1989: A LOOK BACK: Victims of Stalinism (12/31/89)

1989: A LOOK BACK

Victims of Stalinism

As in other parts of the Soviet Union, many efforts were undertaken in 1989 to come to grips with the Stalinist past. According to Soviet historian Roy Medvedev, 40 million persons were killed, arrested or otherwise persecuted during the reign of terror of Joseph Stalin.

In Ukraine, a Memorial Society was founded on March 4 in Kiev. Like its namesake in Moscow, the society is committed to honoring the victims of Stalinism and cleansing Soviet society of Stalinist vestiges. Among the topics raised at Memorial's founding meeting were the famine of 1932-1933 and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA).

The next day, several thousand people participated in a public rally, seeking an honest depiction of history and a rehabilitation of innocent victims. The founding conference and rally were held on the weekend that coincided with the 36th anniversary of Stalin's death.

A couple of months later, on May 27, the founding conference of the Lviv regional Memorial Society was held. That conference, too, was followed by a mass meeting devoted to filling in the "blank spots" of history.

In March, the world learned of a mass grave just outside of Kiev, in Bykivnia, where up to 300,000 are buried - the victims of Stalin, not, as a government commission had stated as late as May 1988, victims of the Nazis. A monument erected at the site then had noted that "6,329 Soviet soldiers, partisans, members of the underground and peaceful citizens" had been killed by "the Fascist occupying forces in 1941-1943."

In 1989 a new government commission - the fourth to investigate the mass grave - released a report saying that the thousands buried were victims of Stalin. TASS reported the new findings on March 24.

On May 7, the Memorial Society organized a mass meeting at Bykivnia. After a march from Kiev to the site, a requiem service was offered.

Meanwhile, the Soviet press began to write about dark episodes of the Stalin era. One of these was the history behind Vinnytsia, a city 200 kilometers southwest of Kiev, scene of mass executions by Stalin's henchmen. Some 10,000 were found to be buried in the mass graves of Vinnytsia.

And, the Soviet press acknowledged that there are many such mass graves throughout Ukraine.

Most recently, another mass grave was unearthed in western Ukraine. On September 21 in Demianiv Laz, a nature preserve near Pasichna, south of Ivano-Frankivske, exhumation began. Some 500 bodies of victims of the great terror have been uncovered along with documents proving that they were indeed victims of the NKVD, the secret police.

A memorial service on October 29 at Demianiv Las was attended by thousands. The unearthed remains were reburied and a temporary marker was placed at the site to indicate that a monument to the "victims of the repressions of 1939-1941" is soon to be erected at Demianiv Laz.