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A ray of sunshine in the dark

02 December, 00:00
MURDER IN COLD BLOOD: THESE INNOCENT PEOPLE WERE DOOMED TO DEATH BY STALIN. UKRAINE, 1933 / Photo taken from the book The Holodomor in Soviet Ukraine, Kyiv, 2003

Crime and murder, moreover, the deliberate, conscious extermination of millions, genocide, always triumph where the Big Lie wins. They are dominant there and then, where and when people (as a rule, paralyzed by Big Fear) cannot speak up and call the deliberate extermination of their own nation an act of terror, a cold-blooded rejection of the commandment “Thou shallt not kill,” the most wicked of the sins; where the unshakeable foundations of human morals have been eroded and destroyed by that very Big Lie.

Homicidal tyrants have always lied. Yet even against that background the cynical, venomous, total lie of the Leader of All Nations, whose terrible mindset we saw in the ever accursed year of 1933, seems to have been unprecedented and unsurpassed.

Here is an excerpt from Stalin’s speech at the first congress of shock-work collective farmers of February 19, 1933: “Our achievement is that millions of poor peasants have joined kolkhozes and, taking advantage of better lands and better material, have risen to the level of middle peasants. Our achievement is that millions of poor peasants, who used to starve, have become well-to-do. We have helped the poor become the masters of their fate within kolkhozes, by becoming middle-class peasants…

“No less than 20 million peasants have been rescued by us from misery and ruin, from bondage to kulaks, and transformed, due to kolkhozes, into well-to-do people. This is a great achievement, comrades. This is an achievement which has not been seen anywhere in the world — unknown in any state in the world.

“But it was our very first step. To proceed, and reinforce kolkhozes once and for all, we must make a second step. It consists in helping collective farmers, both former poor peasants and former middle peasants, go higher still. It consists in making all collective farmers prosperous. Yes, comrades, prosperous!”

This was said exactly as millions of Ukrainian peasants, deprived of food, were virtually locked up in their homes. All foodstuffs had been forcefully confiscated (first of all, following the CC VKP(b) telegram of January 1, 1933, signed by Stalin, which demanded a “voluntary” yielding by kolkhozes, collective farmers, and individual peasants of “the previously hidden grain”). The telegram contained direct orders to the CC KP(b)U: “Concerning the collective farmers, kolkhozes, and individual peasants who persist in hiding the plundered, hidden, and unrecorded grain,” they will be liable to the resolution of Central Executive Committee and Council of the People’s Commissars of the USSR of August 7, 1932, i.e., the terrible “Five Ears of Corn Law,” stipulating for at least 10 years of labor camps!

The secret CC VKP(b) and CPC USSR directive of January 22, 1933, signed by Stalin and Molotov, demanded that the CC KP(b)U and GPU of Ukraine “do not allow the emigration of peasants en masse from Ukraine to other regions, and immigration to Ukraine from the North Caucasus.” Thus, millions of people were doomed to starvation. This is how Stalin made “all collective farmers prosperous.”

The more did horrible information about the Great Famine and unprecedented loss of life in the sovietized Ukraine leak outside its borders, the harder honest people in western Ukraine (immensely touched by the tragedy) and in Western Europe, free from the ideological drug of bolshevism, try to tell the world the truth of terror famine. Because the word of Truth, although it cannot defeat evil by itself, does dispel the dark, the realm of the Lie, the shadows where evil can exist.

The top hierarchs of the Greek Catholic bishopric in Galicia were the first to send out words of mourning and protest. This document, addressed to the world community and signed by Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky and bishops Hryhorii Khomyshyn, Yosafat Kotsylovsky, Nykyta Budka, Hryhorii Lakota, Ivan Buchko, and Ivan Liatyshevsky on July 24, 1933, read: “Ukraine is agonizing! The population is starving to death. Built on injustice, fraud, godlessness, and deprivation, the cannibalistic system of state management has reduced the recently wealthy country to absolute ruin. Three years ago the head of the Catholic Church Holy Father Pope Pius XI protested against everything which is ungodly in bolshevism, contrary to Christianity and human nature, and warned against the horrible consequences of such crimes. Now we can see the progress of the Bolsheviks: the situation in the country is becoming worse and worse with every passing day.

“Unable to render any material help to our agonizing brothers, we appeal to our faithful to beg, through prayers, fasts, universal mourning, sacrifice, and every possible good deal of Christian life, for help from heaven, once there is no hope for help from humans here, on earth.

“In the face of the world, we again protest against the persecution of the little, the poor, the weak and the innocent, and accuse their oppressors before the Superior Court. The blood of the workers who ploughed the black soils of Ukraine in starvation, calls for revenge from heaven, and the voice of hungry reapers has reached Lord Sabaoth. We ask Christians throughout the world, all believers in God, and especially all workers and farmers, first of all, our fellow countrymen, to join in this voice of protest and pain, and spread it to the fartherst lands of the world.”

Next day, on July 25, 1933, the appeal of the Ukrainian Civil Committee for Aiding Ukraine to the world community and Ukrainian people was published. It was signed by such renowned public figures in Galicia as Milena Rudnytska, Vasyl Mudry, Dmytro Levytsky, Vasyl Kuzmovych, members of the Ukrainian parliamentary representation, representatives of the Prosvita Society, the Ukrainian Pedagogical Society, and of the Union of Ukrainian Women.

The document opened with the solemn words: “The people of Ukraine! Great Ukraine, your mainland, the richest land in Europe, is now writhing in the agony of hunger, and suffers unbearable national oppression. The Russian communists and Bolsheviks, who with fire and sword have destroyed the Ukrainian state upon the Dnipro, and brought their dictatorship on their bayonets into our land, are now crucifying the Ukrainian nation. They are starving the entire population of Ukraine en masse.

“You must say your firm word to the oppressors and the whole world, and speak about the thraldom of your starved brothers, of their misery and agony. You must do everything, thus saving your own self, your national life from destruction. The communist dictators from Moscow are attempting at the very life of the Ukrainian nation which ended up under their rule.

“Even cannibalism did not stop the Russian communists from laying their hands on this year’s harvest, all of the yield. Communists decided to export all grain from Ukraine, letting the Ukrainian population starve to death. The cup of Your patience is now full. We cannot remain silent any longer. Wherever a Ukrainian heart beats, we must not only protest against all communist atrocities, but also move the conscience of entire mankind, awaken the entire world, and make it pay attention to our situation, and give a helping hand.”

Thus, (and it is clear from the texts of both appeals) a great role was assigned to public opinion. At least, this was what Galicians relied on. They also made concrete attempts to influence relevant governmental and diplomatic circles in the West. In particular, on September 27, 1933, the European Federation of Ukrainians Abroad (in the person of its Secretary General Dmytro Andriievsky, who also was director of the OUN’s external political referential network) addressed a Memorandum on the Famine in Ukraine to British Foreign Secretary John Simon (“We take the liberty of addressing Your Highness and request you to do us a favor and pass our petition to your government, and also be our speaker in this matter.”)

In particular, the memorandum emphasized that “in the spring of 1933 the once rich and flourishing country resembled one huge camp, where the population, fleeing from death and looking for food, was ever moving, bumping into cordons set on orders from the Soviet authorities. Huge numbers of people have died in the Ukrainian lands over the recent months — several million souls.

“The famine which is destroying Ukraine now confronts the world with a problem which, by its essence, peculiarities, and exceptionality, exceeds the boundaries of the mere matter of humaneness, and acquires a different weight and character on the global scale. It should be stressed that the famine was not caused by bad weather conditions or a poor harvest. The disastrous situation in Ukraine should be blamed on the communist regime, established by the Muscovite Bolsheviks; it is the Soviet government that has ruined the economy, resorted to the forced collectivization of farmers’ households, and monopolized the fruits of the work of Ukrainian peasants; it is the Soviet state, attempting to get foreign currency, that bereaves the starving of their last grain, in order to send it to international markets.

“From the social and economic perspective, the actions of the Soviet regime can plunder the most fertile country of Europe and exterminate the most expert agricultural nation, with the view to a further redistribution of population. No matter how insane and senseless this plan may appear, the authors of worldwide migrations of population are not in the least worried by this, and they will not stop at even the most atrocious measures.

“Finally, from the moral perspective, the public opinion and the responsible leaders of civilized nations cannot allow the Soviet regime to exterminate an entire nation... The change of Moscow’s attitude towards Ukraine must become a prerequisite for any action initiated in the name of a nation placed on the verge of extinction. One can hardly expect this of Bolsheviks without firm and resolute pressure from abroad.

“Such pressure, at a time when the Soviet regime is trying to renew normal relations with Europe and America, when they readily signed non-aggression pacts (remember that this was written in September, 1933. – Author), may prove very timely and efficient. Under the present circumstances, maintaining friendly relations with [the Soviet regime] would mean supporting their actions and help them deal a deadly blow to Ukraine.”

The authors’ standpoint is clear and unambiguous. However, the “standpoint” of the responsible officials of the British Foreign Office was confused. Thus, a respected diplomat, the director of a Foreign Office department Sir Terence Shawn appended the following instruction after reading the memorandum: “We do not know any details about this organization (the European Federation of Ukrainians Abroad – Author). Although the miserable conditions in Ukraine are mostly fairly expounded, the report is anti-Soviet in tone, and I believe that we can ignore the request contained herein.”

And this was the reaction to the memorandum offered by the First Secretary of the British Foreign Office, Sir Robert George Gow: “Since the Soviet government persists in denying the existence of famine in Ukraine and the North Caucasus, they will certainly refuse to accept the statement offered by this obscure organization. The document is to be left without response.” Thus, dear reader, it seems no comments are necessary here...

But let us be fair: back in 1933, there were diplomats and journalists in the West who were able to speak and defend the truth. The brightest example is the brilliant, honest, and fearless political essayist Gareth Jones (our readers will probably remember the story of his life from the classical article by the late James Mace, A Tale of Two Journalists).

Malcolm Muggeridge, a British citizen, the Moscow reporter for a number of influential Western newspapers, also gave truthful accounts of the horrors of the Great Famine. Below is an extract of his article, The Soviets’ War on the Peasants (May, 1933): “After 15 years of bolshevist rule, a vast territory with the most fertile soils, namely Ukraine, the North Caucasus, some regions of the Lower Volga, turned out to have no grain. The population is starving — literally. Even big cities feel an acute lack of foodstuffs, and the situation is deteriorating with each day. Everywhere, peasants express hatred of the government and do not trust it. The communist party uses its habitual weapons, hysterical propaganda and brutal force, and is making desperate efforts to preserve its control over the people. The future of the Soviet regime relies on the success of these efforts.”

And this is what the influential French newspaper Le Figaro wrote on October 16, 1933 (the material was directly titled Famine in Ukraine). Written as an interview with Oleksandr Shulhyn, the representative of the Ukrainian People’s Republic in Paris, this material let the French reader see glimpses (only glimpses!) of the truth about the tragedy of Ukraine.

“The communists were taking more and more grain from the peasants each year. In the winter of 1931-32 they left so little that famine broke out. This was a horrible famine, and it was supposed to subjugate Ukrainians. In that very year, peasants were deprived of almost all grain with an unprecedented cruelty, moreover, nothing was left to sow. The Red Army occupied the fields so that no one could take a single ear of corn... Epidemics broke out, and peasants were dying by the million. Never before has our nation known such suffering, not even in 1921.”

Shulhyn strongly condemned the political blindness and bias of the former French Prime Minister Edouard Herriot who, having visited Ukraine in 1932, “failed” to see the famine. Herriot believed, supposedly in earnest, all the window-dressing prepared by the regime, visiting the model sites, specially made for special tourists, and bought Stalin’s lie...

Thus, those who stood up for truth (and under those circumstances it meant for life against death) would not keep silent. He who had eyes to see and ears to hear, could see and hear. It was a matter of intelligence and conscience.

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