8 Stages of genocide (continued)
7. Extermination
Since the quotas were too high to be met, all independent farmers had failed to make contributions into the U.S.S.R.. In order to punish them, seeds set aside for later use were confiscated and fines were added into meat and potato prices. Consequently, families could barely afford any nutritious items and had to rely on non-edible substances, such as straws from the roof and tree barks, for survival. Watchtowers occupied by soldiers were responsible for safeguarding all crops preventing farmers from sneaking food out of the fields. To intensify the situation even more, a formal law was passed and made hiding even a few stalk of grain an act of sabotage, a crime severe enough for execution. By June 1933, at the height of famine, Ukrainians were dying at the rate of 25,000 per day, or 1000 per hour, or 17 per minute. More than 1/3 of the dying population were children under the age of 10. Between 1932 and 1934, an estimated number of 10 million deaths had occurred in Soviet Ukraine. This statistic did not include deportations, secret executions, and death caused by diseases and bacteria infections.
Since the quotas were too high to be met, all independent farmers had failed to make contributions into the U.S.S.R.. In order to punish them, seeds set aside for later use were confiscated and fines were added into meat and potato prices. Consequently, families could barely afford any nutritious items and had to rely on non-edible substances, such as straws from the roof and tree barks, for survival. Watchtowers occupied by soldiers were responsible for safeguarding all crops preventing farmers from sneaking food out of the fields. To intensify the situation even more, a formal law was passed and made hiding even a few stalk of grain an act of sabotage, a crime severe enough for execution. By June 1933, at the height of famine, Ukrainians were dying at the rate of 25,000 per day, or 1000 per hour, or 17 per minute. More than 1/3 of the dying population were children under the age of 10. Between 1932 and 1934, an estimated number of 10 million deaths had occurred in Soviet Ukraine. This statistic did not include deportations, secret executions, and death caused by diseases and bacteria infections.
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Interview excerpts with Ukrainian Famine-Holodomor survivors
8. Denial
The Holodomor eventually came to a devastating end as independent farmers had no ability to resist any further. They were powerless and tired of the fact that an order from the Red Army could send thousands to death. As a result, they signed to join collective farms. However, the Ukrainians had struggled and have continued to struggle for an official apology and explanation from the Russian government.
In March 1933, in an interview with Gareth Jones (a Welsh journalist who first published the existence of Holodomor in western communities) Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov said,
The Holodomor eventually came to a devastating end as independent farmers had no ability to resist any further. They were powerless and tired of the fact that an order from the Red Army could send thousands to death. As a result, they signed to join collective farms. However, the Ukrainians had struggled and have continued to struggle for an official apology and explanation from the Russian government.
In March 1933, in an interview with Gareth Jones (a Welsh journalist who first published the existence of Holodomor in western communities) Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov said,
Well, there is no famine...You must take a longer view. The present hunger is temporary. In writing books you must have a longer view. It would be difficult to describe it as hunger.
The Soviet government also used tactics like falsification and suppression to prevent information from leaking to the outside world. Death tolls recorded by local hospitals and other facilities were in great disproportion with U.S.S.R. official documents. Stalin and his advocates deceived the Russian people through the play on numbers to generate a false impression of Russia being a paradise. After 11 years of the genocide, the population census conducted by the government in Soviet Ukraine failed to reflect the expected population growth and goal line. To deal with this "dereliction" of duty, senior statisticians and head members of the Soviet Central Statistical Administration were quickly arrested and secretly sentenced to death. The census of that year in Ukraine region was not published and locked away.
Shortly before the collapse of the U.S.S.R and the independence of Ukraine in 1991, the government published a book named “Fraud, Famine, and Fascism: the Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard". As what was written on its front page, this book “[did] not attempt to study the famine in any detailed way”. Instead, the communist government blamed the capitalist societies for spreading rumors about the famine distorting reality. Also, the U.S.S.R. believed that countries like USA and UK must stop their speculations immediately and help to restore the positive image of Russia.
Foreign journalists also played an important role in covering up this catastrophic event. Since most of the western countries were going through the Great Depression at the time and Joseph Stalin had refused to accept any foreign food supply, leaders of those countries decided to leave Russia alone and made peace with the genocide. Walter Duranty, Moscow Bureau Chief of the New York Times, had received a Pulitzer Price (an award for achievements in newspaper, journalism, literature, and musical composition in the United States) for his biased, untruthful reports on the Holodomor. He once wrote,
Shortly before the collapse of the U.S.S.R and the independence of Ukraine in 1991, the government published a book named “Fraud, Famine, and Fascism: the Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard". As what was written on its front page, this book “[did] not attempt to study the famine in any detailed way”. Instead, the communist government blamed the capitalist societies for spreading rumors about the famine distorting reality. Also, the U.S.S.R. believed that countries like USA and UK must stop their speculations immediately and help to restore the positive image of Russia.
Foreign journalists also played an important role in covering up this catastrophic event. Since most of the western countries were going through the Great Depression at the time and Joseph Stalin had refused to accept any foreign food supply, leaders of those countries decided to leave Russia alone and made peace with the genocide. Walter Duranty, Moscow Bureau Chief of the New York Times, had received a Pulitzer Price (an award for achievements in newspaper, journalism, literature, and musical composition in the United States) for his biased, untruthful reports on the Holodomor. He once wrote,
There is no actual starvation or deaths from starvation, but there is widespread mortality from disease due to malnutrition… conditions are bad. But there is no famine.
Even until this day, the New York Times still refuses to acknowledge the act of fraud perpetrated by Walter Duranty. The company also refuses to return the Pulitzer Prize on the ground of moral and ethical reasons.
Ukrainian-Russia relationship had once again deteriorated in 2004. Russia, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, was in and is still in constant conflicts with the Ukrainian government. Consequently, when the Ukrainian parliament passed a bill dedicating to make the denial of the Holodomor unlawful in 2006, Russia responded bitterly. Due to this confrontation, Ukraine was disqualified from NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization ) membership. Russia government continues to maintain its position on this genocide. It denies the fact of the Great Ukrainian Famine being a mass murder of a race.