Media reports on famine (06/26/83)

Media reports on famine

The Herald American

SYRACUSE, N.Y. - The Syracuse Herald American has recently run several items concerning the Great Famine in Ukraine (1932-33), including two articles on the local Ukrainian community's 50th anniversary commemorations and a letter by John Hvozda, chairman of the commemorative committee.

In the letter, published May 19, Mr. Hvozda said that the nearly 6,000 Ukrainians living in the Syracuse area planned to commemorate the death by starvation of some 8 million people, the result of a "tragic holocaustal policy designed by the Soviet Russian enslavers to force the deeply religious and freedom-loving Ukrainians into submission."

On May 28, the paper ran a short article announcing that former Ukrainian dissident Sviatoslav Karavansky would take part in a June 5 commemorative ceremony at St. Luke's Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

On June 5, the paper ran a feature article by staff writer Renee Graham outlining the commemoration and its significance to the Ukrainian people.

"Ukrainians will pause and remember today," the article began. "They will reflect upon the death of 8 million of their forebearers 50 years ago in a struggle for freedom which they say still continues."

Citing Mr. Hvozda, the article said that "the political beginning of the Ukrainian holocaust" dates back to the Ukrainian war of liberation in 1917-20, "during which Ukraine declared its independence from 250 years of Russian domination."

Mr. Karavansky, who came to the United States in 1979 after spending years in Soviet penal institutions, told the paper that his message at the commemoration "will not be directed only to those of Ukrainian descent, but to all throughout the free world who cherish their independence." He also warned that the West must be vigilant in the face of Soviet machinations.

The paper said that "Ukrainians remain concerned that the Soviet Union has not changed its tactics in 50 years."

Pittsburgh Press

PlTTSBURGH - On May 22 The Pittsburgh Press ran an editorial titled "The Soviet Holocaust" which compared the Great Famine in Ukraine (1932-33) to the extermination of 6 million Jews by the Nazis.

Citing Robert Conquest, whose book on the famine is due out shortly, the paper said that the Great Famine, a culmination of Stalin's "dekulakization" campaign, killed as many as 14 million people.

The editorial said in part: "There were no death camps. No gas chambers. No machine guns in front of mass graves. Stalin did it by simply confiscating the harvests of the farmers and all foodstuffs in the hands of the rural population."

The paper went on to say that few in the West were aware of the tragedy partly because "of the strange intellectual tendency, which still abounds today, to speak no evil about socialism."

The editorial drew a varied response from readers, with most letters supporting the paper's stand. Marta Pietska-Farley, in a letter published May 29, congratulated the paper for publicizing the genocide, which she said "is rarely recognized in the popular press for what it is."

She added that the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is only a continuation of an imperialist mentality manifested by the famine, and serves the dual function of subjugating that country while risking the lives of non-Russian soldiers such as Ukrainians.

In a letter printed in the same issue, Nicholas C. Kotow, president of the Ukrainian Technological Society, also praised the editorial, saying that "it was most welcome to the Ukrainian community in Pittsburgh."

But Stephen Shufran, also in the same issue, wrote that the editorial was written "to perpetuate the 'hate Russia' campaign." He accused the paper of omitting relevant facts, and blamed a revolt by the Soviet peasantry on food shortages which resulted in widespread famine.

Responding to the Shufran letter, George Nestor said in a letter published June 5 that the charges that the peasants were to blame for the famine were "pure rubbish." He wrote that "it is a known fact that 1933 (the height of the famine) was a record year for Ukrainian farm production," and that the famine was created by Stalin, who "wanted to eradicate the independent Ukrainian farmers because they refused to collectivize."

In another rebuke of the Shufran letter, Yaroslav Hodowanec wrote in a letter, also printed on June 5, that Mr. Shufran's view was "a ludicrous distortion." He cited crop yield statistics to bolster his argument that the Soviet Union dumped millions of tons of grain on the international market while millions were starving in Ukraine.

Stevens Point Journal

STEVENS POINT, Wis. - The Stevens Point Journal published two long letters concerning the Great Famine in Ukraine (1932-33) in its "Open Letter" section on May 14 and 24.

The first, written by Edmund P. Suchomski, provided an overview of Joseph Stalin's political aims in organizing the famine, which killed an estimated 5-7 million Ukrainians.

According to Mr. Suchomski, the famine was the direct result of the Soviet regime's efforts to collectivize private farms, bolster industrialization and gain much-needed hard currency.

"After some deliberation, Stalin came upon what he believed to be a brilliant idea," wrote Mr. Suchomski.

"He would take everything the farmers produced, thereby acquiring the means with which to procure the foreign money he required (for industrialization) and at the same time create an artificial famine which would break the opposition of the farmers."

To attain his objective, the letter goes on, Stalin sent 25,000 Russian agents into Ukraine to oversee the confiscation of grain, seed and foodstuffs. The result, according to Mr. Suchomski, was mass starvation, cannibalism, infanticide and suicide.

Mr. Suchomski said that the reason the famine was so little known in the West was that reported accounts were "displaced by Soviet propaganda and received little attention."

On May 24, the paper ran a letter by T. Jaworski, who agreed with Mr. Suchomski, but added that the famine was just part of a broad campaign of Stalinist terror which included the widespread use of forced labor on huge government projects such as the Belomor Canal linking Lake Ladoga and the White Sea. The canal was finished on May 1, 1933, after 20 months.

"Hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians, along with other nationals, were herded by the KGB (then the NKVD) into box cars and transported to those areas with an average temperature of 45 below zero, dumped on the snow, given a shovel and a primitive wheel-barrow, with an order to 'work or die,'" wrote Mr. Jaworski.

According to the author, some 250,000 people died from starvation and exposure on the project, or 416 corpses a day, one for every yard of the 140-mile canal.

Among the dead were hundreds of Ukrainian priests and bishops, including the Rev. M. Matwiejenko, in whose memory Mr. Jaworski said he wrote the article.

Book notes

New famine monograph

LONDON - A 72-page illustrated book on the Great Famine in Ukraine by Stephen Oleskiw with a foreword by Malcolm Muggeridge has recently been published here by the National Committee to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Artificial Famine in Ukraine 1932-33.

In the foreword, Mr. Muggeridge, who was the Soviet correspondent for the Manchester Guardian at the time of the famine, called Mr. Oleskiw's book a "well-researched, lucid and truthful account of the appalling famine which in 1932-33 afflicted Ukraine..."

Mr. Oleskiw's account is divided into sub-sections dealing with the political, social and economic reasons for the famine; collectivization; peasant resistance; purges of the cities and intelligentsia; and results of the famine.

The book also includes a conclusion and a 10-page section of eyewitness accounts. There are also a number of graphic photographs showing the horrors of the famine.

The book may be ordered from the National Committee to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Artificial Famine in Ukraine 1932-33, 49 Linden Gardens, London, England W2 4H6.

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