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by Andrew Gregorovich
FORUM Ukrainian Review No. 24, 1974
Published by the Ukrainian Fraternal Association
Scranton PA, USA, Reprinted by Infoukes.com
UKRAINE, "the breadbasket of Europe" is a land famous for its fertile black
earth and its golden wheat. Yet, only forty years ago seven million
Ukrainians starved to death although no natural catastrophe had visited the
land. Forty years ago the people starved while the Soviet Union exported
butter and grain. While Moscow banqueted, Ukraine hungered.
Stark, cold, statistics, the accounts of thousands of Ukrainian survivors
and German; English and American eyewitnesses, as well as confessions of
Moscow's agents and the admission of Stalin himself: All these have slowly
seeped out of the Iron Curtain and have been piled into a tremendous
mountain of facts. The whole story, pieced together like a jig-saw puzzle,
ends with the biggest puzzle of all: Why did Moscow decide to starve to
death seven million Ukrainians?
THE CLOAK OF DECEIT: "COLLECTIVIZATION"
THIS GREAT CRIME OF GENOCIDE AGAINST the Ukrainian people
has not been completely ignored by the history books of the world. Any
history of the Soviet Union will mention the triumph of "Collectivization"
in which the Kulaks, or well-off farmers, were "liquidated as a class."
Collectivized farming, which is today the most inefficient agricultural
system in existence, had to be instituted for Marxist reasons. The Kulaks
(Kurkulsin Ukrainian) constituted only 4 to 5% of the peasantry -- yet
they endangered the success of Communism!
The Communist Party on January 5, 1930, as part of the first Five Year Plan,
started the machinery of Collectivization rolling. Collective is,
incidentally Kolkhoz in Russian and Kolhosp in Ukrainian. The Russian
peasantry demonstrated little opposition to Moscow because of their past
tradition of communal farming. The Russian mir, or village commune, where
the land is owned by the village and not by the individual, had for
centuries prepared the Russians psychologically for Collectivization. On
July 30, 1930 the first RSFSR decree abolishing the mir was passed to make
way for the Collectives.
The Ukrainians, on the other hand, had an independent, individualistic
farming tradition of private ownership of land. The Russian communal spirit
was something completely foreign to the farmers of Ukraine and so they
opposed Moscow bitterly. While the collectivization in the Russian Republic
(RSFSR) went on schedule, the stubborn resistance of the Ukrainians slowed
it down to such a standstill that Moscow even had to retreat temporarily.
This was noted by Stalin in his famous "Dizzy with Success" letter. One way
the Ukrainian farmer showed his opposition to collectivization was by
slaughtering his livestock before joining. Later a death penalty was passed
for such an action........................."
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NOTE: To read the entire article, "Black Famine in Ukraine" by Andrew
Gregorovich please click on
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http://www.infoukes.com/history/famine/gregorovich/index.html
FORUM Ukrainian Review No. 24, 1974, Published by the Ukrainian
Fraternal Association Scranton PA, USA, Reprinted by Infoukes.com
InfoUkes Inc., Etobicoke, Ontario, Canada, http://www.infoukes.com
FOR PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC USE ONLY
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