Turning the pages back... November 29, 1932 (11/24/02)

Turning the pages back...

November 29, 1932

The Ukrainian community is now commemorating the 69th anniversary of the Great Famine of 1932-1933, in which some 7 million to 10 million perished. Twenty years ago, this paper published a series of columns - based on reports from Svoboda and, later, The Ukrainian Weekly (which began publication in October 1933) - that was aimed at reminding and informing readers of this genocide.

On November 29, 1932, Svoboda reported that the Communists were not particularly worried about the famine in the Soviet Union. The Communist press reported the "surprising lack of foodstuffs in the Soviet Union." The Communists added that the peasantry should be taught what is good and profitable by force. However, the Soviet situation was not as hushed-up in the world, as the Communists wished. Following are excerpts from a Svoboda article written in English, titled "Ukraine Under Soviet Russia."

One of the most up-to-date methods of propaganda adopted by the Soviet government has been the organization of carefully shepherded tours of the "Soviet Paradise." The tours usually start in London and proceed by sea to Leningrad, and after visiting Leningrad and Moscow a trip is made to Nizhnyi-Novgorod (now to be renamed Gorky) and Ukraine. These trips have appealed to intellectual sentimentalists and others with little knowledge of life and human affairs. They are shown what the Soviet government intends to show them, they are naturally shown the best, and they come back and usually report what the Soviet government intends them to report. Some of them have never set foot in Russia to make their reports which are simply abstracts of Soviet official statements, which they just as easily could have read at home in England.

But in spite of that, the reports of certain tourists, who for the most part set off with a bias in favor of the Soviet system, present a very gloomy picture of the failure of the Soviet authorities. The Soviet press in September reported that a group of journalists recently visited Russia on a 30-day trip and mentioned the following names: Hamilton Fyfe, representing Reynolds, Jules Mencken of the Economist, Kingsley Martin, editor of the New Statesman and Nation, Emrys Hughes of Forward, Ian MacDonald of the Yorkshire Post, Hubert Griffith, H.W. Smith, foreign editor of the News-Chronicle, F. Yeats-Brown of the Spectator.

From the above-mentioned list it will be seen that most of these gentlemen have been carefully selected on account of their socialistic tendencies.

We have awaited with interest the reaction of these gentlemen to the charms of Soviet Russia. Nearly all have now written their impressions and without exception, they provide a damning indictment of conditions in Soviet Russia, more especially in the great agricultural area of Ukraine.

In its October 8, 1932, issue, the Economist wrote: "Peasants are said to be complaining more and more openly. During August, a decree was passed penalizing theft of corn from the fields with death; and even during our short stay the decree was executed. Nevertheless stealing continues, and one traveler returning from the relatively prosperous Crimea reported a grim encounter with hungry peasants, who were kept from molesting his party only because it was armed."

Source: "The Great Famine (Part XI, November 1932)," The Ukrainian Weekly, May 1, 1983, Vol. LI, No. 18.

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