Dear Editor:
Regarding the recent article about the number of Holodomor victims (issue date July 1-July 8), I would like to point out that Joseph Stalin thought that the number of victims during the collectivization wars (lumped together as Holodomor) was 10 million, as recorded in his conversations with Walter Duranty (mentioned by Ihor Mirchuk in The Ukrainian Weekly, August 5). The terms Holodomor and Holocaust were not used until much later after World War II. Stalin repeated the same 10 million number to Winston Churchill as recorded in Churchill’s memoirs. Few articles about the Holodomor mention this, as though Stalin’s delusions about his killing efficiency have little relevance even though he was the architect of the project!
It is a relief that scholarly studies are showing that Stalin overestimated the casualty numbers. I much prefer knowing that Volodymyr Kubijovyc’s 3 million (see “Ukraine: A Concise Encyclopedia”) or John Paul Himka’s 4 million figures are closer to the truth than Stalin’s 10 million. These “lower” numbers in no way diminish the right of the Ukrainian nation to independence and should not be viewed that way.
Furthermore, there is plenty of proof that this was genocide, including the destruction of the Ukrainian academic and political elite, and the transfer of large segments of the Ukrainian population to other regions while repopulating and colonizing Ukrainian lands with Muscovites to accelerate Russification in order to enhance the evolution of homo Sovieticus.
Sterling Heights, Mich.