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Soviet famines
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In the 2 decades which followed the Russian October Revolution two devastating famines occurred in Soviet Russia/USSR, each killing about 5 million people (estimates vary). At the end of Russian Civil War at the peak of the Russian famine of 1921, Lenin replaced the policy of War Communism with the New Economic Policy to prevent Russian economy from collapsing. That policy was abandoned by Stalin in 1928, who replaced it by the policy of collectivization with the goal of rapid industrialization of USSR. The radical changes in policies together with severe droughts caused the Soviet famine of 1932–1933.[5][6][7][8] That famine most severely hit Ukrainian SSR, which until 1930s enjoyed benefits of the Bolshevik policy of Ukrainization. A significant portion of the famine victims (3-3.5 million) were the Ukrainians. At the time, the Soviet government tried to deny the occurrence of the famines and the Western powers demonstrated their indifference.
These famines attracted little international attention until mid-1980s. With glasnost numerous studies of the famines started to appear, highlighted by publication of Robert Conquest's Harvest of Sorrow in 1988. In Ukraine the famine of 1932-1933 became a symbolic issue for the independence movement which popularized the term Holodomor ("murder by starvation"). Some scholars have argued that the Stalinist policies that caused the famine may have been designed as an attack on the rise of Ukrainian nationalism, and thus may fall under the legal definition of genocide.[9][5][6][10][11]
Following the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, public interest in the famines subsided. Having introduced a day of commemoration (26 November) in 1998, President Kuchma went further in 2002 and signed a presidential decree asserting that the famine of 1932-33 had in fact been 'genocide' against the Ukrainian nation. A parliamentary resolution in 2003 reiterated this view. In 2004 Ukraine agreed to a joint statement of the United Nations General Assembly, co-signed by 25 countries including Russia, which referred to the famine as a 'national tragedy'. It followed by a similarly worded UNESCO resolution. By that time everyone recognized that the famines indeed occurred and were in part caused by government's policies. However the debate over whether the term genocide was applicable to these famines was still open.
The Orange Revolution of 2004 brought to power individuals, notably President Yushchenko, who are convinced that the famine was genocide and who see this interpretation as a central part of their nation-building project. Opinion polls show that Yushchenko's view is not universally shared in Ukraine. [12] In November 2006, the Ukrainian Parliament passed a bill branding the Holodomor an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people.[13] In November 2007, the government of Ukraine proposed a law which would criminalize public statements of both Holodomor and Holocaust denial. The law was never put to parliamentary vote.
A writer and historian Alexander Solzhenitsyn observed in April 2008 that the accusation of the Holodomor being genocide was invented decades later after the event and Ukrainian efforts to have the famine recognised as genocide is an act of historical revisionism that has now surpassed the level of Bolshevik agitprop. He believed that the famine was caused by the nature of the Communist regime, under which all peoples suffered. It was not an assault by the Russian people against the people of Ukraine, and that the wish to view it as such is only a recent development, which he blamed on Ukrainian chauvinism and anti-Russian sentiments. The writer cautioned that the genocidal claim has its chances to be accepted by the West due to the general western ignorance of Russian and Ukrainian history.[14][15]
As of March 2008, the Ukraine and nineteen other governments[16] have recognized the actions of the Soviet government as an act of genocide. On 23 October 2008 the European Parliament adopted a resolution[17] that recognized the Holodomor as a crime against humanity.[18]
The issue of recognizing the Holodomor as a genocide sparked numerous controversies in Russia which vehemently rejected the idea, as well as in Ukraine which was accused of politicization of the tragedy, outright propaganda and fabrication of documents [2]
- ^ http://www.sevastopol.su/world.php?id=5713
- ^ a b http://www.regnum.ru/news/1138393.html
- ^ In Search of a SOVIET HOLOCAUST A 55-Year-Old Famine Feeds the Right By Jeff Coplon Village Voice (New York City), January 12, 1988
- ^ Dr. Hennadii Boriak, Director General of the State Committee of Archives in Ukraine «The Ukrainian Famine of 1933: Sources and Source Publications»
- ^ a b Dr. David Marples, The great famine debate goes on..., ExpressNews (University of Alberta), originally published in Edmonton Journal, November 30, 2005
- ^ a b Stanislav Kulchytsky, "Holodomor of 1932–1933 as genocide: the gaps in the proof", Den, February 17, 2007, in Russian, in Ukrainian
- ^ С. Уиткрофт (Stephen G. Wheatcroft), "О демографических свидетельствах трагедии советской деревни в 1931—1933 гг." (On demographic evidence of the tragedy of the Soviet village in 1931-1833), "Трагедия советской деревни: Коллективизация и раскулачивание 1927-1939 гг.: Документы и материалы. Том 3. Конец 1930-1933 гг.", Российская политическая энциклопедия, 2001, ISBN 5-8243-0225-1, с. 885, Приложение № 2
- ^ 'Stalinism' was a collective responsibility - Kremlin papers, The News in Brief, University of Melbourne, 19 June 1998, Vol 7 No 22
- ^ Peter Finn, Aftermath of a Soviet Famine, The Washington Post, April 27, 2008, "There are no exact figures on how many died. Modern historians place the number between 2.5 million and 3.5 million. Yushchenko and others have said at least 10 million were killed."
- ^ Yaroslav Bilinsky (1999). "Was the Ukrainian Famine of 1932–1933 Genocide?". Journal of Genocide Research. 1 (2): 147–156. doi:10.1080/14623529908413948.
- ^ Stanislav Kulchytsky, "Holodomor-33: Why and how?", Zerkalo Nedeli, November 25—December 1, 2006, in Russian, in Ukrainian.
- ^ [1]
- ^ Jan Maksymiuk, "Ukraine: Parliament Recognizes Soviet-Era Famine As Genocide", RFE/RL, November 29, 2006
- ^ Nobel winner accuses Ukrainian authorities of 'historical revisionism' Russia Today Retrieved on April 10, 2008
- ^ Solzhenitsyn, Alexander (2008-04-02). "Поссорить родные народы??". Izvestia (in Russian). Retrieved 2008-11-27.
- ^ sources differ on interpreting various statements from different branches of different governments as to whether they amount to the official recognition of the Famine as Genocide by the country. For example, after the statement issued by the Latvian Sejm on March 13, 2008, the total number of countries is given as 19 (according to Ukrainian BBC: "Латвія визнала Голодомор ґеноцидом"), 16 (according to Korrespondent, Russian edition: "После продолжительных дебатов Сейм Латвии признал Голодомор геноцидом украинцев"), "more than 10" (according to Korrespondent, Ukrainian edition: "Латвія визнала Голодомор 1932-33 рр. геноцидом українців")
- ^ European Parliament resolution on the commemoration of the Holodomor, the Ukraine artificial famine (1932-1933)
- ^ European Parliament recognises Ukrainian famine of 1930s as crime against humanity (Press Release 23-10-2008)