Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm Tracy V. Wilson and I'm Holly Frying. Before we
Speaker 1: start today's episode, today's topic is a serious one, but
Speaker 1: today is also our last chance to let everybody know
Speaker 1: that we have a live streaming event coming up on
Speaker 1: March So if you're listening to this episode on the
Speaker 1: day that we released it, that's tomorrow. It's happening very soon.
Speaker 1: That's going to be at eight p m Eastern, five
Speaker 1: pm Pacific. Several folks, when we have posted about this
Speaker 1: on social media have said things like that's one am
Speaker 1: my time, so I can't come. Well, I have good news,
Speaker 1: which is that the stream is available for seventy two
Speaker 1: hours after the show, So if you are in sometimes zone,
Speaker 1: that is very inconvenient for the times that we've just said,
Speaker 1: it's okay. Uh. Normally, when we have a live show,
Speaker 1: that live show becomes an episode of the podcast. That's
Speaker 1: not going to be the case this time. Uh. This
Speaker 1: is a little bit different in terms of the way
Speaker 1: our live shows normally go. Rather than it just being
Speaker 1: us doing something that we could also have done in
Speaker 1: the studio. It's a little more interactive thing, so not
Speaker 1: as conducive to going into our feed with everything else. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So if you want to hear us talk about some
Speaker 1: feuds and have some votes with audience interaction, this is
Speaker 1: the thing. But like we said, if you miss out
Speaker 1: on a ticket, you won't get to hear this one. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So looped live dot com that's where you can go
Speaker 1: to buy tickets. We also have the link to the
Speaker 1: ticket page pinned up at the top of our Facebook
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Speaker 1: That's on Thursday, March two, eight pm Eastern, five pm Pacific,
Speaker 1: and now onto the act will episode. One topic that
Speaker 1: we have gotten many, many, many requests for over the
Speaker 1: years is the whole Amore. Some folks have even been
Speaker 1: persistent enough to write in and request this topic more
Speaker 1: than one time. The whole of Moore is the name
Speaker 1: that was coined in the nineteen eighties to describe a
Speaker 1: famine that struck Ukraine in the early nineteen thirties. The
Speaker 1: name comes from Ukrainian words that roughly translate to death
Speaker 1: by hunger, and while there were famines and food shortages
Speaker 1: that were taking place in other parts of the Soviet Union.
Speaker 1: At the same time, Soviet policies toward Ukraine specifically made
Speaker 1: the situation there a whole lot worse, and they were
Speaker 1: part of an intentional effort that was spearheaded by Joseph
Speaker 1: Stalin to destroy Ukrainian culture and identity. This is also
Speaker 1: obviously part of the historical context for Russia's invasion of
Speaker 1: Ukraine that started on February of this year. It is
Speaker 1: also really truly horrifying, so listening to it in light
Speaker 1: of those events which are ongoing that may make it
Speaker 1: seem even more horrifying. So take care of yourself while
Speaker 1: you're listening. So to give a little bit of background,
Speaker 1: Russia and Ukraine share a lot of overlapping history, going
Speaker 1: all the way back to the establishment of Kievan russ
Speaker 1: in the late ninth century. Keevan Ross was the first
Speaker 1: Eastern Slavic state, and today Ukraine, Belarus, and Russia all
Speaker 1: trace their origins and cultural identity back to it. But
Speaker 1: over the centuries, the nations, peoples, and ethnic groups that
Speaker 1: would form these countries as we know them today they
Speaker 1: went through very different trajectories. What's now Ukraine was repeatedly
Speaker 1: divided up and assigned to other nations and empires, including Poland, Lithuania,
Speaker 1: and the Austro Hungarian Empire. Aside from its westernmost regions,
Speaker 1: most of Ukraine became part of the Russian Empire in seventee.
Speaker 1: Regardless of which nation or empire they were considered to
Speaker 1: be living in, Ukrainians had their own ethnic and cultural identity.
Speaker 1: By the middle of the nineteenth century, most of what's
Speaker 1: now Ukraine had come under Russian control, but by that
Speaker 1: point Ukrainian had also evolved as its own standardized language.
Speaker 1: Literature written in Ukrainian reflected ukrainians own cultural and ethnic identities.
Speaker 1: Imperial Russia eventually started to see this developing sense of
Speaker 1: language and cultural consciousness as a threat, and in the
Speaker 1: late nineteenth century, Russian officials started banning the teaching of
Speaker 1: Ukrainian and removing Ukrainian books from schools. The Russian Imperial
Speaker 1: government was overthrown in a series of revolutions in nineteen seventeen.
Speaker 1: The Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin took control, changing their
Speaker 1: name to the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks in nineteen eighteen.
Speaker 1: As all of this was happening, Ukraine established a provisional
Speaker 1: government and declared its independence, and for about the next
Speaker 1: four years fought to keep that independence. This involved political, diplomatic,
Speaker 1: and military efforts against other nations and against counter revolutionary
Speaker 1: forces within its own borders. This lasted until nineteen two,
Speaker 1: when Ukraine became the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, part of
Speaker 1: the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. That same year, parts
Speaker 1: of the Soviet Union faced a famine. This famine was
Speaker 1: brought on by the political instability and warfare of the
Speaker 1: previous few years, and it was made worse by a drought.
Speaker 1: At first, Soviet leaders refused international aid, but eventually a
Speaker 1: campaign for famine relief was underway in Soviet Russia. This
Speaker 1: included suspending food taxes, but Ukraine was really facing the
Speaker 1: same conditions, especially in its southern regions. Not only was
Speaker 1: Ukraine left out of aid programs and other relief until
Speaker 1: late nineteen twenty two, but it was also expected to
Speaker 1: contribute food to Russia, including contributing food from the southern
Speaker 1: regions that had been most stricken by the same famine.
Speaker 1: The Communist Party had also instituted a system of war communism,
Speaker 1: which involved nationalizing industries and forcibly requisitioning surplus grain and
Speaker 1: other food. This affected the Soviet Union as a whole,
Speaker 1: but it was particularly disruptive in Ukraine, where about eight
Speaker 1: percent of the population were farmers. Growing grain was a
Speaker 1: central part of the Ukrainian economy and identity. Ukraine is
Speaker 1: nicknamed the bread basket of Europe and its flag represents
Speaker 1: a blue sky over a yellow field of wheat. Under
Speaker 1: war communism, Ukraine was no longer able to sell its
Speaker 1: surplus grain, and as a consequence, it's economy collapsed. Unrest
Speaker 1: was widespread, and agricultural productivity roped since people didn't want
Speaker 1: to spend their time growing surplus grain that would just
Speaker 1: be requisitioned with no compensation. Lenin introduced a new economic
Speaker 1: policy in nineteen twenty one that addressed some of this,
Speaker 1: but there was still a lot of anti Soviet and
Speaker 1: anti communist sentiment. One step that was taken to try
Speaker 1: to reverse that sentiment was a policy of indigenization. Russia
Speaker 1: was by far the largest of the Soviet republics, and
Speaker 1: Russians were by far the largest ethnic group, but the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union was not at all monolithic, nor were the
Speaker 1: Soviet republics that comprised it. This indigenization policy encouraged people
Speaker 1: of different national identities and ethnic groups to really pursue
Speaker 1: and develop their own cultures while still being part of
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union. In Ukraine, this led to a huge
Speaker 1: cultural flourishing involving literature, art, music, and language age. Newly
Speaker 1: open schools taught courses in Ukrainian, with Russian treated more
Speaker 1: like an elective class. The Ukrainian Autocephalis Orthodox Church became
Speaker 1: independent from the Russian Orthodox Church, and its membership and
Speaker 1: clergy both grew rapidly. The idea had been that encouraging
Speaker 1: this kind of diversity and national identity would appease various
Speaker 1: ethnic groups and it would increase their support for the
Speaker 1: Soviet regime. But Lenin's successor, Joseph Stalin, found Ukraine's cultural
Speaker 1: rebirth and it shift away from Russian culture and ideals
Speaker 1: to be threatening. In ninety nine, he started arresting thousands
Speaker 1: of Ukrainian scientists, poets, intellectuals and artists, claiming that they
Speaker 1: were part of a secret organization that was plotting against Russia.
Speaker 1: The Russian Orthodox Church had been opposed to the Ukrainian
Speaker 1: churches independence from the start. It formally denounced the Ukrainian
Speaker 1: Autocephalis or Docks Church as well, and Soviet authorities started
Speaker 1: cracking down on it in nineteen twenty six. This involved
Speaker 1: destroying churches and their icons, smashing church bells, arresting religious leaders,
Speaker 1: and murdyring bishops. In the face of all of this,
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian Orthodox Church abolished itself in nineteen thirty although
Speaker 1: a smaller group of churches held on until nineteen thirty six.
Speaker 1: The Ukrainian Autocephalus Orthodox Church didn't start re establishing itself
Speaker 1: in Ukraine until the nineteen eighties. Another big factor leading
Speaker 1: into the Holadamore was Stalin's First five Year Plan, which
Speaker 1: was announced in ninety eight. This was a plan to
Speaker 1: modernize and industrialize all of the Soviet Union. In terms
Speaker 1: of agriculture, this would involve collectivizing the farms. Small farms
Speaker 1: would become part of bigger collectives that were under state control,
Speaker 1: and they would sell their crops at prices that were
Speaker 1: set by the state. The idea was that this would
Speaker 1: make farms more efficient, and that efficiency would allow the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union to feed a larger population as it industrialized,
Speaker 1: and to export more crops to bring in more revenue
Speaker 1: to then buy the equipment and material that was needed
Speaker 1: for that industrialization. Of course, farmers resisted this idea, and
Speaker 1: there were thousands of uprisings against collectivization all across the
Speaker 1: agricultural areas of the Soviet Union. Many of the poorest
Speaker 1: farmers had received the land they were working in a
Speaker 1: redistribution after the Russian Revolution, and now they were being
Speaker 1: told to give it up. In general, people did not
Speaker 1: want to go from controlling their own livelihoods to essentially
Speaker 1: being employees of state run farms. The prices set by
Speaker 1: the state were often lower than what people had been
Speaker 1: able to sell their surplus for before, so overall the
Speaker 1: farms were very slow to collectivize, leading the Communist Party
Speaker 1: to start a huge push between January and March of
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty and this included taxing independent farms so heavily
Speaker 1: that the farmers wound up in debt and that forced
Speaker 1: them to join the collective or go bankrupt. Soviet leadership
Speaker 1: also targeted one particular class of farmers. That was a
Speaker 1: group known as kulaks, which was a term that had
Speaker 1: taken on some derisive connotations. Sometimes these people are described
Speaker 1: as wealthy farmers, but to be clear, they were not
Speaker 1: what most people would think of as wealthy today. The
Speaker 1: Soviet government defined kulak farms as ones that brought in
Speaker 1: an annual income of three hundred roubles per person or
Speaker 1: fifteen hundred roubles per family, and hired farm workers are
Speaker 1: owned farm machines. Being able to rent out some of
Speaker 1: the farm property or having another income besides farming also
Speaker 1: would fit the definition of kulak, but for comparison, the
Speaker 1: average industrial worker only made about three hundred roubles per year.
Speaker 1: Authorities didn't really stick strictly to this definition, and a
Speaker 1: lot of people that were treated as kulaks had even
Speaker 1: less than that. The Soviet government believed that if there
Speaker 1: was going to be an organized uprising against collectivization, it
Speaker 1: was probably going to start with these slightly more affluent peasants,
Speaker 1: so it branded them as class enemies, claiming that they
Speaker 1: were exploiting hired workers and taking advantage of their communities.
Speaker 1: Authorities pursued a policy of liquidating the kulak class, or
Speaker 1: decoulak azation. They arrested about fifty thou people, some of
Speaker 1: whom were deported or executed. Authorities also confiscated their property
Speaker 1: and their farm equipment. This was catastrophic in addition to
Speaker 1: the loss of labor and production from these farms. Many
Speaker 1: of these people described as kulaks were the most skilled
Speaker 1: and experienced farmers in the areas they lived and a
Speaker 1: lot of towns and villages. They were also community leaders.
Speaker 1: They were the people who really helps to hold the
Speaker 1: community together. So this community resource for knowledge and support
Speaker 1: just disappeared. Between the forced collectivization and the de cool
Speaker 1: acquization campaign. More than two hundred and eighty thousand peasant
Speaker 1: households simply vanished from Ukraine between nineteen thirty and nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty one. And all of this set the stage for
Speaker 1: a famine, and we're going to get into that after
Speaker 1: we pause for a sponsor break. After all of the
Speaker 1: factors that we talked about before the break, harvest was
Speaker 1: poor across a lot of the Soviet Union. The collectivization
Speaker 1: and de cool acquization process had been really disruptive, and
Speaker 1: then bad weather made it worse. The collective farms also
Speaker 1: had not been run particularly efficiently, even though the whole
Speaker 1: point was to be more efficient. This was in part
Speaker 1: because that liquidation of the koolat class had involved a
Speaker 1: lot of loss of knowledge and leadership. Soviet leadership also
Speaker 1: set quotas for how much grain each community was expected
Speaker 1: to contribute to the collective, and in many cases those
Speaker 1: quotas were just unattainably high. To even come close to
Speaker 1: meeting them, farming families had to turnover grain that they
Speaker 1: would normally keep for their own food supply. Although these
Speaker 1: quotas existed in all of the Soviet Union's agricultural regions,
Speaker 1: their effects were particularly dramatic in Ukraine, which was expected
Speaker 1: to contribute about as much grain and other produce as
Speaker 1: all the rest of the Soviet Union combined. In December
Speaker 1: of one, Joseph Stalin's government started placing more and more
Speaker 1: pressure onto these communities to meet their quotas. A lot
Speaker 1: of the enforcement of these regulations was overseen by the
Speaker 1: State Political Directorate, which is abbreviated from Russian as GPU.
Speaker 1: This was kind of a combined intelligence and secret police force.
Speaker 1: In internal memos about this there is an insistence that
Speaker 1: the poor harvest and the failure to meet the quotas
Speaker 1: was the result of a coordinated program of intentional sabotage
Speaker 1: and theft that was meant to undermine the collectivization process
Speaker 1: and ruin the harvest and undermine the Soviet Union as
Speaker 1: a whole. So mass uprisings against collectivization, which involved everything
Speaker 1: from work stoppages to destructions of machinery to violent revolts,
Speaker 1: that was interpreted as a conspiracy against Soviet leadership rather
Speaker 1: than as a response to all of this increasing hardship
Speaker 1: and instability. This is a really destructive cycle in which
Speaker 1: people were arrested, deported to Siberia or sent to a gulag,
Speaker 1: and then that would spark further uprisings among the who
Speaker 1: had known those folks. Uprisings and unrest continued through the
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty two planting and growing season, with farmers struggling
Speaker 1: to both meet their quotas and just retain enough food
Speaker 1: to live on. In most cases it was flatly impossible
Speaker 1: to do both, or in some cases to do either.
Speaker 1: By June of ninety two, Ukrainian leaders were writing to
Speaker 1: Stalin and other Soviet leaders for aid. In August, Stalin
Speaker 1: wrote to his adviser Lazar Kaganovitch, saying that if they
Speaker 1: did not improve the situation in Ukraine, they might lose it.
Speaker 1: Grain quotas were lowered three times in nineteen thirty two,
Speaker 1: but really not enough to address this situation, and the
Speaker 1: quota reductions were also more about trying to keep the
Speaker 1: system of agriculture running, not about a humanitarian impulse. Were
Speaker 1: the people who were doing that. Even with those reductions,
Speaker 1: Ukraine was still expected to contribute about of its grain
Speaker 1: to the state. Punishments for failing to meet the reduced
Speaker 1: quotas also became a lot harsher, and the other policies
Speaker 1: that were contributing to the famine, like this continuing push
Speaker 1: for collectivization and the ongoing liquidation of the Kulak class,
Speaker 1: none of that changed. A new decree called the five
Speaker 1: Stocks of Grain Decree went into effect in August of
Speaker 1: ninety two. Under this law, theft of state property was
Speaker 1: punishable by ten years in prison or death, and this
Speaker 1: meant that people who stole food because they were starving
Speaker 1: could be executed for it, no matter how little food
Speaker 1: they stole. This applied to everyone, even children. It also
Speaker 1: applied to people who went through fields that had already
Speaker 1: been harvested to glean anything that was left to save
Speaker 1: themselves from starvation. More than fifty thousand people were charged
Speaker 1: with violating this decree, and more than two thousand of
Speaker 1: them were executed. Although the five stocks grain decree applied
Speaker 1: all across the Soviet Union, the vast majority of people
Speaker 1: who were arrested were from Ukraine. Because of the truly
Speaker 1: dire situation there. In the fall of two, Soviet leadership
Speaker 1: started blacklisting towns and villages that failed to meet their
Speaker 1: grain Quotas. Blacklisted towns were banned from receiving food and
Speaker 1: from buying basic necessities like salt or kerosene. More than
Speaker 1: a third of the towns in Ukraine were blacklisted. So
Speaker 1: to some all this up Joseph Stalin's policies had created
Speaker 1: the conditions that sparked the famine, then made the famine worse,
Speaker 1: and punished its victims for being the victims of famine.
Speaker 1: At this point, many farmers started trying to leave Ukraine,
Speaker 1: either to buy food from one of its neighbors or
Speaker 1: just to relocate entirely in the hope of finding a
Speaker 1: better life, and of course Soviet leadership did not want
Speaker 1: this to happen because Ukraine was the Soviet Union's largeist
Speaker 1: food producer, But instead of taking steps to address the
Speaker 1: escalating famine in Ukraine, which again was being worsened by
Speaker 1: unreachable food quotas. Soviet leadership worked to stop Ukrainian farmers
Speaker 1: from leaving. In October, about a hundred thousand Communist Party
Speaker 1: representatives and military personnel were dispatched to Ukraine, as well
Speaker 1: as to the Northern Caucasus and the Volga Basin to
Speaker 1: conduct house to house searches to make up for the
Speaker 1: shortfall in the quotas. During these searches, they confiscated any
Speaker 1: grain or flower or their food that they found. People
Speaker 1: started selling whatever they had wedding rings, household goods, furniture,
Speaker 1: their tools, just to try to buy back some of
Speaker 1: their own produce to eat. Calls for aid to Ukraine
Speaker 1: became increasingly desperate, but in ninety two, more than four
Speaker 1: million tons of grain were taken from Ukraine, enough to
Speaker 1: feed more than twelve million people for a year. Moscow
Speaker 1: exported more than a million tons of green to other
Speaker 1: countries and held enough green in reserves to feed at
Speaker 1: least ten million people. Yet all over the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: people were starving, especially in Ukraine. In December of ninety two,
Speaker 1: still tied to the idea that a huge conspiracy was
Speaker 1: intentionally undermining agriculture in Ukraine, Soviet authorities started a series
Speaker 1: of mass arrests of people who were accused of being
Speaker 1: involved in secret paramilitary organizations. These organizations did exist. They
Speaker 1: included the Ukrainian Military Organization or u v O and
Speaker 1: the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists or oh u N, but
Speaker 1: this alleged involvement was really being used as a justification
Speaker 1: for mass arrests without actually offering any proof that the
Speaker 1: arrested person had any ties whatsoever to these organizations. In
Speaker 1: January of nine thirty three, Pavel post Yachev arrived in
Speaker 1: Ukraine as Stalin's personal representative and implemented a series of
Speaker 1: massive purges, removing Ukrainians from positions of leadership and replacing
Speaker 1: them with Russians. On New Year's Day of nineteen thirty three,
Speaker 1: an amnesty was announced for anyone who turned in stolen
Speaker 1: or hidden grain. The implication was that anyone who didn't
Speaker 1: turn in any grain was clearly hiding something. The house
Speaker 1: to house searches that had started in October intensified, with
Speaker 1: anything that could be eaten being confiscated, including seed crops
Speaker 1: meant to be planted the next season, and people's pets.
Speaker 1: In late January of three, Joseph Stalin and Lazarre Molotov
Speaker 1: ordered the Ukrainian borders to be sealed. Efforts had already
Speaker 1: been underway to keep Ukrainian farmers from leaving, but this
Speaker 1: measure also kept people from entering Ukraine, so people couldn't
Speaker 1: leave to buy food. That's also kept word of the
Speaker 1: famine from spreading, and it kept any kind of relief
Speaker 1: from being brought into Ukraine. An internal passport system was
Speaker 1: implemented for travel within Ukraine as well, but farmers were
Speaker 1: not allowed to have them, so in addition to being
Speaker 1: unable to leave Ukraine to find work or food, they
Speaker 1: also couldn't try to move to a city or a
Speaker 1: different rural area where things might not be so dire.
Speaker 1: Even though other parts of the Soviet Union were also
Speaker 1: experiencing a famine, Ukraine was the only Soviet republic where
Speaker 1: these measures were in place. In late January of nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty three, the Pullit Bureau, which was the Communist Party's
Speaker 1: supreme policy making body, resolved that the Ukrainian Communist Party
Speaker 1: had failed to carry out its duties. Pavl Postazev was
Speaker 1: named the new head of the party, he implemented another
Speaker 1: wave of purges of Ukrainian intellectuals, cultural figures, and party leaders,
Speaker 1: again replacing the people who were removed from their positions
Speaker 1: with Russians. Many of those who had been arrested and
Speaker 1: imprisoned in earlier years were executed. Ukrainian Communist leader Michoelas
Speaker 1: Krupnik took his own life in July three rather than
Speaker 1: go through a show trial connected to all these purges.
Speaker 1: A month earlier, Ukrainian poet and writer Michael Kulvi took
Speaker 1: his own life in protest, feeling that that was the
Speaker 1: only action left open to him. The deadliest months of
Speaker 1: the dam Or were in early nineteen thirty three. During
Speaker 1: this time, it is estimated that a thousand people were
Speaker 1: starving to death in Ukraine every single hour. People died
Speaker 1: of starvation while waiting in line for bread, with those
Speaker 1: lines often being thousands of people long. As crops grew
Speaker 1: in the early spring of nineteen thirty three, people died
Speaker 1: while trying to eat unripe grain uncooked in the fields.
Speaker 1: Parents abandoned their children close to cities, hoping that city
Speaker 1: dwellers with more access to food might take them in.
Speaker 1: Survivors accounts are full of just absolutely desperate steps that
Speaker 1: people took to try to stay alive. Eventually, so many
Speaker 1: people were dying that wagons were sent house to house
Speaker 1: to collect the dead. The wagons were drawn by horses,
Speaker 1: which had to be fed at night and in secret,
Speaker 1: otherwise starving people would understandably mob the stables trying to
Speaker 1: get the horses food. Many many farm animals died of
Speaker 1: starvation during this period as well, because there was no
Speaker 1: grain to feed them with, and there was also a
Speaker 1: wave of just appalling and brutal crimes, including cannibalism, committed
Speaker 1: by people who had reached a point of having to
Speaker 1: do just anything possible to find something to eat. Throughout
Speaker 1: the late nineteen twenties and early nineteen thirties, the focus
Speaker 1: of the mass arrests and purges had mainly been men
Speaker 1: that men that often them, and where the people trying
Speaker 1: to hold their families and their communities together as the
Speaker 1: wolodamor peaked. Survivors of the famine have described women trying
Speaker 1: to find and store whatever food they could, and trying
Speaker 1: to turn things that would be considered to be inedible,
Speaker 1: like leather and horse hides and dried leaves and twigs
Speaker 1: into food. Women also formed mutual aid organizations and banded
Speaker 1: together to try to guard communities food stores, or to
Speaker 1: fight back against food confiscations and arrests. The Soviet government
Speaker 1: took steps to try to cover up the famine. Russian
Speaker 1: propaganda films depicted Ukraine as a happy and bountiful place,
Speaker 1: as professional journalists and ordinary citizens risk their lives trying
Speaker 1: to document what was happening. Foreign journalists and dignitaries were
Speaker 1: allowed into the Soviet Union, but they were given very
Speaker 1: tightly controlled tours that made it look like everything was
Speaker 1: under control. A small number of journalists did manage to
Speaker 1: publish articles on what was really going on. One was
Speaker 1: Welsh journalist Gareth Jones, who published multiple articles on the
Speaker 1: famine in ninety two and nineteen thirty three. The Soviet
Speaker 1: Union published extensive rebuttals to this reporting, insisting that everything
Speaker 1: was fine and that reports of a famine were simply
Speaker 1: anti Soviet propaganda. Even journalists outside the Soviet Union questioned
Speaker 1: or dismissed Jones's reports. Walter Duranti of The New York Times,
Speaker 1: for example, stated that he quote thought Mr. Jones's judgment
Speaker 1: was somewhat hasty. Jones was ultimately forbidden from being allowed
Speaker 1: to re enter the Soviet Union, and he was murdered
Speaker 1: in Japanese occupied Mongolia in ninety five. Yeah, there were
Speaker 1: there were some other journalists as well who were able
Speaker 1: to publish accurate accounts, some of it later, like later
Speaker 1: in the nineteen thirties. We'll get more into the aftermath
Speaker 1: of all of this. After another quick sponsor break, the
Speaker 1: Holidamora came to an end as crops were harvested in
Speaker 1: three and more people were allowed to keep enough of
Speaker 1: that harvest to feed themselves. Accurate death records were not
Speaker 1: kept during the famine, though, so there are multiple estimates
Speaker 1: of how many people died. The most commonly cited figures
Speaker 1: today are about five million deaths across the Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: with about four million of those happening in Ukraine, but
Speaker 1: some estimates are a lot higher, as many as ten
Speaker 1: million total deaths, with seven million of those deaths in Ukraine.
Speaker 1: It's estimated that more than ten percent of the population
Speaker 1: of Ukraine died in the Holidamor, with a much higher
Speaker 1: death toll in some communities. This, combined with the intentional
Speaker 1: arrests and purges of Ukrainian leaders, intellectuals, artists, and cultural
Speaker 1: figure to just have a devastating effect on the nation
Speaker 1: and its identity. In February of nineteen thirty four, Ukrainian
Speaker 1: writer Boris and Tanenko Davidovich wrote quote, at the present time,
Speaker 1: there is no Ukrainian culture, and if there is, it
Speaker 1: is the corpse of Ukrainian culture, because the entire Ukrainian
Speaker 1: intelligentsia and its culture are in exile. Although the Soviet
Speaker 1: Union had tried relentlessly to cover up the famine, it
Speaker 1: was really impossible to keep it completely secret. But in
Speaker 1: spite of that, there was not really an international response
Speaker 1: to what was going on at the time. Discussions of
Speaker 1: the famine in the international community generally framed it as
Speaker 1: an internal matter for the Soviet Union and not something
Speaker 1: that called for some sort of international consequences. The United
Speaker 1: States recognized the Soviet government on November sixteenth, nineteen thirty three,
Speaker 1: more than a decade after the Soviet Union was first established.
Speaker 1: The Soviet Union also became a member of the League
Speaker 1: of Natans in nineteen thirty four. Purges and arrests also
Speaker 1: continued into nineteen thirty four, including replacing Ukrainian leaders with Russians.
Speaker 1: Russians were also recruited to repopulate parts of Ukraine that
Speaker 1: had been most affected by the famine. Some of these
Speaker 1: people were volunteers who returned to Russia after about a year,
Speaker 1: but this was part of an ongoing effort to transfer
Speaker 1: more people who were ethnically Russian into Ukraine. The Soviet
Speaker 1: cover up of the famine also continued for years. In
Speaker 1: nineteen thirty seven, there was a census that made it
Speaker 1: obvious that something terrible had happened in Ukraine. Joseph Stalin
Speaker 1: suppressed the census and then had the committee that had
Speaker 1: carried it out executed. Soviet efforts to cover up the
Speaker 1: famine and to break apart Ukrainian culture and society ended
Speaker 1: only after Nazi Germany invaded in nineteen forty one. At first,
Speaker 1: many people in Ukraine saw this as a liberation, both
Speaker 1: because of the horrors they had endured at the hands
Speaker 1: of the predominantly Russian Soviet leadership during the famine and
Speaker 1: the ongoing oppression and dismantling of Ukrainian culture. Some people
Speaker 1: also thought that because Germany and the USSR were enemies,
Speaker 1: Germany would be on the side of Ukrainian independence. Germany
Speaker 1: used these perceptions to its own ends, including using inspections
Speaker 1: of mass graves from the famine to deflect from its
Speaker 1: own crimes, But of course the Nazi invasion brought its
Speaker 1: own horrific incidents to Ukraine. Nazi policies were the same
Speaker 1: in Ukraine as they were in any other territory that
Speaker 1: the Nazis occupied. This included the massacre at bobby Ar
Speaker 1: that began on September. More than thirty three thousand Jews
Speaker 1: were killed in this massacre, and the ravine where it
Speaker 1: happened was the site of additional massacres and mass burials
Speaker 1: over the remainder of the war. Somewhere between a hundred
Speaker 1: thousand and a hundred and fifty thousand Jews, prisoners of
Speaker 1: war and Ukrainian nationalists were killed and buried in mass
Speaker 1: graves there before the war ended. After World War Two,
Speaker 1: the Soviet Union continued to refuse to acknowledge or discuss
Speaker 1: the famine of nineteen thirty two and nineteen thirty three.
Speaker 1: Survivors in Ukraine, of course knew about it, as did
Speaker 1: Ukrainians living elsewhere, but the Kremlin denied that it had
Speaker 1: happened for more than fifty years. Soviet research into the famine,
Speaker 1: starting in the nineteen fifties and sixties, was meant to
Speaker 1: try to disprove that it had ever happened, and to
Speaker 1: provide evidence that it had really all been propaganda cooked
Speaker 1: up by Ukrainian nationalists and bourgeois expatriots. The famine wasn't
Speaker 1: totally unknown outside the USSR and Ukrainian immigrant communities, though.
Speaker 1: For example, in nineteen fifty three, past podcast subject Raphael Lampkin,
Speaker 1: who coined the term genocide, gave a speech at a
Speaker 1: New York commemoration of the famine. He also published this
Speaker 1: speech as an article titled Soviet Genocide in Ukraine. In
Speaker 1: this he walked through why he believed Russia's destruction of
Speaker 1: Ukraine was genocide, incorporating a four pronged plan that included
Speaker 1: the destruction of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, the destruction of the
Speaker 1: Ukrainian Orthodox Church, the starvation of Ukrainian farmers, and the
Speaker 1: replacement of Ukrainian population with non Ukrainians from Russia and
Speaker 1: elsewhere in the Soviet Union. More accurate, scholarly and popular
Speaker 1: articles about the Holodomor began to be published in the
Speaker 1: early nineteen eighties, right around the fiftieth anniversary of the famine.
Speaker 1: Public statements on the subject increased after the nineteen eighties
Speaker 1: six Chernobyl disaster, including people pointing out earlier Soviet efforts
Speaker 1: to cover up a disaster. The Soviet Union's first official
Speaker 1: acknowledgement of the famine came in nineteen eighties seven. The
Speaker 1: Ukrainian Communist Party also formally acknowledged it on December twenty five,
Speaker 1: Night seven, which was the anniversary of the founding of
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian Soviet Republic. More information became available about the
Speaker 1: whole damore after the collapse of the Soviet Union in nine,
Speaker 1: at which point Ukraine again became an independent nation. Much
Speaker 1: of the ongoing historical analysis of the Holodamar has taken
Speaker 1: place in Ukrainian immigrant communities in North America. Harvard University
Speaker 1: is home to the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, which was
Speaker 1: founded in nineteen seventy three with support from Ukrainian Americans. Alberta, Canada,
Speaker 1: is home to the lad More Research and Education Consortium,
Speaker 1: which was established in On November two thousand and six,
Speaker 1: the Ukrainian Parliament passed an Act defining the Holadamor as
Speaker 1: an act of genocide, and since then at least fifteen
Speaker 1: other nations have also formally done the same. Lad More
Speaker 1: Remembrance Day is observed in Ukraine and around the world
Speaker 1: on the fourth Saturday of November. Uh, and that is
Speaker 1: the whole of moral Uh. In lieu of listener mail today,
Speaker 1: we're going to take one last chance to say, live
Speaker 1: streaming of it coming up just a couple of days
Speaker 1: from this podcast coming out. That's March ten. Everything you
Speaker 1: need to know about it is that looped live dot com. Uh.
Speaker 1: It feels a little weird to end this podcast with
Speaker 1: that announcement in this particular episode, but uh, we have
Speaker 1: no other no other episodes coming out before the live
Speaker 1: stream is happening. Yes, sometimes that is just how the
Speaker 1: calendar works out. Yeah. Yeah, So we hope to see
Speaker 1: folks there if you would like to write to us
Speaker 1: about this or any other pod asked Where it History
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