An attempt to throw off course the study of Ukraine’s Holodomor-Genocide of 1932-1933 is under way with a clear participation of adversarial actors whose aim seems to be to sow confusion, obfuscate and compromise the issue.
Clearly, the main adversarial actor on the issue of the Holodomor has always been Russia – whether Soviet or post-Soviet.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Moscow finally acknowledged that there was a famine in the USSR in the 1930s – but continues to this day to deny the Ukrainian Holodomor-Genocide of 1932-1933. To witness: In 2006 the Upper Chamber (Council of the Federation) of the Russian Parliament endorsed the publication of a 3-volume collection of documents on the famine in the USSR in the 1930s along with an “explanatory memorandum” emphasizing that the main goals of this project were:
“To refute the singular nature of the famine in Ukraine in the 1930s”; and
that the documents “should be selected in such a way that the tragedy of the entire Soviet peasantry will be conspicuous, without a focus on Ukraine.” Even the original title of the publication was changed from “Famine in the USSR, 1932-1933” to “Famine in the USSR, 1929-1934”, because the period of 1932-1933 has become symbolic of and associated with the Ukrainian Holodomor (More on this issue in the Compendium “Holodomor: The Ukrainian Genocide, 1932-1933”, pp.125-132).
Since this ploy to deny the Holodomor failed, Moscow and its witting and unwitting “fellow-travellers” (or worse) in Ukraine have now seemingly resorted to indirect “active measures” to compromise the historicity of the Holodomor. They raised the Holodomor death toll in Ukraine to absurdly high levels, namely 10 to 12 million victims in 1932-1933. However, such an inflated death toll in 1932-33 is a brazen demographic impossibility on all counts. To witness: the total population of the Ukrainian SSR in 1926 (as per census) was 29,287,000, and in 1939 (as per census now adjusted to eliminate Moscow’s deliberate falsification to cover up the losses caused by the Holodomor) was 30,142,600. Moreover, in 1926 there were 6,946,300 Ukrainians in the Soviet Union beyond the borders of the Ukrainian SSR, whereas in 1939 the number was only 3,359,184. As one responsible writer on the Holodomor recently put it: “More is not better.” In other words, the level of national patriotism OUGHT NOT to be considered directly proportionate to the level of the Holodomor death toll.
The “debate” on the issue of the Holodomor death toll (originating in adversarial to Ukraine quarters) has now taken an ominous turn. Trustworthy Holodomor scholars, researchers, historians and demographers who “follow the evidence” are subject to personal attacks, harassment, defamatory accusations, provocations and even threats if they challenge the 10 million figure; proven demographic and historical facts formulated by past and present Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian students of the Holodomor are being ignored, obfuscated, distorted and falsified – all this with a clear purpose of discrediting their professionalism and the issue of the Holodomor as such. The most telling issue that these adversarial actors are trying to undermine by inflating the death toll and shifting blame for this crime against humanity is: Who actually was responsible for the Holodomor? They claim that it was the “communist totalitarian regime” because “historians have long agreed that imperialism [as such] had as its goal economic exploitation, and not the physical annihilation of the subject peoples” - a blatant distortion of the history of empires in general, a specific attack on historians who study the era of the Holodomor in the context of Russian imperialism, and a clear attempt to relieve Stalin’s Soviet Russian regime of the responsibility for engineering the Holodomor and committing genocide. To be sure, numerous documents attest to the fact, that Moscow did make a political decision to weaponize the famine specifically against the non-Russian subjects of its empire, particularly against Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Volga Germans, Kuban and Don Cossacks.
The 10-million figure
The conquest of rebellious Ukraine by the Soviet Russian regime was, indeed, achieved at the cost of at least 10 million Ukrainian dead, namely:
1.The man-made famine of 1921-1922
Estimated 1.5 to 2.0 million victims;
Ukrainian grain stocks and foodstuffs were seized by force in order to feed the Soviet Russian powerbase in the newly formed Soviet Union.
The “Decade of Terror” of 1928-1938
Holodomor death toll in Soviet Ukraine and Ukrainian-populated areas of Soviet Russia [and other Soviet republics] estimated at 5 million victims;
The seized Ukrainian grain stocks and foodstuffs were sold abroad for hard currency to ostensibly finance the industrialization of the Soviet Union;
Arrests and subsequent executions estimated at 800,000 victims;
Forced removal of Ukrainians from Ukraine, most of whom perished in exile, estimated at 1.5 million victims.
The man-made famine of 1946-1947
Estimated 1.0 million victims;
This famine affected all areas of Ukraine. The seized grain and foodstuffs were sent abroad to prop up the communist regimes imposed by Moscow after World War II on some Soviet-occupied European countries. These countries formed in 1955 the so-called “Warsaw Pact” military alliance controlled by Moscow to counter NATO – the Free World military alliance.
Summary of Ukrainian losses due to Moscow man-made famines and related repressive measures
Death toll of the three man-made famines engineered by the Soviet Russian regime (1921-22, 1932-33, 1946-47) – up to 8 million.
Death toll of Holodomor-related measures implemented by Moscow during the “Decade of Terror” (collectivization, mass deportations from Ukraine and mass executions) - up to 2.3 million.
TOTAL DEATH TOLL - up to 10.3 million Ukrainians
Reference: Holodomor: The Ukrainian Genocide, 1932-1933. Toronto: Ucrainica Research Institute, 2020, 318 pp.
