CHRONOLOGY OF THE FAMINE YEARS (PART XXIX) (09/04/83)

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 XXIX

October 1-15, 1933

On October 2, Svoboda published a report datelined Moscow which stated that Pavel Postyshev would most likely be elected to the Soviet Politburo at the next Communist Party Congress. According to the news, this was his reward for waging a battle against Ukrainian nationalism. Now Ukraine would be represented by Stanislav Kosior in the Soviet government.

In Geneva, the Congress of European Minorities passed a resolution concerning the famine in the Soviet Union, reported Svoboda in its October 2 issue. The leaders of the congress welcomed concrete proposals on this matter, stating that the congress would do anything it could to help the famine victims in the Soviet Union.

News from Paris was printed in Svoboda on October 3. The story reported that Edouard Herriot, former French prime minister, had traveled through Ukraine on his way to Odessa and said that he had not seen famine in Ukraine, although he did see the spread of Hitlerism.

On October 5, Svoboda reprinted an article from The New York Times about Herriot's visit to Ukraine. Excerpts from the article in which Herriot was interviewed, follow:

"There is no country at the present time about which so many stupid things have been written as Russia. Thus, now there is a campaign everywhere on the subject of a supposed famine in Ukraine. I saw no such thing. Certainly there were, here and there, difficulties about feeding the populace and about insufficient production, but I did not discover famine anywhere, even in the German villages which I visited.

"What I clearly did see, however, was a Hitlerite campaign based on an evident desire for a German extension to the east."

Also on October 5, an item with the headline "Harvest in Russia," appeared in Svoboda. Addressed to the editor of the Manchester Guardian, it was written by a representative of the Ukrainian Bureau in London, who stated that the newspaper's correspondent, a Joan Beauchamp, persisted in denying that there was any food shortage or famine in South Russia. The Ukrainian Bureau representative, Louise Gibson, cited a few examples, among them, the following: "A person left Ukraine on June 28 and crossed the Polish-Soviet border on July 31, 1933. His statement was made in the presence of two witnesses. It appeared, in full, in Dilo, Lviv, August 23. He was one of the officials in a radhosp, a state farm. He did not run away, but was allowed to go abroad on the application of his children who were living abroad (that is, they bought him out). He stated that starvation started in 1932, when the government took away from the peasants all the grain without leaving anything at all.

"He gave the following statistical data from the Department of Kalinovka concerning the depopulation of the countryside. Comparing the population with that in 1932, the village of Zalyvanchyna had in 1932 a population of 3,500, but about 2,000 were now dead. The village of Nemeryntsi had in 1932 a population of 700, but in June of this year only four to five families remained. In the village of Kumanivka out of 3,000 only 1,900 remain. In the village of Monchyntsi out of 1,800 only 1,300 remain. In the Department of Koziatyn the same state of affairs is to be found. The village of Hubyntsi in 1932 had a population of 1,600, of which only 800 remain. In the village of Sashansk only about 800 out of 1,500 remain. In the village of Zazulyntsi out of 2,800 only 2,300 remain. The collective farm of this village lost almost every member; out of 120 only 20 remained alive. In the town of Samhorodok 800 died out of 3,000.

"The evidence of Czechoslovak workmen who had just returned from the USSR, was given to the Socialist Club at Prague and was published in Chas, Czernowitz, on August 19, 1933.

"'The famine in Kiev is terrible. People remain seated on the ground in the street, drinking water in an empty provision box. They remain thus for several days, not having strength to lift themselves up, and end up by dying where they are. In the marketplace at Kiev, every night there are eight to 10 bodies quickly stripped of their clothes. In the morning carts arrive and take them away to be buried. In the streets, on the outskirts, bodies remain until they are completely decomposed.' These are a few of many reports which are reaching us," the representatives of the Ukrainian Bureau wrote. On October 6, Svoboda reported that an International Committee to Help the Hungry in Ukraine was founded in Paris, in response to appeals of the Greek-Catholic Episcopate in Ukraine, headed by Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky. The committee included many distinguished foreigners, as well as Vasyl Vyshyvany, a member of the Ukrainian Riflemen of the Sitch.

On October 7, the headline in Svoboda read: "Bolsheviks Admit that They Exaggerated the News of the Harvest." The subhead read: "Grain Continues to Rot at Railway Stations, and the Population Continues to Go Hungry." The story, datelined Lviv, stated that the Soviet press ran a few articles reporting that tons of grain were rotting at railroad stations. The press reported that the state received 40 to 50 percent less grain than it had expected.

On October 9, Svoboda printed news it had received from Lviv, stating that various foreign newspapers, among them the French, Belgian and German press, had printed news that Soviet Ukraine needed immediate help. Svoboda reported that the newspapers had said that "in this socialist country, instead of paradise," one sees "thousands of swollen corpses and hungry people."

On October 11, Svoboda printed news about workers' uprisings in Soviet Ukraine. The news, datelined Prague, reported that during the latter half of August, 22 workers' demonstrations took place in such cities as Odessa, and Dnipropetrovske. The secret police were called out quite a few times to patrol the areas where strikes occurred, the reports stated.

That same day, news from Paris reported that one of Herriot's aides, who had traveled with him to Ukraine, stated that he had seen men, women, and children wandering about barefoot and waiting in bread lines. He noted that the Intourist agency, travel guides and hotels for tourists provided all of the luxuries and plenty of food for visitors.

Svoboda also carried a commentary that day about the Ninth Congress of European Minorities, held in Bern on September 16-19. Represented at the congress were the following nationalities: Ukrainians, Basques, Bulgarians, Germans, Spanish Galicians, Jews, Slovaks, Croatians, Catalonians, Lithuanians, Hungarians, Russians, Czechoslovakians and Byelorussians.

One of the first items on the congress agenda was an appeal to help the people in Soviet Ukraine, issued by the Ukrainian representatives.

Dr. Ewald Ammende, the secretary of the Congress, stated that in order not to give this situation a political angle, it was necessary to underline that not only Ukrainians were affected by this famine, but also other nationalities in the Soviet Union. He asked the League of Nations to take some kind of action in this matter also, addressing himself to the league's representative.

On the last page of Svoboda, an article was published in English, regarding the "Harvest in Russia." Written by an Anatole Baikaloff, a former chairman of the joint committee of the Russian cooperative organizations in London, and addressed to the Manchester Guardian, the article said in part:

"The harvest, according to all available independent reports, was excellent and, for the time being, the conditions have considerably improved. This does not mean, however, that there will be no shortage of food in Russia during the coming winter or spring. On the contrary, the prospects are most gloomy and there is every reason to believe that the famine will be much more terrible especially in the villages, in the early months of 1934 and will claim even more victims than in the corresponding period of 1933."

He went on to say: "The government will take a much larger proportion of crops from the peasants than last year. According to the decree of January 19, 1933, the peasants must surrender a fixed quantity of grain per hectare, the tax having been calculated roughly to represent the 30 percent of the average yield."

"Furthermore, no allowances will be made if the yield of grain is below the average. In other words, the peasants will have to surrender a fixed quantity of grain calculated in relation to the area which they were supposed to sow in accordance with the government schedule irrespective of their failure owing to some, often unsurmountable, reason to fulfill this schedule or of the failure of crops in the whole or in a portion of their fields."

On October 12, a bulletin was issued by the Ukrainian National Council in Canada. The information was supplied by Maria Zuk, who had arrived in Canada to join her farmer husband in September, 1933. It read in part:

"The conditions in Ukraine were bad enough in 1930, but in 1931 they became really critical. The present situation is as follows. There is literally no bread there; no potatoes (all the seed potatoes having been eaten up); no meat, no sugar; in a word, nothing of the basic necessities of life. Last year some food was obtainable occasionally for money, but this year most of the bazaars (markets) are closed and empty. All cats and dogs disappeared, having perished or been eaten by the hungry farmers. The same is the case with the horses, so that cows are mostly used as draught-animals. People also consumed all the field mice and frogs they could obtain. The only food most of the people can afford is a simple soup prepared of water, salt, and various weeds. If somebody manages to get a cup of millet in some way, a tablespoon of it transforms the soup into a rare delicacy. This soup, eaten two or three times a day, is also the only food of the small children, as the cow or any other milk has become a mere myth.

"This soup has no nutritive value whatever, and people remaining on such a diet get first swollen limbs and faces, which makes them appear like some dreadful caricature of human beings, then gradually turn into living skeletons, and finally drop dead wherever they stand or go. The dead bodies are held at the morgue until they number fifty or more, and then are buried in mass graves. In the summer the burials take place more often in view of quick decomposition which cannot be checked even by a liberal use of creoline. Especially devastating is the mortality from hunger among children and elderly people. Nobody ventures to dress the dead family members in any clothes, as the next day they would be found at the morgue naked, stripped of everything by unknown criminals.

"There are many cases of suicide, mostly by hanging, among the village population, and also many mental alienations.

"The famine in Soviet Ukraine in 1921 was undoubtedly a terrible one, but it appears like child's play in comparison with the present situation.

"The village Kalmazovka was one of the more fortunate ones, but in the adjoining villages of OIshanka and Synukhin Brid the death toll defied all description. Those who were not deported to the dreaded Solovetsky Islands, or to the Ural Mountains, died from starvation, and at present not more than one quarter of the original population is living there - and they are leading a life of misery. No word of complaint or criticism, however, is tolerated by the authorities and those guilty of the infraction of this enforced silence, disappear quickly in a mysterious way.

"Worst of all, there is no escape from this hell on earth, as no one can obtain permission to leave the boundaries of Ukraine, once the granary of Europe, and now a valley of tears and hunger."

The bulletin went on to cite cases of cannibalism. It continued: "In crass contrast to this terrible condition of mass death from starvation, is the real condition of crops. Last year the wheat crop in our district was good, and this year better still. Unfortunately the peasants derive no benefit from it, as the grain fields are watched day and night by armed guards to prevent the theft of grain ears, and after threshing the grain is immediately removed to the government storehouses or to the nearest port.

"The religious life in Ukraine is at a total standstill, although the people are perhaps more religious now than ever before. The church communities are unable to maintain priests, who either moved to other places or became homeless tramps. The church buildings were turned into workmen's clubs. When on the occasion of Christmas or Easter, some traveling priest is invited to celebrate a Mass, at once an anti-religious demonstration is staged by the local Young Communist group, which with the accompaniment of brass band, comes singing and carrying caricatures ridiculing saints and religious rites, tries to disperse the flock of the faithful. Of course, no religious wedding ceremonies, funerals, or christening of babies are performed nowadays.

"Most of the village schools are empty, as the children are too hungry to attend learning," Mrs. Zuk reported.

On October 6, The Ukrainian Weekly made its debut. The first issue, of the four-page newspaper, included an article focusing on the famine, titled "Ukrainians Protest Deliberate Starvation of Ukraine by the Bolsheviks."

Following is the full text:

"A series of mass meetings are being held by the Ukrainians throughout America and Canada, protesting against the barbaric attempts of the Bolshevik regime to deliberately starve out and depopulate the Ukrainian people in Ukraine.

"The purpose of this intentional starvation by the Bolsheviks is to forever quell the Ukrainian struggle for freedom.

"Since the overthrow of the Ukrainian National Republic by the Bolsheviks 15 years ago, the latter have used every conceivable terroristic weapon to stamp out the Ukrainian attempts to free themselves. Thousands of Ukrainians have been summarily shot for the slightest political offense; other thousands were sent to certain death to Siberia and the notorious Solovetsky prison Islands. But to no avail. The Ukrainian spirit of independence still burned on.

"The Reds, therefore, finally hit upon the most inhuman plan ever conceived, in order to achieve their end: and that is the deliberate carrying out of Ukraine practically all of the grain and other foodstuffs, with the result that over 5 million Ukrainians have died during the past year from starvation.

"The Bolsheviks are trying to screen this deliberate starving by declaring that poor crops are responsible for this great famine. This excuse is rather a grim jest when we consider that Ukraine, the home of the famed "chornozem," is one of the most fertile lands on this earth.

"Scenes of extreme horror are described by eyewitnesses. There is absolutely nothing to eat. Even the rodents have all been eaten up. People die in their tracks, and are left to rot. Many instances of cannibalism have been reported.

"Dr. Ewald Ammende, secretary of the Congress of European Minorities at Bern, Switzerland, has recently described this famine in Ukraine as the 'shame of the 20th century. His Holiness Pope Pius XI has recently expressed his deepest sympathy and an offer to help. Cardinal Innitzer, archbishop of Vienna, issued on August 19 a protest against the Bolshevik barbarity and an appeal for help for the Ukrainians to the International Red Cross. The head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky, together with Ukrainian archbishops and bishops, has issued a protest against this persecution of unprecendented and inhuman character.

"At the present time the Bolsheviks have forbidden Ralph B. Barnes of the Herald Tribune, W. H. Chamberlin of the Christian Science Monitor, the correspondent of the Manchester Guardian, and many other leading correspondents, to enter Ukraine. Only a few extreme Bolshevik sympathizers such as Walter Duranty of The New York Times are permitted to do so. Even Duranty has admitted that the famine has decimated the Ukrainian population.

"Practically all of the leading press of England and the continent has been filled for the last four or five months with descriptions of the pitiful scenes throughout Ukraine.

"Appeals are being made to the Red Cross to establish a base in Ukraine in order that all Ukrainians can send their aid through this base. At the present time such aid is impossible, as the Bolsheviks will not permit it.

"Further appeals are being made to the U.S. government not to recognize this communistic dictatorship, as it is founded upon principles that are contrary to all rules of humanity and civilization. Appeals are also being made to the government to send a special mission to Ukraine in order to study the conditions under which the Ukrainian people are living under this tyrannical and oppressive Bolshevik dictatorship."

In the second issue of The Ukrainian Weekly, dated October 13, the following letter to the editor of the Public Ledger appeared.

'"Sir - With every change of a National Administration in Washington the propaganda for Soviet recognition flares up. It can always depend upon the interested support of the international bankers and traders, abetted by certain socialistic groups on the one hand and by various Communist elements and paid agitators on the other hand.

"The argument of the paid agitators for recognition of Red Russia is that vast opportunities for profitable trade would be opened up to the United States. This argument has no merit. How can you trade with a Government of murderers? How can you trade with a Government which, in its desire to remain in the saddle, keeps its people in submission by the policy of starvation?

"Despite the strictest censorship of mail and newspapers to keep the fact of starving millions in Ukraine, Northern Caucasia and Lower Volga regions from the outside world, the world has learned of the most horrible conditions which exist in that God-forsaken land. From visitors to Ukraine we learn that more than 6 million human beings died of starvation during the last summer.

"The relatives of Americans living in Ukraine write most pathetic letters about their plight. They say they have not seen bread for months. People die by the hundreds every day. Whole villages die out. There is no one to bury them.

"Do we comprehend the tragedy of these words? Do we realize that starvation of these people is a mapped-out policy of the tyrants of Red Russia?

"Why are people of the most fertile land in the world, Ukraine, dying from the lack of food? Because the tyrannical Red Russian Government requisitioned all of it for the purpose of dumping it on the world's markets.

"Does our Nation want to profit by starvation of millions of human beings? Have we not, the people of America, always been on the side of the oppressed and unfortunate?

"Let us now follow the same traditional policy. Before the Government of the United States recognizes Soviet Russia, let it send an impartial commission to this heaven of the class-hating proletariat and find out whether it should deal with Soviets at all.

"Let this commission be unhampered by the Soviet guides of GPU, let it visit Ukraine, Caucasus and Volga regions and find out why three-quarters of populace in hundreds of villages have perished of hunger."

It was signed by a Theodore J. Swystun of Philadelphia and dated, October 9, 1933.

An editor's note said that the above "points out a way for our young American Ukrainians to protest against the starving of Ukraine by the Soviets: by mailing similar letters to the American press."

* * *

Around the world:

President Paul von Hindenburg of Germany celebrated his 86th birthday.

Prohibition was repealed by 32 states in the United States.

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