Famine for the masses Ñ Stalin's forgotten legacy in Ukraine
UNITED NATIONS Ñ History takes its ironic twists. Not long ago in the lobby of the United Nations stood an exhibit detailing in graphic photos, the human legacy of the 1932-33 man-made Famine in Ukraine. Sponsored by the Ukrainian Mission to the UN, the exposition illustrates the forgotten tragedy of seven million Ukrainians who perished. I say ironically because until little more than a dozen years ago, the thought that an independent Ukrainian government in Kiev would even admit the horror inflicted by its masters in Moscow, and then sponsor an exhibit in the UN would have defied all logic.
Indeed denial of the Holodomor, as it is known, was a near historical reflex Ñ not only did most ÒenlightenedÓ people deny StalinÕs perfidy but even many, should we say educated persons even knew of it. Dr. Robert ConquestÕs scholarship to the contrary, ÒIt simply never happened, comrades.Ó
According to Prof. Taras Hunczak of Rutgers University, ÒThe prologue to the tragedy known as the Holodomor Ñ the Great Man-Made Famine in Ukraine of 1932-33 Ñ was Josef StalinÕs decision to collectivize the agriculture, which, he hoped would not only feed the industrial workers in the cities but also provide a substantial amount of grain to be sold abroad, with the money used to finance his industrialization plans.Ó
Prof. Hunczak adds, ÒContrary to some apologists of totalitarian rulers, the Famine was not the result of a natural catastropheÉIndeed StalinÕs regime pursued a purposeful and ruthless policy of grain procurement , regardless of the costs, ultimately the supply of grain became a political tool for the submission of the Ukrainian people.Ó
Part of historic amnesia lies significantly in the newspaper reporting of the day in which the New York Times not only glossed over the facts but actually reported quite a rosy picture of Soviet Russia in the 1930Õs, a regime which had just been awarded U.S. diplomatic recognition by President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Indeed, Reporter Walter Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for his coverage of these deceptively golden days of StalinÕs Russia. Calls for ill-awarded Pulitzer to be stripped post-humiuosly from Duranty, fell by the wayside. Let bygones be bygones?
The vast Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33 in which seven million people perished remains a near forgotten footnote in the sad annals of the wider tragedy of the Soviet Union. Still this catastrophe purposefully pursued by the dictator Josef Stalin, was to set the tragic template for future state-sponsored famines in places as far flung as Communist China, Ethiopia, and more recently North Korea.
The use of regime engineered famine was hardly unique to Soviet Russia Ñ in 1958 in a vainglorious attempt to industrialize Mainland China, Mao Tse-tung launched the Great Leap Forward. MaoÕs leap Ñ which turned as a fall into the abyss of famine for tens of millions of Chinese peasants Ñ actually surpassed Uncle Joe.
Historical records of the Great Leap detailed by such riveting but disturbing accounts as Hungry Ghosts by Jasper Becker, show that 30 million peasants perished between 1958-1962 through starvation, some survivors even resorting to cannibalism. This was in BeckerÕs words Òthe centuryÕs greatest human rights disaster in which more people died than in StalinÕs purges and the Holocaust put together.Ó
Regime-engineered famine took a new twist in the 1980Õs too, when EthiopiaÕs Marxist rulers when facing a weather related famine, turned UN and international food aid into a tool to control the masses. Loyal provinces were allowed to receive international aid while other ÒdisloyalÓ regions of the vast African state were cursed to literally wither on the vine. In other words, famine aid was deliberately channeled to, or blocked from, parts of Ethiopia depending on ethnicity and political loyalty. The French aid group Doctors without Borders, painstakingly illustrated this regime sponsored control of famine aid.
Under the sponsorship of Congressman Henry Hyde (R-IL) the US Congress recently passed a resolution (356) commemorating the 70th anniversary of UkraineÕs famine Òas one of the greatest losses of life in the 20th century.Ó
The Holodomor exhibit shows mournful black and white photos of frozen corpses stacked like cordwood, scenes which presage Dachau and evoke the totalitarian altar of the 20th century where the high priests of terror Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and Kim Il-Sung, reigned often to the soothing apologia of those who knew it could not happen.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
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