This article is about the claim that the Soviet government deliberately starved Ukrainians. For the description of events, see Soviet famine of 1931-1933.
Holodomor is the claim that the Soviet government deliberately starved Ukrainians during the 1931–1933 Soviet famine. It's a propaganda campaign historically promoted by fascists against the Soviet Union to undermine its support both domestically and abroad.[1] The propaganda still continues to this day, particularly circulated and promoted by Western media[2] and Ukrainians who were affected by the famine.[3]
The claim that the Soviet government deliberately starved their people was first published in 18 August 1933 by the Völkischer Beobachter, a newspaper organ of the Nazi Party.[4] This claim was reproduced in a 6 August 1934 publication in the British tabloid London Daily Express,[5] and in several articles published since 18 February 1935 by the Statesian newspapers Chicago American and New York Evening Journal, both owned by corporate press magnate William Rudolph Hearst,[6] the founder of sensationalist yellow journalism. By the time these articles were published, there were already no longer signs of famine in the USSR. These newspapers used fabrications to illustrate their articles by using photographs from a past famine in the Soviet Union caused by the Russian Civil War.[7]
Sources of claims
Ewald Ammende
Ewald Ammende published the book Muss Russland hungern? in 1935 relying on sources from the Nazis, Italian fascists, and anonymous travelers. Many of his photos were from Ditloff, a member of the Nazi government, and some were found in books from 1922.[8]
Thomas Walker
Thomas Walker, whose real name was Robert Green, supposedly entered the USSR in the spring of 1934 to photograph famine victims. Records show that he did not receive a visa until late September and entered the country on 12 October 1934 from Poland. He was in Moscow from 13 to 18 October and reached the Manchurian border by train on 25 October. It would have been physically impossible for him to visit all of the locations that he claimed to in such a short amount of time. His photographs included pictures of a "frog-like" child from 1922 and an Austrian soldier in the First World War. After returning to the United States, Walker was arrested and admitted that he was never in Ukraine.[8]
Western claims about famine
Bourgeois and Eurocentric historians typically focus on these main categories in order to 'rationalise' their liberal consensus on the famine:
Soviet leadership intentionally caused famine
Bourgeois historians and media such as Encyclopædia Britannica and the film Bitter Harvest claim that the Soviet leadership deliberately caused the famine. However there are historical records in the Soviet Union which actually state that Stalin was not aware of the famine in Ukraine when it took place.[9]
Ukrainian nationalism
Bourgeois historians also claim that Stalin targeted the Ukrainians in order to eliminate Ukrainian nationalism. The areas which were affected by the famine were mostly areas where there was a significant Russian minority. The Ukrainians also considered Russians as their own, and they didn't advocate for an independent Ukraine.[10] The area with the most Ukrainian nationalists was western Ukraine, which was under Polish rule at the time.
See also
References
- ↑ Douglas Tottle (1987). Fraud, famine and fascism: the Ukrainian genocide myth from Hitler to Harvard. Progress Books. ISBN 9780919396517 [LG]
- ↑ Holodomor, Britannica.
- ↑ Holodomor Remembrance Day, Holodomor Museum.
- ↑ “Featured in the Nazi press in 1933, the famine-genocide campaign moved to Britain in 1934, and to the United States the year after. In Germany, a country with a history of strong communist, socialist and trade union movements, the Nazis created the first organized propaganda campaign (1933-1935) as part of their consolidation of power. In Britain and the United States, on the other hand, the campaign was advanced as part of right-wing efforts to keep the Soviet Union isolated and out of the League of Nations. It also served to discourage growing working class militancy in the Great Depression.”
Douglas Tottle (1987). Fraud, famine and fascism: the Ukrainian genocide myth from Hitler to Harvard (p. 2). Progress Books. ISBN 9780919396517 [LG] - ↑ “Portions of the 1935 Hearst-Walker series, including some of the photos, had in fact appeared the year previous in the August 6, 1934 London Daily Express. Attributed to an anonymous young English "tourist,” the story includes a virtually identical account of Walker’s "frog child” fabrication. However, this earlier version of the hoax locates the tale in Belgorod — which is in Russia proper. Subsequent versions of the hoax over the decades politically relocate the story to Kharkov, which is of course in Ukraine.”
Douglas Tottle (1987). Fraud, famine and fascism: the Ukrainian genocide myth from Hitler to Harvard (p. 11). Progress Books. ISBN 9780919396517 [LG] - ↑ “In the fall of 1934, an American using the name Thomas Walker entered the Soviet Union. After tarrying less than a week in Moscow, he spent the remainder of his thirteen-day journey in transit to the Manchurian border, at which point he left the USSR never to return. This seemingly uneventful journey was the pretext for one of the greatest frauds ever perpetrated in the history of 20th century journalism.
Some four months later, on February 18, 1935, a series of articles began in the Hearst press by Thom as Walker, "noted journalist, traveller and student of Russian affairs who has spent several years touring the Union of Soviet Russia.” The articles, appearing in the Chicago American and New York Evening Journal for example, described in hair-raising prose a mammoth famine in the Ukraine which, it was alleged, had claimed "six million” lives the previous year. Accompanying the stories were photographs portraying the devastation of the famine, for which it was claimed Walker had smuggled in a camera under the "most adverse and dangerous possible circumstances." [...]”
Douglas Tottle (1987). Fraud, famine and fascism: the Ukrainian genocide myth from Hitler to Harvard (p. 5). Progress Books. ISBN 9780919396517 [LG] - ↑ “Dr. Ditloff [...] was Director of the German government’s agricultural concession in the North Caucasus under an agreement between the German government and the Soviets. When Hitler took power in early 1933, Ditloff [...] did not resign in protest. He remained as Director for the project’s duration, indicating that the Nazis did not consider him inimical to their interests. Following his return to Nazi Germany later that year, Ditloff gathered or fronted for a spurious assortment of famine photographs. These, as has been shown, included photos stolen from 1921-1922 famine sources. In addition, at least 25 of the Ditloff photos can be shown to have been released by the Nazis, many of which were passed to or picked up by various anti-Soviet and pro-fascist publishers abroad.”
Douglas Tottle (1987). Fraud, famine and fascism: the Ukrainian genocide myth from Hitler to Harvard (p. 34). Progress Books. ISBN 9780919396517 [LG] - ↑ 8.0 8.1 Ludo Martens (1996). Another View of Stalin: 'Collectivization and the 'Ukrainian Holocaust' (pp. 85–87). [PDF] Editions EPO. ISBN 9782872620814
- ↑ Fighting the “Holodomor” Myth: Archival Evidence that Stalin was Unaware of Conditions in the Ukraine and Tried to Relieve the Situation When He was Informed. - StalinSociety.org (Archived).
- ↑ Hakim (2 May 2017). "Why the Holodomor Narrative is Wrong". YouTube.