Holodomor Remembrance Day: Memory and witness for the victims of Stalin's 1932-33 Ukrainian Famine 91 years ago, and calling out Putin's genocide today

"There are pages in our history that are too painful to remember; but cannot be forgotten. The crimes that prove: the cruelty and cynicism of tyrants know no bounds. No words have yet been invented to fully describe the pain that Ukrainians have endured. In 1921, 1922, 1923. In 1946 and 1947. And in the darkest years of the Holodomor genocide of 1932–1933." - Volodymyr Zelenskyy, November 23, 2024 

#HolodomorRemembranceDay 

 

Holodomor Victims Remembrance Day is held on the fourth Saturday of November, at 4:00pm, the memory of more than 10,5 million Ukrainians killed during Stalin's genocide is commemorated with a moment of silence and lighting of candles.

The genocide in Ukraine is known as the Holodomor and took place ninety one years ago between 1932 -1933. Millions of children died in he artificial famine. This crime was ignored by the United States as it formally recognized the Soviet Union in 1933.  The Economist in 2012 reported on the 80th anniversary of this man-made famine:

Holodomor literally means death by hunger. In 1932 and 1933, a vast famine in Soviet Ukraine killed three to seven million people, according to estimates. While people starved, the grain was shut away in barns for export.

The deadliest famines in the 20th century were not in Africa but in Europe (Ukraine) and China.

Social science research has demonstrated that famines "happen only with some degree of human complicity."  Human decisions "determine whether a crisis deteriorates into a full-blown famine."

According to Felix Wemheuer, professor of Modern China Studies at the University of Cologne, in his book Famine Politics in Maoist China and the Soviet Union," during the twentieth century, 80 percent of all famine victims worldwide died in China and the Soviet Union." 

Millions starved to death under brutal famine imposed by Joseph Stalin

However, to understand the nature of famine politics in communist regimes the monograph of Andrea Graziosi and Frank E. Sysyn in the East/West: Journal of Ukranian Studies titled "Communism and Hunger" is required reading. Consider the following:

"In fact, with the exception of the 1943 Bengal famine with its approximately two million victims, all of the other major famines of the twentieth century are directly connected to socialist "experiments": in 1921 and 1922 in Russia and Ukraine ( 1million - 1.5 million deaths); in 1931, 1932, and 1933 in the USSR (6.5 million - 7.5 million deaths, of which 4 million were in Ukraine and 1.3 million - 1.5 million in Kazakhstan); in 1946 and 1947 in the USSR (1 million - 1.5 million deaths); from 1958 to 1962 in China (30 million - 45 million deaths); from 1983 to 1985 in Ethiopia (0.5 million - 1.0 million deaths); and from 1994 to 1998 in North Korea ( estimates vary from a few hundred thousand to more than 2 million deaths)."

This was not due to poor central planning and socialist inefficiencies, but a deliberate policy of genocide against targeted population to consolidate political control by eliminating those who do not support their regime. The percentage of victims in the USSR and China relative to their respective overall populations were the same (5%). In the case of the USSR that meant around 7 million deaths out of a population of 160 million and in the case of China  estimates between 30 million and 45 million deaths out of a population of 600 million. 

The Ukrainian Research and Documentary Center on the 50th anniversary of the Holodomor released the documentary Harvest of Despair.

 We must also remember those who bore witness and spoke truth, and those who covered it up. Gareth Jones, a Welsh journalist broke the story on the Ukranian famine on March 29, 1933 despite official denials. Walter Duranty of The New York Times wrote an article a day later rebutting Jones's claims that was published in the paper of record on March 31, 1933. Duranty knew that what Jones published was true, but he sought to appease his Soviet hosts, and remain in the country.

The Russians, under the dictatorship of Vladimir Putin, are engaging in genocide again. People of goodwill cannot remain silent, or worse try to minimize what is taking place. 

It also saddens me that the dictatorship in Cuba is not siding with the small country attacked by a superpower, but is backing the aggressor, and doubled down repeatedly in support of Vladimir Putin's criminal war on Ukraine on the diplomatic and misinformation fronts, and with thousands of Cuban soldiers fighting for Putin in Russian uniforms.

I stand in solidarity with Ukraine, and against Russian aggression.

 

There are pages in our history that are too painful to remember; but cannot be forgotten. The crimes that prove: the cruelty and cynicism of tyrants know no bounds. No words have yet been invented to fully describe the pain that Ukrainians have endured. In 1921, 1922, 1923. In… pic.twitter.com/ovztDcYSX0

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) November 23, 2024