 1933-i rik na Ukraini, (Winnipeg: Kultura і osvita, 1951).
- Senyshyn, Halyna, Bibliohrafia holody v Ukraini 1932–1933, (Ottawa: Montreal: UMMAN, 1983).
- Timothy SnyderTimothy SnyderTimothy D. Snyder is an American professor of history at Yale University, specializing in the history of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the Holocaust...
. Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Basic BooksBasic BooksBasic Books is a book publisher founded in 1952 and located in New York. It publishes books in the fields of psychology, philosophy, economics, science, politics, sociology, current affairs, and history.-History:...
, 2010. ISBN 0-465-00239-0 - Solovei, Dmytro, The Golgotha of Ukraine: eye-witness accounts of the famine in Ukraine, compiled by Dmytro Soloviy, (New York: Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, 1953).
- Stradnyk, Petro, Pravda pro soviets'ku vladu v Ukraini, (New York: N. Chyhyryns'kyi, 1972).
- Taylor, S.J., Stalin's apologist: Walter Duranty, the New York Time's man in Moscow, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990).
- The Foreign Office and the famine: British documents on Ukraine and the great famine of 1932–1933, edited by Marco Carynnyk, Lubomyr Y. Luciuk and Bohdan Kor.
- The man-made famine in Ukraine (Washington D.C.: American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, 1984). [Seminar. Participants: Robert Conquest, Dana Dalrymple, James Mace, Michael Nowak].
- Tottle, Douglas, Fraud, famine and fascism: the Ukrainian genocide myth from Hitler to Harvard, 1987.
- United States, Commission on the Ukraine Famine. Investigation of the Ukrainian Famine, 1932–1933: report to Congress / Commission on the Ukraine Famine, [Daniel E. Mica, Chairman; James E. Mace, Staff Director]. (Washington D.C.: U.S. G.P.O.: For sale by the Supt. of Docs, U.S. G.P.O., 1988), (Dhipping list: 88-521-P).
- United States, Commission on the Ukrainian Famine. Oral history project of the Commission on the Ukraine Famine, James E. Mace and Leonid Heretz, eds. (Washington, D.C.: Supt. of Docs, U.S. G.P.O., 1990).
- Velykyi holod v Ukraini, 1932-33: zbirnyk svidchen', spohadiv, dopovidiv ta stattiv, vyholoshenykh ta drukovanykh v 1983 rotsi na vidznachennia 50-littia holodu v Ukraini—The Great Famine in Ukraine 1932–1933: a collection of memoirs, speeches amd essays prepared in 1983 in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Famine in Ukraine during 1932-33, [Publication Committee members: V. Rudenko, T. Khokhitva, P. Makohon, F. Podopryhora], (Toronto: Ukrains'ke Pravoslavne Bratstvo Sv. Volodymyra, 1988), [Bilingual edition in Ukrainian and English].
- Verbyts'kyi, M., Naibil'shyi zlochyn Kremlia: zaplianovanyi shtuchnyi holod v Ukraini 1932–1933 rokiv, (London, England: DOBRUS, 1952).
- Voropai, Oleksa, V deviatim kruzi, (London, England: Sum, 1953).
- Voropai, Oleksa, The Ninth Circle: In Commemoration of the Victims of the Famine of 1933, Olexa Woropay; edited with an introduction by James E. Mace, (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University, Ukrainian Studies Fund, 1983).
- Marco Carynnyk, Lubomyr Luciuk and Bohdan S Kordan, eds, The Foreign Office and the Famine: British Documents on Ukraine and the Great Famine of 1932-1933, foreword by Michael Marrus (Kingston: Limestone Press, 1988)
- Robert ConquestRobert ConquestGeorge Robert Ackworth Conquest CMG is a British historian who became a well-known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication in 1968 of The Great Terror, an account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s...
(1987), The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine, New York: Oxford University PressOxford University PressOxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
. ISBN 0-19-505180-7 - Robert W. Davies; Wheatcroft, Stephen G., The Years of Hunger. Soviet Agriculture 1931-1933, Houndmills 2004 ISBN 3-412-10105-2, also ISBN 0-333-31107-8
- Robert W. Davies; Wheatcroft, Stephen G., “Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932-33 - A Reply to Ellman”, in Europe-Asia Studies Vol. 58 (2006), 4, pp. 625–633.
- Miron Dolot, Execution by Hunger: The Hidden Holocaust, New York: W.W Norton & Company, 1985, xvi + 231 pp. ISBN 0-393-01886-5.
- Barbara Falk, Sowjetische Städte in der Hungersnot 1932/33. Staatliche Ernährungspolitik und städtisches Alltagsleben (= Beiträge zur Geschichte Osteuropas 38), Köln: Böhlau Verlag 2005 ISBN 3-412-10105-2
- Wasyl Hryshko, The Ukrainian Holocaust of 1933, (Toronto: 1983, Bahriany Foundation)
- Stanislav Kulchytsky, Hennadiy Yefimenko. Демографічні наслідки голодомору 1933 р. в Україні. Всесоюзний перепис 1937 р. в Україні: документи та матеріали (Demographic consequence of Holodomor of 1933 in Ukraine. The all-Union census of 1937 in Ukraine), Kiev, Institute of History, 2003.
- R. Kusnierz, Ukraina w latach kolektywizacji i Wielkiego Glodu (1929-1933),Torun, 2005
- Leonard Leshuk, ed., Days of Famine, Nights of Terror: Firsthand Accounts of Soviet Collectivization, 1928-1934 (Kingston: Kashtan Press, 1995)
- Lubomyr Luciuk, ed., Not Worthy: Walter Duranty's Pulitzer Prize and The New York Times (Kingston: Kashtan Press, 2004)
- Stephen G. Wheatcroft. “Towards Explaining the Soviet Famine of 1931-1933: Political and Natural Factors in Perspective”, in Food and Foodways Vol. 12 (2004), No. 2-3, pp. 104–136.
External links
Famine in Ukraine 1932–1933 at the Central State Archive of Ukraine (photos, links)
- Yaroslav Bilinsky, Was the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-1933 Genocide?, Journal of Genocide Research , 1(2), pages= 147–156 (June 1999), available at external site
- Stanislav Kulchytsky, Italian Research on the Holodomor, October 2005. Stanislav Kulchytsky, "Why did Stalin exterminate the Ukrainians? Comprehending the Holodomor. The position of Soviet historians" - Six part series from DenDen (newspaper)Den is a Kiev-based, centrist daily boardsheet newspaper. Founded in 1996, the paper has a circulation of about 60,000. It is linked to former prime minister Yevhen Marchuk - his wife Larysa Ivshyna is the paper's editor-in-chief...
: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6; Kulchytsky on Holodomor 1-6/ Valeriy Soldatenko, "A starved 1933: subjective thoughts on objective processes", Zerkalo NedeliZerkalo NedeliZerkalo Nedeli , usually referred to in English as the Mirror Weekly, is one of Ukraine’s most influential analytical newspapers published weekly in Kiev, the nation's capital. It was founded in 1994, and as of 2006 its print circulation was 57,000. It offers political analysis, original...
, 28 June - 4 July 2003. Available online in Russian and in Ukrainian./ Stanislav Kulchytsky's articles in Zerkalo NedeliZerkalo NedeliZerkalo Nedeli , usually referred to in English as the Mirror Weekly, is one of Ukraine’s most influential analytical newspapers published weekly in Kiev, the nation's capital. It was founded in 1994, and as of 2006 its print circulation was 57,000. It offers political analysis, original...
, Kiev, Ukraine"- "How many of us perish in Holodomor on 1933", 23 November 2002 – 29 November 2002. Available online in Russian and in Ukrainian.
- "Reasons of the 1933 famine in Ukraine. Through the pages of one almost forgotten book" August 16–22, 2003. Available online in Russian and in Ukrainian.
- "Reasons of the 1933 famine in Ukraine-2", 4 October 2003 – 10 October 2003. Available online in Russian and in Ukrainian.
- "Demographic losses in Ukraine in the twentieth century", 2 October 2004 – 8 October 2004. Available online in Russian and in Ukrainian.
- "Holodomor-33: Why and how?" 25 November - 1 December. Available online in Russian and in Ukrainian.
- UKRAINIAN FAMINE Revelations from the Russian Archives at the Library of CongressLibrary of CongressThe Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in three buildings in Washington, D.C., it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and...
- Photos of Holodomor by Sergei Melnikoff
- The General Committee decided this afternoon not to recommend the inclusion of an item on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Great Famine (Holodomor) of 1932-1933 in Ukraine.
- Case Study: The Great Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33 By Nicolas Werth / CNRS - France
- Holomodor - Famine in Soviet Ukraine 1932-1933
- Famine in the Soviet Union 1929-1934 - collection of archive materials
- Holodomor: The Secret Holocaust in Ukraine - official site of the Security Service of Ukraine
- CBC program about the Great Hunger
- People's war 1917-1932 by Kiev city organization "Memorial"
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Countries which officially recognize the Holodomor as genocide | |
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There seems to be a disagreement between branches of Ukrainian government over the issue. See Holodomor genocide question#Genocide debate: Ukrainian position for details |
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