CHRONOLOGY OF THE FAMINE YEARS
This year marks the 50th anniversary of one of history's most horrifying cases of genocide - the Soviet-made Great Famine of 1932-33, in which some 7 million Ukrainians perished.
Relying on news from Svoboda and, later, The Ukrainian Weekly (which began publication in October 1933), this column hopes to remind and inform Americans and Canadians of this terrible crime against humanity.
By bringing other events worldwide into the picture as well, the column hopes to give a perspective on the state of the world in the years of Ukraine's Great Famine.
PART V
June 1932
On June 2, 1932, Svoboda reported that, according to Pravda, the official newspaper of the Soviet Communist Party, a large portion of the recently harvested crops had spoiled. Pravda said the reason for the spoilage was disorganization on Soviet grain farms due to lack of skilled laborers responsible for overseeing the delivery of crops. Half a million tons were wasted and a special commission had been appointed to look into the situation, Pravda reported.
On June 6, Svoboda reported on news published in a British daily, The Manchester Guardian, which had sent its Moscow correspondent to investigate the food situation throughout the Soviet Union and in Ukraine. After traveling through various cities, towns and villages the correspondent confirmed his hunch that provisions were very low throughout the areas.
He reported that it was only through government connections that workers in Leningrad, Moscow and other large cities received the groceries they needed. He noted that the peasants found themselves in a situation much worse than that during the years of the revolution, and not much better than during the 1921-22 famine in Ukraine. The correspondent provided details about the situation in Ukraine: conditions in the villages were so bad that people who lived in Leningrad, Moscow and other large cities sent food parcels to their families and friends in Ukraine in order to save them from starvation.
According to the correspondent, the reason for the catastrophic situation in Ukraine was that collectivization of the peasants' farm land had greatly hampered the sowing and harvesting of grain. What little was produced, was transported across the border or into Moscow and the city's surrounding areas. The peasants suffered the most, he reported.
On June 11, a news item from Berlin was published in Svoboda under the headline: "The hunger in Ukraine increases. Ukrainian peasants, the backbone of the Ukrainian nation, go hungry."
The Moscow correspondent of the Berlin paper traveled to Ukraine and described the situation he encountered there: "It is not due either to a locust invasion, or a drought, or war; it is not even the plague that has brought on the hunger of the peasants." He said that the extraordinarily quick pace of the agriculture industry brought on by the collectivization instituted by the Communist government in Ukraine had caused a shortage of food and that Ukrainian peasants ventured into the cities and towns looking for bread, because in the villages there was none.
Tired and hungry, peasants spent weeks in the towns trying to sell their home-made wares, including woven cloth and even the shirts off their backs in order to obtain money, he reported. The person who sold anything, no matter how small, considered himself a rich man. Once he had these "riches," he embarked upon another mission: finding a morsel of bread to buy for himself and his family.
Bread was sold "on the sly," for six to seven rubles for a three-pound loaf, reported the Berlin newspaper. The bigger loaves went for more. Especially lucky peasants were able to purchase a hunk of salt-meat or a fraction of a pound of ham to go with the bread.
Ten pounds of corn flour sold for 30 rubles, whereas wheat and rye flour were not even available on the black market.
The correspondent reports that even the laborers in towns often went hungry, spending hours in line at meat markets in hopes of getting at least some horse meat or bones that were being discarded. This is how the Ukrainian working masses lived, dying out, and withering away, because of the constant struggle to obtain food and the persistent atmosphere of poverty and misery.
On June 21, Svoboda published news on British press reports about Ukraine. British dailies and periodicals had been reporting on the Ukrainian refugees who had escaped to Rumania by way of the Dnister River. On May 25, the Yorkshire Observer had published a letter asking whether Great Britain was really so preoccupied with its own matters that it had no time to do something about the shootings that were going on only a few hundred miles away. Responses and comments appeared in the following days in such papers as The Belfast Telegraph and the Sunday Times.
On June 27, an item datelined Bucharest reported another refugee tragedy on the Ukrainian-Bessarabian border. A family consisting of parents and two children, age 8 and 3, tried to row across the Dnister to the Rumanian side. Soviet guards saw their boat and began shooting. The parents were killed, but somehow, miraculously, the orphaned children made it across to Rumania, where the Rumanian soldiers took care of them.
On June 28, Svoboda cited a Pravda progress report on the spring planting of grain crops in the Soviet Union. Pravda said that only 67 percent of the land had been tilled, and that Ukraine was far behind in its spring sowing.
* * *
Around the world in June:
In Santiago, Chile, the revolutionary party proclaimed the country a Socialist republic.
The newly re-elected president of Germany, Paul von Hindenburg, signed a decree dismissing his advisor, Heinrich Bruning, and the parliament which helped elect him. Hindenburg appointed Franz von Papen as chancellor in hopes of obtaining support from the right and center parties.
Eamon DeValera, head of the Irish government, ceased talks with Ramsay MacDonald, prime minister of Great Britain, as the English Irish dispute continued.
In Japan, prime minister Makoto Saito, who had replaced the assassinated Ki Inukai, declared that Japan would not fight with the Soviet Union. He stated there would be no more conflict in the Far East.
Siam became a constitutional monarchy when a bloodless coup d'état forced Prajadhipok Rama VII (who reigned in 1925-35) to grant a constitution to the people. The two young leaders of the coup, Pibul Songgram and Pridi-Phanomyang, both educated in Europe and influenced by Western ideas were to dominate Thai politics in the ensuing years.
Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, March 20, 1983, No. 12, Vol. LI
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