Ukraine Separatists Rewrite History of 1930s Famine

[Tommy_Carcetti]

Source: New York Times

DONETSK, Ukraine — Yevdokiya was still a young girl, her nephew recalled, when the neighbors invited her over for a social occasion of some sort. This was during the great famine of 1933, he said, and her family became alarmed when she failed to return.

She never did come home, said the nephew, Aleksandr S. Khodakovsky, now a senior official in the Russian-backed separatist government of the Donetsk People’s Republic. To their horror, her parents discovered that she had been cannibalized by the desperate neighbors, not an uncommon occurrence in a famine that killed 3.3 million people, by most estimates.

Traditionally, Ukrainian historians have characterized the famine as a genocide, the direct result of Stalin’s forced collectivization and the Soviet government’s requisitioning of grain for export abroad, leaving Ukraine short — and its borders sealed shut. Since Ukraine gained independence, that is what its students have been taught.

But that is not what students in southeastern Ukraine are learning this year. Instead, under orders from the newly installed separatist governments, they are getting the sanitized Russian version, in which the famine was an unavoidable tragedy that befell the entire Soviet Union.


Read more: http://mobile.nytimes.com/2015/04/30/world/europe/ukraine-separatists-rewrite-history-of-1930s-famine.html?referrer&_r=0

---

Stalin lives!

[PatrynXX]

1. yeah Stalin... ahem

always thought of it this Darth Vader vs Emperor P.... Emp was Hitler. Darth Vader was Stalin only Darth Vader could take out the other bad guy.

[happyslug]

3. I was called a denial of the Ukrainian Famine, when I pointed out it was the fault of Stalin

And one of the reason his wife was found dead with a gun by her side (official ruling was appendicitis) was she had argued with Stalin about the famine in the Ukraine and his lack of any response to it. Her death caused Stalin to offer his resignation (it was quickly withdrawn) and one a the side results was the ending of the famine in the Ukraine (Stalin dropped what he expected in wheat to pay for industrial goods he wanted).

The famine was caused by Stalin demand for wheat to be sold overseas, his demand was based on previous years production and when a drought hit and reduced wheat production, he did NOT drop his demand for wheat. Thus in previous years the collective produced 10 million bushels of wheat and Moscow took 8, in the drought year the collective only produced 8 million bushels, Moscow still took all 8.

Stalin did this to the Ukraine and to Russia, he did it throughout the Soviet Union. The Ukrainian radicals have always wanted to make it Ukrainian only, but it was not, the Ukraine had the misfortune in being used by the NKVD to cover up the famine of 1932-1933, but inventing a famine of 1934-1935, that could easily be disproved. Hurst took in the reports of a famine in 34-35 hook line and sinker, and made a big thing about it. When it was shown no famine in those years, the whole story of the Famine died with it. This was a favorite tactic of he NKVD, expand a report of a crime against humanity, but make it bigger then it really was, and then disprove that bigger story, killing the larger fak story AND killing the smaller real story with it. It is a well proven technique and Stalin used it well.

[newthinking]

6. History is deeply complex and political and popular forces try to use it as a bludgeon to control

or justify continual conflict.

There are accurate terms for these things that should be adhered to. The famine was an atrocity but it was not a genocide.

I agree that what is really happening is nationalists are trying to further divide cultures and foment long term hatreds (or maintain power over others) is what really is going on.

We have regressed terribly in our approach to understanding these things in the last 20 odd years.

[Litvin]

2. Kazakhstan

Tommy its a great story. whats interesting here that its a nothing new here, People of Lugandon has always rejected even term "holodomor", many of them the settlers who came in Donbass after the great Famine. whats even more interesting that it was not the biggest Famine in USSR. Kazakhstan still hides the facts of its 1920s Famine , which was way more devastating then Ukraine one

[newthinking]

5. Russians (and I suspect eastern Ukraine seperatists)

do not deny that an atrocity occurred. They have museums and memorials on it. They just don't believe it was an ethnic policy. The UN has not categorized it as such and the international community is divided on it because it really doesn't meet the ethnic criteria

It is an emotional topic and certainly those whose families are right to expect recognition. But I am not sure how good of an idea it is to declare all crimes against humanity to be genocide when the ethnic component is not really there. That just stokes up hate between societies and essentially leads to more atrocities.

[Adrahil]

10. If the Soviets were collecting grain for export...

... a the Ukrainians were left without enough food to eat, how would YOU describe such an event?

Perhaps it's not genocide (in that it was not a deliberate attempt to kill the Ukrainians), but it is without a doubt an atrocity that ranks up there with the potato famine in Ireland, if the Soviets were in fact doing as described.

Once again seem to be running to defend Putin and his lapdogs in the Donbass.

[Xithras]

12. It really depends on how you define "genocide".

There is no question that it was mass murder by the Soviet government, and that it was the moral equal of the Irish Potato Famine or the Great Chinese Famine after the Leap Forward policies were implemented. The question is whether it was a genocide, and that really depends on how you define the word.

More than 80% of the people who died in Ukraine were ethnic Ukrainians, which has been used as evidence that the famine was targeted at the ethnic Ukrainians. Superficially, it's a good argument.

When you dig a little deeper, however, things get a little more complicated. The brunt of the famine fell on the poorest members of society, who were the rural population in the countryside. The comparatively wealthier urban residents in Ukraine's industrial and business centers fared much better than their rural bretheren, and the death toll was much lower. Demographically, urban Ukrainians of all ethnicities fared much, much better than the poor in the countryside.

When you factor out the urban residents and look at the demographics and death tolls only of the rural residents, the ethnic distribution of the dead closely mirrors the ethnic distribution of rural Ukraine. That would indicate that the famine targeted the poor, and not a particular ethnic group. Because the word genocide has historically been reserved for attempts to eradicate a particular ethnic group, that fact would argue against it being a genocide.

Nowadays, however, the word genocide is widely used to describe mass killings that have nothing to do with race or ethnicity, and the word simply seems to be replacing "mass murder" in the popular lexicon. If someone defines genocide as any act of mass murder by a government, either deliberately or by deliberate inaction, then it IS genocide.

Whether or not the Holodomor was a genocide has little to do with the events themselves, and everything to do with your definition of the word.

[newthinking]

13. You just agreed with my point.

Go back and read my posts. I said almost exactly what you did.

[Adrahil]

19. Your posts look a lot more like apologetics than mins did.

Thats not helped by your history of consistently being a Putin Apologist.

I actually don't think thats your intent, but it's how it comes across.

[newthinking]

4. A lot of rewriting of history is occurring, some of it by Ukrainain nationalists aswell as the MSM.

There are so many inaccurate emotional hit pieces right now on Russian society it is a shame people propagate what is essentially propaganda which leads away from understanding the complexity of historical events.

It says they are getting the "sanitized" Russian version and uses charged language, when in fact:

There is no consensus in the international community that the famine expressed ethnic genocide. There were millions who also died in other regions, the famine and the same policies drove starvation throughout the USSR.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor_genocide_question

Despite what the msm says, Russia has addressed Stalin and recognized his atrocities. There is a museum and memorial to the victims of the gulags. Russians KNOW the truth that the famine starved people throughout Russia as well as Ukraine. And they make the case, which is likely accurate that it was a combination of factors (including Stalin's repressing nature of converting the country to his vision of a communist state, bad actors locally, city leaders who stripped the farms of their grain, and zealot youth communists groups).

Considering that the US has not fully recognized the genocide of Native Americans, which was actually a very purpouseful attempt and extinguishing a culture, we should be careful to accept the "exceptional nation" argument that we are a good judge of how other countries try to come to grips with historical atrocities.

[NuclearDem]

11. "Considering that the US has not fully recognized the genocide of Native Americans,"

JFC

Can't go a single goddamn post.

[newthinking]

7. Salon: The New York Times “basically rewrites whatever the Kiev authorities say”

The New York Times “basically rewrites whatever the Kiev authorities say”:
Stephen F. Cohen on the U.S./Russia/Ukraine history the media won’t tell you

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/16/the_new_york_times_basically_rewrites_whatever_the_kiev_authorities_say_stephen_f_cohen_on_the_u_s_russiaukraine_history_the_media_wont_tell_you/

[snooper2]

9. Did you throw enough spin in this thread yet? We are currently at 263 degree

Or are you going for full spin mode like the Russian supply ship LOL

[newthinking]

15. Amazing. Tabloid journalism is now "factual", scientific analysis: SPIN?

But yes, I did get caught up in this because it is alarming how much our MSM promotes falsehoods.
This is a very violent period and we don't need to artificially promote anger for profit.

[TygrBright]

8. Oh, dear. They're messing with history again. The usual result of that...

...is that history messes with them.

And not in a nice way.

prophetically,
Bright

[newthinking]

14. The Soviet Famine of 1932-33 reconsidered - Published analysis

It's a propaganda piece as is most of the NYT articles on Ukraine (which are based on the Ukrainian Media Center's work).

The general Russian view, which is actually the more scientific, is the same as in this:

The Soviet Famine of 1932-33 reconsidered
http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09668130801999912

They don't deny the famine was the fault of Stalin and the government.

So what is the purpose of the NYT misleading their readers? More emotions produced get more visits?

[Litvin]

16. Genocide

They (Collaborators) do deny the famine was an act of Genocide , against Ukraine nation

[Litvin]

20. GDL

you are very wrong http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Duchy_of_Lithuania

[LanternWaste]

21. Your Lysenkoism is showing...

Your Lysenkoism is showing...

[freshwest]

18. Steal their history, their language and their land. It works very well, no? n/t