November 10, 1990, marked the conclusion of the “National Week to Commemorate the Victims of the Famine in Ukraine, 1932-1933,” as proclaimed by President George H.W. Bush. The U.S. Congress, by Senate Joint Resolution 329, designated the week of November 3-10 to commemorate the victims of the famine, and requested that President Bush issue a proclamation in observance of the week.
The proclamation noted: “During the brutal famine that struck the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1932-1933, more than 7 million men, women and children died from starvation. Tragically – and to the horror of all those who cherish the blessings of life and liberty – this deadly famine was not caused by drought or by failed harvests. Rather, it resulted from a cruel and deliberate effort to destroy the spirit and the will of the Ukrainian people.”
Joseph Stalin, the proclamation added, “willfully permitted and even encouraged mass starvation in Ukraine.” Through collectivization of agriculture, “Soviet authorities not only seized Ukrainian farmers’ 1932 crop but also prevented desperately needed aid from reaching impoverished villages.”
The U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine, which was mandated by Congress, reinforced the belief that the Great Famine, which we now call the Holdomor, was indeed the result of deliberate policies of the Soviet government at that time. After months of hearings, eyewitness testimony, and the careful consideration of other documentation, the commission concluded: “There is no doubt that large numbers of inhabitants of the Ukrainian SSR and the North Caucus territory starved to death in a man-made famine in 1932-1933, caused by the seizure of the 1932 crop by Soviet authorities.” The commission also noted the lessons that could be learned from the Famine in Ukraine, including the “concealment of criminal policies by those who perpetrate them.”
The Communist Party of Ukraine, the proclamation noted, acknowledged that the Famine was caused and sustained by Stalin and his associates. The document further applauded the steps by President Mikhail Gorbachev to fill in these “blank pages” of Soviet history.
Source: “For the Record: Proclamation of famine remembrance,” The Ukrainian Weekly, November 18, 1990.