October 23, 1983

Media reports on famine. XIV

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Sarasota Herald-Tribune

SARASOTA, Fla. – The Great Famine in Ukraine (1932-33) was the subject of two editorials in the Sarasota Herald-Tribune, the most recent in the paper’s October 1 issue.

Titled “The Forgotten Holocaust,” the editorial said that thousands of Ukrainians were expected in Washington on October 2 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the famine.

Noting that Ukrainian history goes back “to the glory of Kiev, when Moscow was still a mean little duchy,” the paper said that the famine was orchestrated by the Soviet government to “‘teach a lesson’ to the independent-minded Ukrainians.”

It said that the famine “went remarkably unremarked in the rest of the world,” partly because certain members of the foreign press at the time were unwilling to admit brutality “in the midst of what they still sought to regard as a ‘noble experiment’ in communist government.”

The paper said that because Ukrainians, both by geography and history, have been “neighbors of this brutal phenomenon among nations far too long,” they are not surprised by such Soviet actions as the shooting down of the Korean airliner, Moscow’s intransigence on arms control and the invasion of Afghanistan.

Writing about the October 2 observance in Washington, the paper said it hoped “perceptive Americans” would join the Ukrainians “in person or in spirit.”

“The ‘Forgotten Holocaust’ is not all that forgotten, and recent events serve to remind others that the menace of 50 years ago has hardly receded at all,” the editorial said.

The famine was also the subject of a July 10 editorial titled “Two Anniversaries,” which contrasted “joyful” occasions such as this year’s 50th anniversary of the All Star Game, with somber events such as the 50th anniversary of the Great Famine.

“We are reminded by Adrian Karatnycky, writing in The Wall Street Journal, that this summer is a very different kind of anniversary in the Soviet Union,” the paper said citing the famine, which it said was Stalin’s “weapon of choice of ‘denationalize’ the Ukrainian peasantry.”

Noting that the famine killed millions of Ukrainians, the paper said that it is almost certain that “this ‘golden anniversary’ is not being remembered in the Ukraine – nor in any of the Siberian or other exile spots to which some Ukrainians were dispatched – with any semblance of fondly reminiscent cheer.”


Alberta Report

EDMONTON – The August 22 issue of Alberta Report carried a story about Conservative Leader Brian Mulroney’s political swing through western Canada, focusing on his stop at the Ukrainian Cultural Heritage Village, where he spoke on the Great Famine in Ukraine.

Mr. Mulroney described the man-made atrocity, which killed some 7 million people, as “the least understood event of this century,” and added that it remained “unavenged.”

The article said that Mr. Mulroney “did not dwell on the grisly details” of the famine in his 15-minute address, and reminded his audience that they should not only mourn the victims of the famine, but rejoice in the freedom afforded in Canada.


The Evening Sun

BALTIMORE – The Great Famine in Ukraine (1932-33), which killed some 7 million people, was the subject of a lengthy article by Brophy O’Donnell in the September 29 issue of The Evening Sun in Baltimore.

Headlined “Ukrainians recall their agony at the hands of the Russians,” the article provided a historical overview of the famine, and added that Ukrainians were planning to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the tragedy in Washington on October 2.

Mr. O’Donnell said that the “origin of the Ukrainian famine lies partly in the multinational structure of the Soviet Union,” noting that the independent-minded Ukrainians have traditionally been seen as a threat by the dominant Russians, with both Tsars and Communist Politburos” trying to “crush Ukrainian nationalism.”

“Against this background the famine of 1932-33 takes on genocidal implications,” he wrote. “Other grain-producing regions of the Soviet Union were affected, but none so severely as the Ukraine.”

Mr. O’Donnell said that much of the confiscated grain taken from the Ukrainian countryside was “exported to earn hard currency for the purchase abroad of industrial equipment.”

He characterized Stalin as a “totally vindictive man with a totally devious mind whose preferred solution to any problem of opposition was murder.”


Washington Times

WASHINGTON – The Great Famine in Ukraine (1932-33), and the role of certain Western journalists in covering it up, was the subject of John Lofton’s Journal in the October 3 issue of The Washington Times.

Mr. Lofton also mentioned the famine in a September 2 column on “communist morality” in the wake of the downing of the KAL airliner, noting that the Soviet system “caused the only man-induced famine in history, a famine which forced the deaths of millions in the Ukraine.”

In the October 3 article, headlined “Shameful cover-up of Russian famine,” Mr. Lofton examined the role of New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty in distorting reports about the severity of the famine.

Citing John William Crowl’s recently published book, “Angels in Stalin’s Paradise: Western Reporters in Soviet Russia, 1917 to 1937, A Case of Louis Fischer and Walter Duranty,” Mr. Lofton said that Mr. Duranty willfully misinformed his readers about the famine, while privately acknowledging that millions starved in Ukraine in the early 1930s.

“This distortion of the news, Crowl says, was a ‘vital factor’ in convincing the West that there was little or no truth to the famine stories,” wrote Mr. Lofton. In private, however, Mr. Duranty betrayed a thorough knowledge of the famine, according to Mr. Lofton. He once startled fellow journalist Eugene Lyons by providing an estimate of the famine death toll that was even higher than Mr. Lyons had imagined. “Incredibly, in 1932, Walter Duranty won the Pulitzer Prize because his dispatches showed ‘profundity,’ an ‘intimate comprehension of conditions in Russia’ and they were marked by ‘scholarship, impartiality, sound judgement and exceptional clarity,'” wrote Mr. Lofton, who called those conclusions “nonsense.”


U.S. News & World Report

NEW YORK – Marvin Stone, writing in the September 19 issue of U.S. News & World Report, alluded to the great famine in an Editor’s Page commentary dealing with President Ronald Reagan’s response to the shooting down of the Korean airliner by the Soviets.

In recalling the Soviet Union’s historical record of violence, Mr. Stone wrote: “Millions of Ukrainians were liquidated by starvation. The secret police imposed a reign of terror to stifle dissent.”


Youngstown Vindicator

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Dr. George P. Kulchycky of Youngstown State University, who will present a paper at the end of October on peasant reaction to the Great Famine in Ukraine, was the subject of an article by Michael Kreca in the September 5 issue of the Youngstown Vindicator.

Mr. Kreca said that in preparing his paper, Dr. Kulchycky, a specialist in Soviet and East European affairs, told him that he had talked to famine survivors in the Youngstown area, many “who are afraid to talk.”

Dr. Kulchycky said that the famine, which killed some 7 million Ukrainians in 1932-33, was “a planned effort on the part of Joseph Stalin’s totalitarian regime and part of his policy to force agricultural USSR to industrialize completely,” wrote Mr. Kreca.

Dr. Kulchycky also provided Mr. Kreca with several eyewitness accounts, including incidences of cannibalism, infanticide and peasants eating carrion to survive.

He also noted that the industrial areas of Ukraine were untouched by the famine, which he said exemplifies Stalin’s plan to industrialize at the expense of agriculture.


The Ukrainian Weekly, October 23, 1983, No. 43, Vol. LI

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