GLASNOST DIARY: recording changes in the USSR

One step forward... two steps back

Although news of the Stalinist terror famine of 1932-1933 has appeared on the pages of Literaturna Ukraina and even the English-language Moscow News, the editors of News from Ukraine are not convinced of the actual occurrence of such a man-made famine in Ukraine. In a recent issue of the newspaper (October 1988), a story, headlined "Ukrainian terror-famine a holohoax with a twist," features excerpts from a Village Voice article written by Jeff Coplon in 1986.

Mr. Coplon, who claims the famine story was a fraud, is quoted extensively in the News from Ukraine article, as is Marco Carynnyk, who stated that the Canadian famine research committee "was more interested in propagandistic purposes than historical scholarship," when producing a documentary on the event.

News from Ukraine then provides its own commentary, which we quote below:

"It may not be sheer coincidence that faminology took wing after the OSI (Justice Department's Office of Special Investigations) was commissioned in 1979, For here was a way to rehabilitate fascism - to prove that Ukrainian collaborators were helpless victims caught between the rock of Hitler and Stalin's hard place.

"Just as the Nazis used the OUN for their own ends, so has Reagan exploited the famine, from his purple-prosed commemoration of this callous act to his backing of the Mace commission.

"As Conquest noted on PBS, after the starving girl's image finally faded from the screen: This was a true picture we saw... It turns out that the picture is far from true. It's a brash bit of larceny for Conquest and company, even within the prevailing vogue of antiStalinism. But if they say it loud enough and long enough, people just might listen. Lie bold enough and large enough, and - as the man once said - it just might stick.

Copyright © The Ukrainian Weekly, December 25, 1988, No. 52, Vol. LVI

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