February 20, 1983

CHRONOLOGY OF THE FAMINE YEARS. PART I

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This year marks the 50th anniversary of one of the harshest and cruelest tragedies of the Ukrainian people, the Great Famine of 1932-33.

This column, which appears for the first time this week, hopes to shed some light on the development of events as reported to the Ukrainian community in the United States. Svoboda, The Ukrainian-language daily newspaper which has almost 40 years old then, carried any news it could get about Soviet grain procurements and the subsequent famine.

In the 1983 New Year appeal of the Ukrainian National Association’s Supreme Executive Committee, it is stated: “In the years 1932, 1933 and 1934, issues of Svoboda provide perhaps the best documentation of the horrors of the Great Famine and unmasks the organizers and executors of this holocaust. Further, the need to inform the American public and the press about the tragedies in 1933 Ukraine was one of the main reasons for the establishment of The Ukrainian Weekly.”

Relying on news from Svoboda and The Ukrainian Weekly, this column hopes to remind and inform Americans and Canadians of this terrible crime against humanity.

By bringing other events worldwide into the picture as well, the column hopes to give a perspective on the state of the world in the years 1932-33.

On February 6, 1932, Svoboda ran an article on its front page titled “Ukraine cannot meet Moscow’s quota for grain harvest.” This was the first news on the pages of the Ukrainian-language daily that showed something was amiss in the country – once known as the breadbasket of Europe – that was the homeland of so many Ukrainians living in the United States.

Meanwhile in the United States in February 1932, William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor spoke out against the high rate of unemployment.

Japan sent an entire division (11,000 men) of troops to China as it continued its invasion of Manchuria. However, newspapers reported that the Chinese were finally gaining victories in several important land areas. The year saw Manchuria, under the aegis of Japan, establish Manchukuo, a nominally independent state.

Great Britain announced that as of March 1, free trade would be supplanted with protective tariffs. This was in response to the country’s financial crisis of 1931, which resulted from the worldwide economic crisis. King George V asked Ramsey MacDonald to head a coalition government which took the country off the gold standard and ceased the repayment of war debts as well.

Arab leaders prepared a project for the division of Palestine into two autonomous provinces, Arab and Jewish.

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Also in February, Svoboda, the soon-to-be 40-year-old newspaper of the Ukrainian community in America, ran news about the lack of grain reserves in the Soviet Union. According to the story, Ukraine had met only 75 percent of its harvest quota. Svoboda quoted Pravda, the Soviet Communist Party newspaper, as reporting that the collective farms were keeping much of the grain for their own needs, and not delivering it to the state. It mentioned that city governments were incapable of doing anything about this situation. At a raion meeting, a Mr. Yemets, the meeting chairman, mentioned that “it is time for Ukraine to stop harvesting its grain, for the 75 percent which can be harvested has already been delivered.” The Pravda story also blamed the grain shortage on the horrible Soviet transportation system, noting that much of the harvested grain was awaiting transportation into the cities, sitting at pick-up points as well as in railroad cars, where it was subjected to dampness, and afflicted with smuts, rusts and rots. The newspaper also reported that 190 cars of rye had caught fire and burned while waiting to be transported.

Thus, the grain situation got worse, reported Svoboda, as it printed news of an “Order to the Bolsheviks of Ukraine to fulfill its grain collection quota for the month of February,” which had appeared in Pravda. Svoboda stated: “This shows that the Bolsheviks are putting a lot of pressure on the Ukrainian peasants to hand over all the grain they harvested, including the grain they kept for their own needs.”

Pravda stated that the grain delivered to collection stations was far behind the scheduled plan. The newspaper blamed the lack of grain being delivered on the kulaks and on party opportunists, who did not fulfill their assignments 100 percent. It also stated that the peasants hide the grain and then sell it clandestinely on the black market. Reportedly, in the Yefymovsky raion, the peasants supposedly sold 44,000 poods of grain, yet the state did not even receive halt the quota it had imposed on the raion. These kinds of incidents are “daily happenings in Ukraine,” reported Pravda, and only “by means of a battle that has no regard for anything against the kulaks and their agent-opportunists, will they achieve victory on the grain front.”

Lastly, Pravda confirmed that preparatory work for spring planting was very unsatisfactory: the delivery of seeds as well as the renovation of tractors in certain regions had not even begun. The newspaper stated that not only individual farms, but collective farms also were guilty of holding back grain from the state.

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Meanwhile, a severe winter hit the rest of Europe. A deep freeze touched many countries. Cases of people frozen to death were reported in northern Italy. The Venetian canals froze over, the bitter cold reached as far as the southern Mediterranean.

In Berlin, 2.5 million people signed a petition asking the 84-year-old president, Paul von Hindenburg, to run once more for president; he consented. Adolf Hitler was quickly made a citizen of Germany so that he, too, would be able to run for president. The Berlin newspaper reported that his chances against Hindenburg were “very slim.”

In Madrid, the second republic government battled with the Communists and anarchists who made an attempt to tumble the state. The Communists were exiled to various islands off the coast of Spain.

In the United States, the situation was looking up. The Republican Party, in celebration of Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, spoke in defense of President Herbert Hoover, saying that just as Lincoln did not cause the Civil War, Hoover did not cause the depression and unemployment.

Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company announced that it would be giving paid vacations and hiring more people, and it seemed that the country was headed for better times.

In Houston, members of the South Texas Producers Association spilled 1,500 gallons of milk into a canal to protest the new price decrease in milk. Milk went for 16.6¢ a gallon, a decrease from 20¢.

Thus, the month of February in the year 1932 came to an end. The beginning of the great catastrophe that was to kill 7 million Ukrainians in the Soviet Union was developing with the news that the 1932 harvest was poor and the spring planting of 1932 was unsatisfactory.

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