苏联老大哥的大饥荒：乌克兰饥荒
发表时间：+-
乌克兰饥荒
第1部分：消除了“敌人”类，通过集体化
第2部分：幸存者回忆一下1933年的恐怖
通过Askold Krushelnycky
第1部分 - 通过集体化消除了'敌人'类
乌克兰人纪念70周年的斯大林政权强迫农业集体化程序 - 一个过程，最终在一个人为的饥荒在世界上最肥沃的地区之一。据估计，有14万人死于饥饿，主要集中在乌克兰，而且在北高加索，哈萨克斯坦和俄罗斯。由三部分组成的系列，甚至RFE / RL记者Askold的Krushelnycky报告背后的动机，约瑟夫·斯大林的臭名昭著的计划，那些幸存下来的饥荒的记忆，为什么今天这么少，是的悲剧。
布拉格5月8日2003（RFE / RL） - 今年是70周年的集体化节目策划由前苏联领导人约瑟夫·斯大林声称以百万计的人，大多是乌克兰农民的生活。
人造饥荒的毁灭性的比例是一个野蛮的人体工程学设计，消除经济类，共产党视为其激烈的对手的高潮。它的目的还在于打破意志的乌克兰 - 共产党员和非共产党员 - 都紧紧抓住他们的国家认同。
沙皇时代的扫地块的业主已经死亡或1917年共产主义革命赶了出来。但是，苏联领导层还藐视了数以百万计的农民了自己的位置，保持小农场和不断增长的大部分粮食。共产党，这些农民的自力更生和资本主义的例子是一个威胁。
斯大林，特别是看到了乌克兰的农民，他恨之入骨的乌克兰民族主义运动形成的前线。他怨恨莫斯科与乌克兰共产党人被迫作出的妥协 - 妥协，给了他们一定程度的自治权，并且看到了复兴的乌克兰文化和语言。
苏联划分为不同的类别的农民。主要的阶级敌人富农，相对富裕的农民能买得起自己的几头牲畜，偶尔会雇用帮助耕作或收获。共产党人要消灭富农，希望获得较贫穷的农民的支持，击鼓类的怨恨。
在1929年底，斯大林发起的“dekulakization”计划集中在乌克兰，但涵盖了北高加索 - ，像库班哥萨克 - 和哈萨克斯坦各国人民之间的民族乌克兰有较高的比例。
一个恶毒的宣传战煽动仇恨，对富农和他们的家庭，描绘他们等于外国军队的入侵的威胁。共产党人和旅所谓的“积极分子”支持的苏联秘密警察粗暴地剥夺了他们的家园和财产，富农，拍摄那些抵制和驱逐数以百万计的西伯利亚和远东。
1931年，，特奥多拉，索罗卡是一个11岁的女孩在乌克兰的Poltavschyna地区的一个村庄，什么品牌作为一个富农家庭。
“我的祖父，收获和耕作必要时，雇工，在秋天，当他们收获的小麦，他雇了人，”她说。 “正因为如此，苏联当局迫害他的人非常的不只是他，但整个家庭，因为他们称他为剥削者，他们在一个完全不人道的方式毁了我的家庭。”
大约有7.5万人，其中包括100万在哈萨克斯坦，估计已经死亡期间“dekulakization。”许多富农宰杀他们的牲畜，并烧毁他们的家园，而不是看到他们没收。数以千计的人被枪杀反对大队发送给剥夺了他们的财产。周运输期间的许多人死于劳教所，在没有暖气的火车很少的食物来维持他们。所占比例最大，将其递解出境后的最初几年中丧生。
索罗卡的祖父和父亲都在被驱逐者。她从来没有见过他们了。她，与她的母亲，姐姐，姑姑，和七个堂兄弟一起，留在Poltavschyna，不知道等待他们的仍然更可怕的饥荒。几乎所有她的家人在1933年死于饥饿。
再加上“dekulakization，”集体化的过程正在进行中。共产党施加沉重的粮食需求上，使其无利可图，以维持他们的小块土地，并迫使他们加入集体农庄的农民。
莫斯科发送了25,000信任俄罗斯共产党组织的集体农庄和国营农场。秘密警察和军队经常被用来恐吓农民加入。共产党遗憾的是，即使在恶性宣传活动，大多数农民的同情与富农，而不是与共产党。
许多这些贫困的农民最终被重新分类为富农自己。大多数加入了集体农庄勉强。许多人试图卖掉或者宰杀他们的牲畜，而不是捐赠给集体农庄执行。
当局积极提取的虚高粮食产量所要求的莫斯科，少得可怜的农民可以养活自己和家人。
集体农庄是众所周知的低效。即便如此 - 对斯大林的高级乌克兰共产党领导人的请求 - 在1932年，北高加索，乌克兰和俄罗斯的伏尔加河地区的粮食配额增加。的需求，饥荒不可避免的。
忠诚的共产主义在苏联时代 - 有的甚至今天 - 于1932年歉收造成的饥荒。但即使是苏联的记录显示，今年的收成令人满意。索罗卡记得农民们高兴。
“集体化的小麦已经开始于1932年，1932年有一个很大的收获。人们说，粮食已经变得如此之高，人走在田野的负责人是看不到的。的茎是如此沉重，粮食，抢购。没有人预见到这样的好收成在1932年，当苏联当局说[歉收饥荒的过错，他们在说谎，“她说。
由于饥饿开始采取更坚定的对农民人口的抓地力，中共当局使用武力和恐怖履行留给农民和集体农场的粮食配额，很少或根本没有来维持自己的。成千上万的农民试图掩盖谷物或其他食品来养活自己的家庭被处决，许多当地的共产党官员，反对饥饿的政策，使许多地区在1932年接近结束。
这本书被认为是“收获长恨歌”由英国历史学家罗伯特征服期间的最全面的研究。在书中，他说，斯大林意识到，过度的粮食购单将导致饥荒，但坚持以破坏他所看到的农民反共产主义和乌克兰民族主义的双重威胁。
索罗卡说，她这是毫无疑问的情况下。
“他们想出的最简单的方式，打破乌克兰的脖子上，很少向他们收取费用，并采取控制乌克兰的人为的饥荒。”饥饿是在1933年肆虐，夺走至少700万人的生命。
在乌克兰的大饥荒这一系列的第2部分的重点，其中包括人吃人的事件目击者的帐户。
第2部分 - 幸存者回忆恐怖的1933年
今年5月份70周年，由苏联领导人约瑟夫斯大林在北高加索和其他地区，造成至少500万人的生命，在乌克兰和大约200万毁灭性的饥荒故意设计的高度。 RFE / RL的记者Askold Krushelnycky说他们的记忆是毁灭性的时间幸存者。
布拉格5月8日2003（RFE / RL） - 70年前，5月份看到一个可怕的人造饥荒，减少以百万计的人生活在一些世界上最肥沃的农田骨架的高潮，而粮食储备和其他食物腐烂吨，通常的视线内死于饥饿的家庭。
Oleksa Sonipul 10于1933年，住在乌克兰北部的一个村庄。她说，那年开始，饥荒是如此普遍，人们已经减少吃草，树皮，根，浆果，青蛙，鸟类，甚至蚯蚓。
绝望的饥饿感促使人们抛售他们的财产，他们能找到的任何食物。到了晚上，有一种可怕的寂静下跌逾村，所有的牲畜和鸡，长久以来被杀害的食品和疲惫的村民们早早地上床睡觉。
但是，共产党的征地旅，以满足高不可及的粮食配额继续寻找即使是那些村庄里，居民们已经死于饥饿。他们用金属棒探测地面和潜在的藏身之地，在那里他们可以隐藏涉嫌粮食。
对农民，行动毫不手软的大队委员，得益于苏联的仇恨运动，带走了最后屑的食物，饥饿的家庭知道他们谴责即使是很小的孩子死亡。任何农民抵制被枪杀。也发生了强奸和抢劫。
Sonipul描述官兵到达她家时，发生了什么事。
“在1933年，就在圣诞节前，旅来到我们的村子搜寻面包。他们采取了一切他们可以找到吃的。那一天，他们发现土豆，我们已经种植在我们的爷爷的花园，并正因为如此，他们采取了一切从祖父和所有的种子，播种秋天到了第二天，圣诞节的第一天，奶奶已经聚集，他们向我们走来，撕毁了我们的窗户和门，并采取一切集体农庄。“
由于食品匮乏的村庄，数千名绝望的人长途跋涉去乞求食物在城镇和城市。食品是在城市，虽然严格控制，通过配给券。但居民被禁止帮助饥饿的农民和医生，以帮助骨骼的村民，谁是死在街头。
Fedir Burtianski是一名年轻男子，在1933年时，他在乌克兰的顿巴斯矿区的火车寻找工作。他说，成千上万饥饿的农民，痛苦地薄，肚子肿肿的，两旁的轨道，乞讨食物。火车停在第聂伯罗彼得罗夫斯克市和Burtianski说，他被吓坏了，他所看到的。
“在第聂伯罗彼得罗夫斯克，我们离开了车厢。我下了马车，我看到很多人肿半死。有的趴在地上，只是晃动。他们可能会死在几分钟之内。的铁路NKVD秘密警察迅速赶到我们回到了车。“
继续在乌克兰收获谷物和土豆，斯大林的配额的需求驱动。但苏联的运输系统效率低下的意思从字面上腐烂万吨的粮食吃剩的 - 有时是在公开，并在那些饿死的观点。
Burtianski描述重复的场景中所有对乌克兰的城镇和城市。在农村地区，整个村庄被摧毁了。饥饿使许多人绝望和疯狂。很多人吃人的情况下被记录下来，与人们生活的其他饥饿的受害者的遗体，或在某些情况下诉诸谋杀。大多数农民家庭有五六个孩子，有些准妈妈会杀了他们的最弱的儿童，为了养活的人。
Burtianski说，在一个点上，他避免从供应商处购买肉类，因为他怀疑这是人肉。当听说过这件事情，他被迫参加试验的一名男子和他的两个儿子被怀疑谋杀了人们对食品的。 Burtianski说，在审讯过程中承认在令人心寒吃的肉，他自己的母亲，死于饥饿的儿子之一。
“他说，”谢谢你父亲斯大林剥夺了我们的食物，我们的母亲死于饥饿和我们吃了她，我们自己死去的母亲。后，我们的母亲，我们没有采取任何人的怜悯，我们不会幸免斯大林自己“。”
Mykhaylo瑙缅科，11岁，于1933年。拒绝加入集体农庄附近，他的父亲被处决。 Mykhaylo留下了他的母亲和兄弟姐妹，没有一个供应商面对的饥荒。他说，人被枪杀试图窃取谷物或马铃薯从当地集体农庄，周围是铁丝网和武装人员守卫。他说，人们甚至试图拿起几个松散的种子掉在了地上。
“的悲剧。人们变得浮肿，他们也因此丧命由成千上万的每一天。的集体农庄当局任命了六名男子收集和埋葬死者。从我们村的75家，5月24号的房子是空的，所有的居民已经死了“。
瑙缅科也见证了人吃人的实例。他说，他第一次发现，他的邻居们吃人的肉后，其中的一个，称为塔琪雅娜，尽管他刚刚帮助埋葬了她的父亲拒绝与他分享她的肉。
“我看到塔琪雅娜吃鸡肉，看到它有很多。我走近她，并问她一些，但她拒绝给我任何，因为它是人肉。”
数百名被处决或杀害其他村民的食人。苏联的记录显示，约1000人仍在服刑的同类相食在战俘营白海在1930年代末。
，奥莱娜Mukniak是在1933年10住在与她的母亲，姐姐，弟弟，在Poltavschyna地区的一个村庄。她的父亲离开了顿巴斯地区寻找食物。在村里，Mukniak说，通过马粪挑选的人找到粮食，炖皮靴，和烤的树叶和树皮。
“你做什么，如果有没有吃的？我们收集的白桦树叶和烤，然后吃了。我们还能做什么？”
她的妹妹在集体农场工作，并收到一小片面包，每天他们四。但它是不够的，让他们都还活着。
“我的哥哥死于饥饿。他又小又没有什么吃什么，我们的母亲给我们吃的时候有什么？我妹妹给我们带来了一小片面包每天一次，我们一饮而尽，等待，直到第二天，但你没有食物的时间。我的弟弟比我小，他死了，因为他需要吃什么可以给我们的母亲。“
许多人见了他们的死亡与安静的辞职，祈祷和安慰他们的饥饿儿童的童话故事。
并非所有部门都纹丝未动的悲剧。一些共产党积极分子和官员监督粮食征收感到非常震惊，他们所看到的和他们的上级提出抗议，或试图提供食物给饥饿的村民。对于他们的努力，他们被处决。
高级乌克兰共产党的分数，饥荒和斯大林的攻击对乌克兰文化的复兴是他们最后的幻灭的思想，他们曾的原因。他们中的许多人自杀，而不是面对酷刑和公开审判。
直到共产主义的秋天，大部分的饥荒中幸存下来的村民目击者讲述他们的故事持谨慎态度。即使是现在，很多人都不愿意谈论这期间，因为他们看到许多前苏联时代遗留下来仍然在权力的位置。
，似乎困扰着他们的记忆，是那些看着自己的亲人死了。特奥多拉索罗卡，谁失去了几乎每一个到“和饥荒dekulakization”的成员，她的家人说，这样的记忆永远无法抹去。她也没有忘记他们。
“我的妹妹死于饥饿在我的怀里，她乞讨一块面包，因为有一块面包，意味着生活在家里，她恳求我给她一小块面包，我也哭了，并告诉她说，我们没有任何她告诉我，我想她死。相信我，这是痛苦的，即使是现在，我小的时候，我自己然后，我哭了，但我的心没有撕成了碎片，因为我无法理解为什么这一切都发生，但到了今天，自从我长大后，我并没有在我的生活中时，我没有哭花了一天时间，我从来没有想到发生了什么事，我的家人进入了梦乡。“
这个系列的最后一部分看起来世界为什么仍然知道一些关于1933年灾难性的人为的饥荒，造成数百万人死亡。
第3部分 - 七十年后，世界在很大程度上仍然没有意识到悲剧
约瑟夫·斯大林政权的故意设计的，70年前的饥荒夺去了数百万人的生命，主要是在乌克兰，而且在其他一些地方的苏联。这是今天的苏维埃政权和恐怖的种族灭绝行为的最严重的暴行之一。即便如此，1933年的大饥荒是比较陌生的。 RFE / RL的记者Askold Krushelnycky检查和报告提请注意的暴行运动背后的原因。
布拉格，2003年5月8日（RFE / RL） - 估计有多少人死于1933年不同在斯大林的工程的饥荒。但他们惊人的规模 - 11万人之间。
但是，尽管可怕的人谁死了，这可怕的一章在苏联历史上人员伤亡同等规模的大屠杀是比较陌生的世界。其中一个主要的原因是，德国人最终打败了，数千名目击者告诉他们关于集中营和大屠杀的故事。的经验还抓获了难忘的照片，电影和书面记录，许多被抓获，并把那些对种族灭绝负责的试用。
Lyubomyr Luciuk是在乌克兰的加拿大公民自由协会研究部主任。他解释了为什么没有这样的机会，探讨在苏联饥荒。
“纳粹是如此完全彻底地打败并没有辩护者在第二次世界战争以外的其他一些坚果，苏联，相反，内爆，”Luciuk说。 “有没有军事上的征服。在意识形态上，也许，它被击败了，但在一定意义上，这个政权及其工作人员，管理员和官僚 - 昔日的 - 只是改变了他们的衬衫和，成为民族主义者和爱国者隔夜。存档记录仍然是不完全的。目前还没有纽伦堡审判，如果你喜欢的话，带来的诸多成千上万，如果不是数以十万计的人谁担任苏维埃政权司法“。
英国历史学家罗伯特占领期间，他1986年的饥荒研究专家，“悲伤逆流成收获，”带来的悲剧多的信息对西方观众的第一次。征服的饥荒和大屠杀的另一个对比是，而阿道夫希特勒写了下来，他打算做什么，斯大林并没有去纪录关于饥荒。
“[德国]第一，被抓，所以它结束了，他们有自己钻进的操作，他们说他们在做什么。斯大林从来没有说过他是想饿死人死亡。他只是拿走了他们的食物，他从来没有记录，这是所有做的主持下，以人为本的谈话，社会主义的谈话 - 否则完全拒绝。的操作是不同的，而在其他方面，他们是不同的，太。希特勒做了很多可怕的事情，但他不“T折磨他的朋友说假话。的操作是不同的。”
征服表示，虽然现在大多数历史学家接受，一场毁灭性的饥荒发生，一些持怀疑态度的仍然试图找到一个理由斯大林的行为。
“我不认为大家还接受[饥荒]。我已经看到了最近的采访中说，这是一次饥荒，我也读过一天的东西，说的人被逮捕和枪杀等在8月法令1932年，因为，毕竟，他们偷的，“征服说。 “我说，”是的，他们偷自己的东西已经从他们的状态。“他们没有想到的是，你看这仍然是写了，现在偶尔。“
但征服多的证据出现了自苏联解体使更多的访问苏联档案。他说，他自己也发现记录在案的证据表明斯大林知道，几十万农民试图进入俄罗斯在寻找食物。
“俄罗斯驱逐的乌克兰和库班农民的 - 只要他们试图进入俄罗斯，他们被送回 - 我只得到了约8个或10个私人的报告，通过了一项法令，斯大林，实际上是确认签署，这应该做了一份报告[Genrikh] Yagoda，秘密警察的头，说已经做了“几十万愚蠢的农民”。你看，秘密来源，确认后完成。“
征服是毫无疑问的饥荒主要目的是在乌克兰和斯大林讨厌不仅是全国的农民，而且甚至是所谓的高级共产党领导人，像尼古拉Skrypnyk，最终以自杀的人。
“斯大林试图打破乌克兰，如你所知，与领先的乌克兰布尔什维克Skrypnyk的自杀，把他们时，他们试图捍卫只是普通的字母乌克兰的压力下。这里斯大林]尝试去改变它，这样的事情，我想他也证明了他永远信赖的乌克兰共产党在1937年，即使是那些支持他的人被完全清除。整个乌克兰中央委员会。他这个了不起的每个人的不信任，但特别是乌克兰。 “
Luciuk为什么大饥荒的消息从来没有达到西方的乌克兰加拿大公民自由协会有不同的理论。他指责一些总部设在莫斯科的西方记者的时候，谁知道强迫饥饿，而是选择了不写或故意遮盖。
盖的是“纽约时报”记者沃尔特·Duranty发挥的记者，他说，最有影响力的角色。的药物成瘾者与阴凉的声誉，，Duranty也是一个狂热的风扇斯大林的，他形容为“世界上活着的最伟大的政治家。”他被授予了美国第一个面试的秘密政权与苏联领导人和特权信息。
Duranty一名英国外交官私下的时候，他认为消灭了10万人的饥荒。但是，当其他记者曾前往乌克兰开始写的可怕的饥荒肆虐有，Duranty品牌的信息作为反苏的谎言。征服认为，Duranty被苏联秘密警察勒索他的性活动，据报道，双性恋和恋尸癖。
前一年饥荒，在1932年，，Duranty赢得了普利策奖，美国最令人垂涎的新闻奖，对苏联经济进行了一系列的文章。 Luciuk说的乌克兰侨民，以及乌克兰政界人士和学者，在本月初推出了一项活动，有Duranty的获奖追授撤销。他说，他希望这项运动，让更多的人知道在世界的饥荒。
“因此，这是一个可怕的种族灭绝的灾难降临乌克兰，乌克兰人，和纪念今年70周年 - 这样做是试图普利策奖委员会做正确的事，并吊销Duranty奖追授 - 为什么我们从事这项运动。“
希德，Gissler，普利策委员会的一位发言人说，董事会已考虑撤回Duranty的奖金在以往的场合，但已决定不这样做，因为它没有被授予相关的饥荒。他说，他同情与乌克兰的活动，董事会将重新考虑的问题再次在今年晚些时候。
“我理解他们的关注，但正如我所说，该奖项去为一个离散集的故事和它的不是设计，说任何一个人，一个人的工作主体，或他们的一生 - 它是不是终身成就奖。 “
Duranty在1957年去世的贫困醉。 Luciuk说，关于饥荒的详细信息时，终于公开化，Duranty被记入与铸造著名无情的短语，“你不能让不打破鸡蛋的煎蛋卷。”
Luciuk说，他希望，同时，乌克兰将做更多的教育自己的关于饥荒的人口。自获得独立以来，连续乌克兰政府已做了一点宣传鼓动争议的国家依然强大的共产党，继续否认蓄意组织的饥荒的恐惧情节。此外，许多参加了处决，驱逐出境，并没收食品仍然活着，接收状态养老金。
在2月，乌克兰议会进行了一次特别听证会的饥荒。对人道主义问题的副总理，德米特罗Tabachnuk，说是蓄意的恐怖行为，夺去了10万人的饥荒。他说，政府正计划建立一个全国性的饥荒纪念大楼。
版权所有?2003。 RFE / RL，公司
再版的许可，乌克兰档案和新闻
自由欧洲电台和自由电台，1201康涅狄格大道，NW
华盛顿DC 20036。
http://www.rferl.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.rferl.org/
乌克兰文件和新闻
http://www.uanews.tv/archives/rferl/ukraine/ua69.htm
?2003www.uanews.tv
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]=====================================[/font]
Ukraine Famine[/font]
Part 1: Eliminating An 'Enemy' Class Through Collectivization
Part 2: Survivors Recall The Horrors Of 1933
Part 3: Seventy Years Later World Still Largely Unaware Of Tragedy
By Askold Krushelnycky
Part 1 - Eliminating An 'Enemy' Class Through Collectivization
Ukrainians are commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Stalin regime's forced farm-collectivization program -- a process that culminated in a man-made famine in one of the world's most fertile regions. An estimated 14 million people died of starvation, mostly in Ukraine but also in the North Caucasus, Kazakhstan and Russia. In a three-part series, RFE/RL correspondent Askold Krushelnycky reports on the motivation behind Josef Stalin's notorious plan, the memories of those who survived the famine, and why even today so little is known about the tragedy.
Prague, 8 May 2003 (RFE/RL) -- This year marks the 70th anniversary of a collectivization program masterminded by former Soviet leader Josef Stalin that claimed the lives of millions of people, mostly Ukrainian peasant farmers.
An artificial famine of devastating proportions was the culmination of a savage piece of human engineering designed to eliminate an economic class that the Communists viewed as their fierce opponents. It was also intended to break the will of Ukrainians -- Communists and non-Communists alike -- who clung to their national identity.
The tsarist-era owners of sweeping plots of land had already been killed or driven out by the 1917 Communist revolution. But the Soviet leadership also despised the millions of peasant farmers who took their place, maintaining small farms and growing mostly grain. To the Communists, such farmers were a threatening example of self-reliance and capitalism.
Stalin, in particular, saw Ukrainian peasants as forming the front line of the Ukrainian nationalist movement he so intensely disliked. He resented the compromises Moscow had been forced to make with Ukrainian Communists -- compromises that gave them a degree of autonomy and that saw a revival of Ukrainian culture and language.
The Soviets divided the peasants into different categories. The primary class enemy was the kulak, relatively well-off farmers who could afford to own several heads of livestock and occasionally hire help with plowing or harvesting. To eliminate the kulaks, the Communists hoped to gain the support from poorer peasant farmers by drumming up class resentment.
In late 1929, Stalin launched a "dekulakization" program centered on Ukraine but encompassing the North Caucuses -- which had high proportions of ethnic Ukrainians among peoples like the Kuban Cossacks -- and Kazakhstan.
A venomous propaganda war fomented hatred against kulaks and their families, portraying them as a threat equal to an invading foreign army. Communists and brigades of so-called "activists" backed by Soviet secret police brutally stripped the kulaks of their homes and possessions, shooting those who resisted and deporting millions to Siberia and the Far North.
In 1931, Teodora Soroka was an 11-year-old girl in what was branded as a kulak family in a village in Ukraine's Poltavschyna region.
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"My grandfather hired laborers for harvesting and plowing when necessary and, in the fall, when they harvested wheat, he hired people," she says. "And because of that, the Soviet authorities persecuted him terribly. Not just him, but the entire family because they called him an exploiter. They destroyed my family in a completely inhumane way."[/font]
Around 7.5 million people, including one million in Kazakhstan, are estimated to have died during the period of "dekulakization." Many kulaks resorted to slaughtering their livestock and burning down their homes rather than seeing them confiscated. Thousands were shot for opposing the brigades sent to strip them of their property. Many died during the weeks of transport in unheated trains to labor camps, with little food to sustain them. The largest percentage perished in the first years after their deportation.
Soroka's grandfather and father were among those deported. She never saw them again. She, together with her mother, sister, aunt, and seven cousins, remained in Poltavschyna, not knowing that the still-greater horror of famine awaited them. Nearly all of her family died of starvation in 1933.
Together with "dekulakization," a process of collectivization was under way. The Communists imposed crippling grain demands on peasant farmers to make it unprofitable to sustain their small holdings and pressure them into joining collective farms.
Moscow sent 25,000 trusted Communists from Russia to organize collective and state farms. The secret police and often the army were used to terrorize peasants into joining. The Communists were dismayed that even after the vicious propaganda campaign most peasants sympathized more with kulaks than with the Communist Party.
Many of these poorer peasants were ultimately reclassified as kulaks themselves. Most joined the collective farms reluctantly. Many were executed for trying to sell off or slaughter their livestock rather than donating them to the collective farms.
The authorities worked vigorously to extract the unrealistically high grain yields demanded by Moscow, leaving pitifully little with which the farmers could feed themselves and their families.
The collective farms were notoriously inefficient. Even so -- and against the pleas of even senior Ukrainian Communist leaders -- Stalin in 1932 increased grain quotas in Ukraine, the North Caucasus, and Russia's Volga region. The demand made famine inevitable.
Communist loyalists during the Soviet era -- and some even today -- have blamed the famine on a poor harvest in 1932. But even Soviet records show the year's harvest as satisfactory. Soroka remembers the peasants were pleased.
"The collectivization of wheat had begun in 1932. In 1932 there was a big harvest. People said the grain had grown so high that the heads of people walking in the fields couldn't be seen. The stalks were so heavy with grain that they snapped. Nobody foresaw such a good harvest in 1932. When the Soviet authorities said [the famine] was the fault of a poor harvest, they were lying," she says.
As hunger begun to take a firmer grip on the peasant population, the communist authorities used force and terror to fulfill the grain quotas which left peasants and collective farms with little or nothing to sustain themselves with. Thousands of peasants who tried to hide grain or other food to feed their families were executed, as were many local Communist officials who objected to a policy that brought starvation to many areas as 1932 approached its end.
The book "Harvest of Sorrow" by British historian Robert Conquest is considered the most comprehensive study of the period. In it, he says Stalin was aware that the excessive grain requisitions would lead to famine, but persisted in order to destroy what he saw as the double threat of peasant anti-Communism and Ukrainian nationalism.
Soroka says she has no doubt this was the case.
"They thought up the idea of an artificial famine as the easiest way to break Ukraine's neck and to take control of Ukraine at little cost to themselves." Starvation was rampant in 1933, claiming at least seven million lives.
Part two of this series on Ukraine's famine focuses on eyewitness accounts of the events, including instances of cannibalism.
Part 2 - Survivors Recall The Horrors Of 1933[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/font]The month of May this year marks the 70th anniversary of the height of a devastating famine deliberately engineered by Soviet leader Josef Stalin that claimed at least five million lives in Ukraine and around two million in the North Caucasus and elsewhere. RFE/RL correspondent Askold Krushelnycky speaks to survivors about their memories of that devastating time.
Prague, 8 May 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Seventy years ago, the month of May saw the climax of a horrific artificial famine that reduced millions of people to living skeletons in some of the world's most fertile farm land, while stocks of grain and other foods rotted by the ton, often within the sight of families dying from starvation.
Oleksa Sonipul was 10 in 1933 and lived in a village in northern Ukraine. She said by the beginning of that year, famine was so widespread people had been reduced to eating grass, tree bark, roots, berries, frogs, birds, and even earthworms.
Desperate hunger drove people to sell off all of their possessions for any food they could find. At night, an eerie silence fell over the village, where all the livestock and chickens had long since been killed for food and exhausted villagers went to bed early.
But Communist requisition brigades looking to fulfill the impossibly high grain quotas continued to search even those villages where inhabitants were already dying from starvation. They used metal poles to probe the ground and potential hiding places where they suspected grain could be hidden.
Some of the brigade members, fueled by Soviet hate campaigns against the peasants, acted without mercy, taking away the last crumbs of food from starving families knowing they were condemning even small children to death. Any peasant who resisted was shot. Rape and robbery also took place.
Sonipul described what happened when a brigade arrived at her home.
"In 1933, just before Christmas, brigades came to our village to search for bread. They took everything they could find to eat. That day they found potatoes that we had planted in our grandfather's garden, and because of that they took everything from grandfather and all the seeds that grandmother had gathered for sowing the following autumn. And the next day, the first day of Christmas, they came to us, tore out our windows and doors and took everything to the collective farm."
As food ran out in the villages, thousands of desperate people trekked to beg for food in towns and cities. Food was available in cities, although strictly controlled through ration coupons. But residents were forbidden to help the starving peasants and doctors were not allowed to aid the skeletal villagers, who were left to die on the streets.
Fedir Burtianski was a young man in 1933 when he set out by train to Ukraine's Donbas mining area in search of work. He says thousands of starving peasants, painfully thin with swollen bellies, lined the rail track begging for food. The train stopped in the city of Dnipropetrovsk and Burtianski says he was horrified by what he saw there.
"At Dnipropetrovsk we got out of the carriages. I got off the wagon and I saw very many people swollen and half-dead. And some who were lying on the ground and just shaking. Probably they were going to die within a few minutes. Then the railway NKVD [secret police] quickly herded us back into the wagons."
Grain and potatoes continued to be harvested in Ukraine, driven by the demand of Stalin's quotas. But the inefficiency of the Soviet transportation system meant that tons of food literally rotted uneaten -- sometimes in the open and within the view of those dying of starvation.
The scene Burtianski described was repeated in towns and cities all over Ukraine. In the countryside, entire villages were being wiped out. The hunger drove many people to desperation and madness. Many instances of cannibalism were recorded, with people living off the remains of other starvation victims or in some instances resorting to murder. Most peasant families had five or six children, and some mothers killed their weakest children in order to feed the others.
Burtianski said at one point, he avoided buying meat from a vendor because he suspected it was human flesh. When the authorities heard about the incident, he was forced to attend the trial of a man and his two sons who were suspected of murdering people for food. Burtianski says during the trial one of the sons admitted in chilling terms to eating the flesh of his own mother, who had died of starvation.
"He said, 'Thank you to Father Stalin for depriving us of food. Our mother died of hunger and we ate her, our own dead mother. And after our mother we did not take pity on anyone. We would not have spared Stalin himself.'"
Mykhaylo Naumenko was 11 years old in 1933. His father was executed for refusing to join a nearby collective farm. Mykhaylo was left with his mother and siblings to face the famine without a provider. He said people were shot for trying to steal grain or potatoes from the local collective farm, which was surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed men. He said people were executed even for trying to pick up a few loose seeds dropped on the ground.
"A tragedy developed. People became swollen, they died by the tens each day. The collective farm authorities appointed six men to collect and bury the dead. From our village of 75 homes, by May 24 houses were empty where all the inhabitants had died."
Naumenko also witnessed instances of cannibalism. He said he first discovered that his neighbors were eating human flesh after one of them, called Tetyana, refused to share her meat with him despite the fact he had just helped bury her father.
"I saw Tetyana eating chicken meat and saw there was a lot of it. I approached her and asked her for some, but she refused to give me any. Because it was human flesh."
Hundreds were executed or killed by other villagers for cannibalism. Soviet records show that around 1,000 people were still serving sentences for cannibalism in prison camps on the White Sea at the end of the 1930s.
Olena Mukniak was 10 in 1933 and lived in a village in the Poltavschyna region with her mother, older sister, and younger brother. Her father had left for the Donbas area in search of food. In the village, Mukniak said people picked through horse manure to find grain, stewed leather boots, and toasted leaves and tree bark.
"What do you do if there's nothing to eat? We collected birch leaves and toasted them and ate them. What else could we do?"
Her sister worked at the collective farm and received a small piece of bread every day for all four of them. But it was not enough to keep them all alive.
"My brother died from starvation. He was small and there was nothing to eat. What could our mother give us to eat when there was nothing? My sister brought us a little piece of bread once a day and we gulped it down and waited until the next day. But you wanted food all the time. My brother was younger than I and he died because he needed to eat. And our mother could give nothing."
Many people met their deaths with quiet resignation, praying and comforting their starving children with fairy tales.
Not all authorities were untouched by the tragedy. Some of the Communist activists and officials supervising the grain expropriation were horrified at what they saw and protested to their superiors or tried to provide food for the starving villagers. For their efforts, they were executed.
For scores of senior Ukrainian Communists, the famine and Stalin's attack on the Ukrainian cultural revival were cause for their final disillusionment with the ideology they had served. Many of them committed suicide rather than face torture and show trials.
Until the fall of communism, most of the villager eyewitnesses who survived the famine were wary of telling their stories. Even now, many are reluctant to talk about that period because they see many Soviet-era holdovers still in positions of power.
The memories that seem to haunt them most are those of watching their loved ones die. Teodora Soroka, who lost nearly every member of her family to "dekulakization" and famine, says such memories can never be erased. Nor does she want to forget them.
"My little sister died of hunger in my arms. She was begging for a piece of bread, because to have a piece of bread in the house meant life. She pleaded for me to give her a bit of bread. I was crying and told her that we didn't have any. She told me that I wanted her to die. Believe me, it's painful even now. I was little myself then. I cried, but my heart was not torn to shreds because I couldn't understand why this was all happening. But today, and ever since I became an adult, I haven't spent a day in my life when I haven't cried. I have never gone to sleep without thinking about what happened to my family."
The last part of this series looks at why the world still knows so little about the calamitous man-made famine of 1933 that killed millions of people.
Part 3 - Seventy Years Later, World Still Largely Unaware Of Tragedy[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/font]A famine deliberately engineered by the regime of Josef Stalin 70 years ago claimed millions of lives, mostly in Ukraine but also in some other parts of the Soviet Union. It is today considered one of the worst atrocities of the Soviet regime and a terrifying act of genocide. Even so, the famine of 1933 is relatively unknown. RFE/RL correspondent Askold Krushelnycky examines the reasons behind this and reports on a campaign to draw attention to the atrocity.
Prague, 8 May 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Estimates of how many people died in Stalin's engineered famine of 1933 vary. But they are staggering in their scale -- between seven and 11 million people.
But despite the horrific number of people who died, the world is relatively unfamiliar with this grisly chapter in Soviet history which claimed lives on the same scale as the holocaust. One of the main reasons is that the Germans were eventually defeated, and thousands of eyewitnesses told their stories about concentration camps and massacres. The experience was also captured unforgettably in photographs, film, and written accounts, and many of those responsible for the genocide were captured and put on trial.
Lyubomyr Luciuk is the director of research at the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association. He explained why there was no such opportunity to investigate the famine in the Soviet Union.
"The Nazis were so completely and utterly defeated and had no apologists other than a few nuts after the second world war. The Soviet Union, in contrast, imploded," Luciuk said. "There was no military conquest. Ideologically, perhaps, it was defeated. But in a sense, the regime of yesteryear -- many of its functionaries, administrators, and bureaucrats -- simply changed their shirts and became nationalists or patriots overnight. The archival record is still not entirely available. There has been no Nuremberg trial, if you like, to bring the many thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people who served the Soviet regime to justice."
British historian Robert Conquest is an expert on the period and his 1986 study of the famine, "Harvest of Sorrow," brought much information about the tragedy to Western audiences for the first time. Conquest said another contrast between the famine and the holocaust is that while Adolf Hitler had written down much of what he intended to do, Stalin did not go on record about the famine.
"In the first place, [the Germans] were caught, so it ended and they had themselves got into an operation where they said what they were doing. Stalin never said he was trying to starve anyone to death. He just took away their food. He never went on record. It was all done under the auspices of humanist talk, socialist talk -- or else denied altogether. The operations were different. And in other ways they were different, too. Hitler did many horrible things but he didn't torture his friends to tell lies. The operation was a different one."
Conquest said that while most historians now accept that a devastating famine took place, some skeptics remain that try to find a justification for Stalin's behavior.
"I don't think everybody still accepts [the famine]. I've seen recent interviews saying it was a famine and also I've read the other day something saying that people were arrested and shot and so forth under the August decree in 1932 because, after all, they were stealing," Conquest said. "I said, 'Yes, they were stealing their own stuff which had been taken from them by the state.' They hadn't thought of that. You see this is still being written now occasionally."
But Conquest said more evidence has emerged since the disintegration of the USSR allowed greater access to Soviet archives. He says he himself has uncovered documented evidence that shows Stalin knew that hundreds of thousands of peasants were trying to enter Russia in search of food.
"The expulsion of Ukrainian and Kuban peasants from Russia -- as soon as they tried getting into Russia they were sent back -- which I only got from about eight or 10 private reports, that is actually confirmed by a decree Stalin signed that this should be done and a report was put in by [Genrikh] Yagoda, head of the secret police, saying it has been done to 'several hundred thousand stupid peasants.' See, that confirmation within secret sources was complete."
Conquest is in no doubt that the famine was primarily aimed at Ukrainians and that Stalin hated not only the country peasants but even senior Communist leaders, like Mykola Skrypnyk, who eventually killed himself.
"[Stalin] was trying to break the Ukrainians, as you know, with the leading Ukrainian Bolshevik Skrypnyk committing suicide under the pressures that were put on them when they tried to defend just the ordinary alphabet of the Ukrainians. Here [Stalin] was trying to alter it, things like that. I think he also proved he never trusted Ukrainian Communists. The whole Ukrainian Central Committee was totally purged in 1937, even the ones who supported him. He had this terrific distrust of everybody, but particularly of Ukraine."
Luciuk of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association has a different theory for why news of the famine never reached the West. He blamed a number of Western journalists based in Moscow at the time who knew of the forced starvation but chose not to write about it or deliberately covered it up.
The journalist he says played the most influential role in the cover-up was "The New York Times" correspondent Walter Duranty. A drug addict with a shady reputation, Duranty was also an avid fan of Stalin's, whom he described as "the world's greatest living statesman." He was granted the first American interview with the Soviet leader and received privileged information from the secretive regime.
Duranty confided to a British diplomat at the time that he thought 10 million people had perished in the famine. But when other journalists who had traveled to Ukraine began writing about the horrific famine raging there, Duranty branded their information as anti-Soviet lies. Conquest believes that Duranty was being blackmailed by the Soviet secret police over his sexual activities, which reportedly included bisexuality and necrophilia.
The year before the famine, in 1932, Duranty won the Pulitzer Prize, America's most coveted journalism award, for a series of articles on the Soviet economy. Luciuk says members of the Ukrainian diaspora, as well as Ukrainian politicians and academics, earlier this month launched a campaign to have Duranty's award posthumously revoked. He said he hopes the campaign will make more people in the world aware of the famine.
"So this was a horrific genocidal catastrophe that befell Ukraine, the people of Ukraine, and commemorating it this year on the 70th anniversary -- and doing so by trying to have the Pulitzer Prize committee do the right thing and revoke Duranty's prize posthumously -- is why we've engaged in this campaign."
A spokesman for the Pulitzer board, Sid Gissler, said the board has considered withdrawing Duranty's prize on previous occasions but had decided against doing so because it had not been awarded for articles related to the famine. He said he sympathized with the Ukrainian campaign, and added the board would reconsider the question again later this year.
"I understand their concern, but as I said, the award goes for a discrete set of stories and it's not designed to say anything about a person, the body of a person's work, or their lifetime -- it's not a lifetime achievement award."
Duranty died in 1957 an impoverished drunk. Luciuk said that when details about the famine finally came into the open, Duranty was credited with coining the famously callous phrase, "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs."
Luciuk said he hopes Ukraine, meanwhile, will do more to educate its own population about the famine. Since gaining independence, successive Ukrainian governments have done little to publicize the episode for fear of instigating a controversy with the country's still-powerful Communist Party, which continues to deny the famine was deliberately organized. Moreover, many of those who took part in the executions, deportations, and confiscation of food are still alive and receiving state pensions.
In February, the Ukrainian parliament conducted a special hearing about the famine. The deputy prime minister for humanitarian issues, Dmytro Tabachnuk, said the famine was a deliberate terrorist act that claimed the lives of up to 10 million people. He said the government is planning to build a National Famine Memorial Complex.
Copyright ? 2003. RFE/RL, Inc.
Republished by Ukrainian Archives & News with the permission of
Radio Free Europe & Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W.
Washington DC 20036.
http://www.rferl.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.rferl.org/
Ukrainian Archives & News
http://www.uanews.tv/archives/rferl/ukraine/ua69.htm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.uanews.tv/archives/rferl/ukraine/ua69.htm
第1部分：消除了“敌人”类，通过集体化
第2部分：幸存者回忆一下1933年的恐怖
第3部分：七十年后的世界在很大程度上仍然不知道悲剧
通过Askold Krushelnycky
第1部分 - 通过集体化消除了'敌人'类
乌克兰人纪念70周年的斯大林政权强迫农业集体化程序 - 一个过程，最终在一个人为的饥荒在世界上最肥沃的地区之一。据估计，有14万人死于饥饿，主要集中在乌克兰，而且在北高加索，哈萨克斯坦和俄罗斯。由三部分组成的系列，甚至RFE / RL记者Askold的Krushelnycky报告背后的动机，约瑟夫·斯大林的臭名昭著的计划，那些幸存下来的饥荒的记忆，为什么今天这么少，是的悲剧。
布拉格5月8日2003（RFE / RL） - 今年是70周年的集体化节目策划由前苏联领导人约瑟夫·斯大林声称以百万计的人，大多是乌克兰农民的生活。
人造饥荒的毁灭性的比例是一个野蛮的人体工程学设计，消除经济类，共产党视为其激烈的对手的高潮。它的目的还在于打破意志的乌克兰 - 共产党员和非共产党员 - 都紧紧抓住他们的国家认同。
沙皇时代的扫地块的业主已经死亡或1917年共产主义革命赶了出来。但是，苏联领导层还藐视了数以百万计的农民了自己的位置，保持小农场和不断增长的大部分粮食。共产党，这些农民的自力更生和资本主义的例子是一个威胁。
斯大林，特别是看到了乌克兰的农民，他恨之入骨的乌克兰民族主义运动形成的前线。他怨恨莫斯科与乌克兰共产党人被迫作出的妥协 - 妥协，给了他们一定程度的自治权，并且看到了复兴的乌克兰文化和语言。
苏联划分为不同的类别的农民。主要的阶级敌人富农，相对富裕的农民能买得起自己的几头牲畜，偶尔会雇用帮助耕作或收获。共产党人要消灭富农，希望获得较贫穷的农民的支持，击鼓类的怨恨。
在1929年底，斯大林发起的“dekulakization”计划集中在乌克兰，但涵盖了北高加索 - ，像库班哥萨克 - 和哈萨克斯坦各国人民之间的民族乌克兰有较高的比例。
一个恶毒的宣传战煽动仇恨，对富农和他们的家庭，描绘他们等于外国军队的入侵的威胁。共产党人和旅所谓的“积极分子”支持的苏联秘密警察粗暴地剥夺了他们的家园和财产，富农，拍摄那些抵制和驱逐数以百万计的西伯利亚和远东。
1931年，，特奥多拉，索罗卡是一个11岁的女孩在乌克兰的Poltavschyna地区的一个村庄，什么品牌作为一个富农家庭。
“我的祖父，收获和耕作必要时，雇工，在秋天，当他们收获的小麦，他雇了人，”她说。 “正因为如此，苏联当局迫害他的人非常的不只是他，但整个家庭，因为他们称他为剥削者，他们在一个完全不人道的方式毁了我的家庭。”
大约有7.5万人，其中包括100万在哈萨克斯坦，估计已经死亡期间“dekulakization。”许多富农宰杀他们的牲畜，并烧毁他们的家园，而不是看到他们没收。数以千计的人被枪杀反对大队发送给剥夺了他们的财产。周运输期间的许多人死于劳教所，在没有暖气的火车很少的食物来维持他们。所占比例最大，将其递解出境后的最初几年中丧生。
索罗卡的祖父和父亲都在被驱逐者。她从来没有见过他们了。她，与她的母亲，姐姐，姑姑，和七个堂兄弟一起，留在Poltavschyna，不知道等待他们的仍然更可怕的饥荒。几乎所有她的家人在1933年死于饥饿。
再加上“dekulakization，”集体化的过程正在进行中。共产党施加沉重的粮食需求上，使其无利可图，以维持他们的小块土地，并迫使他们加入集体农庄的农民。
莫斯科发送了25,000信任俄罗斯共产党组织的集体农庄和国营农场。秘密警察和军队经常被用来恐吓农民加入。共产党遗憾的是，即使在恶性宣传活动，大多数农民的同情与富农，而不是与共产党。
许多这些贫困的农民最终被重新分类为富农自己。大多数加入了集体农庄勉强。许多人试图卖掉或者宰杀他们的牲畜，而不是捐赠给集体农庄执行。
当局积极提取的虚高粮食产量所要求的莫斯科，少得可怜的农民可以养活自己和家人。
集体农庄是众所周知的低效。即便如此 - 对斯大林的高级乌克兰共产党领导人的请求 - 在1932年，北高加索，乌克兰和俄罗斯的伏尔加河地区的粮食配额增加。的需求，饥荒不可避免的。
忠诚的共产主义在苏联时代 - 有的甚至今天 - 于1932年歉收造成的饥荒。但即使是苏联的记录显示，今年的收成令人满意。索罗卡记得农民们高兴。
“集体化的小麦已经开始于1932年，1932年有一个很大的收获。人们说，粮食已经变得如此之高，人走在田野的负责人是看不到的。的茎是如此沉重，粮食，抢购。没有人预见到这样的好收成在1932年，当苏联当局说[歉收饥荒的过错，他们在说谎，“她说。
由于饥饿开始采取更坚定的对农民人口的抓地力，中共当局使用武力和恐怖履行留给农民和集体农场的粮食配额，很少或根本没有来维持自己的。成千上万的农民试图掩盖谷物或其他食品来养活自己的家庭被处决，许多当地的共产党官员，反对饥饿的政策，使许多地区在1932年接近结束。
这本书被认为是“收获长恨歌”由英国历史学家罗伯特征服期间的最全面的研究。在书中，他说，斯大林意识到，过度的粮食购单将导致饥荒，但坚持以破坏他所看到的农民反共产主义和乌克兰民族主义的双重威胁。
索罗卡说，她这是毫无疑问的情况下。
“他们想出的最简单的方式，打破乌克兰的脖子上，很少向他们收取费用，并采取控制乌克兰的人为的饥荒。”饥饿是在1933年肆虐，夺走至少700万人的生命。
在乌克兰的大饥荒这一系列的第2部分的重点，其中包括人吃人的事件目击者的帐户。
第2部分 - 幸存者回忆恐怖的1933年
今年5月份70周年，由苏联领导人约瑟夫斯大林在北高加索和其他地区，造成至少500万人的生命，在乌克兰和大约200万毁灭性的饥荒故意设计的高度。 RFE / RL的记者Askold Krushelnycky说他们的记忆是毁灭性的时间幸存者。
布拉格5月8日2003（RFE / RL） - 70年前，5月份看到一个可怕的人造饥荒，减少以百万计的人生活在一些世界上最肥沃的农田骨架的高潮，而粮食储备和其他食物腐烂吨，通常的视线内死于饥饿的家庭。
Oleksa Sonipul 10于1933年，住在乌克兰北部的一个村庄。她说，那年开始，饥荒是如此普遍，人们已经减少吃草，树皮，根，浆果，青蛙，鸟类，甚至蚯蚓。
绝望的饥饿感促使人们抛售他们的财产，他们能找到的任何食物。到了晚上，有一种可怕的寂静下跌逾村，所有的牲畜和鸡，长久以来被杀害的食品和疲惫的村民们早早地上床睡觉。
但是，共产党的征地旅，以满足高不可及的粮食配额继续寻找即使是那些村庄里，居民们已经死于饥饿。他们用金属棒探测地面和潜在的藏身之地，在那里他们可以隐藏涉嫌粮食。
对农民，行动毫不手软的大队委员，得益于苏联的仇恨运动，带走了最后屑的食物，饥饿的家庭知道他们谴责即使是很小的孩子死亡。任何农民抵制被枪杀。也发生了强奸和抢劫。
Sonipul描述官兵到达她家时，发生了什么事。
“在1933年，就在圣诞节前，旅来到我们的村子搜寻面包。他们采取了一切他们可以找到吃的。那一天，他们发现土豆，我们已经种植在我们的爷爷的花园，并正因为如此，他们采取了一切从祖父和所有的种子，播种秋天到了第二天，圣诞节的第一天，奶奶已经聚集，他们向我们走来，撕毁了我们的窗户和门，并采取一切集体农庄。“
由于食品匮乏的村庄，数千名绝望的人长途跋涉去乞求食物在城镇和城市。食品是在城市，虽然严格控制，通过配给券。但居民被禁止帮助饥饿的农民和医生，以帮助骨骼的村民，谁是死在街头。
Fedir Burtianski是一名年轻男子，在1933年时，他在乌克兰的顿巴斯矿区的火车寻找工作。他说，成千上万饥饿的农民，痛苦地薄，肚子肿肿的，两旁的轨道，乞讨食物。火车停在第聂伯罗彼得罗夫斯克市和Burtianski说，他被吓坏了，他所看到的。
“在第聂伯罗彼得罗夫斯克，我们离开了车厢。我下了马车，我看到很多人肿半死。有的趴在地上，只是晃动。他们可能会死在几分钟之内。的铁路NKVD秘密警察迅速赶到我们回到了车。“
继续在乌克兰收获谷物和土豆，斯大林的配额的需求驱动。但苏联的运输系统效率低下的意思从字面上腐烂万吨的粮食吃剩的 - 有时是在公开，并在那些饿死的观点。
Burtianski描述重复的场景中所有对乌克兰的城镇和城市。在农村地区，整个村庄被摧毁了。饥饿使许多人绝望和疯狂。很多人吃人的情况下被记录下来，与人们生活的其他饥饿的受害者的遗体，或在某些情况下诉诸谋杀。大多数农民家庭有五六个孩子，有些准妈妈会杀了他们的最弱的儿童，为了养活的人。
Burtianski说，在一个点上，他避免从供应商处购买肉类，因为他怀疑这是人肉。当听说过这件事情，他被迫参加试验的一名男子和他的两个儿子被怀疑谋杀了人们对食品的。 Burtianski说，在审讯过程中承认在令人心寒吃的肉，他自己的母亲，死于饥饿的儿子之一。
“他说，”谢谢你父亲斯大林剥夺了我们的食物，我们的母亲死于饥饿和我们吃了她，我们自己死去的母亲。后，我们的母亲，我们没有采取任何人的怜悯，我们不会幸免斯大林自己“。”
Mykhaylo瑙缅科，11岁，于1933年。拒绝加入集体农庄附近，他的父亲被处决。 Mykhaylo留下了他的母亲和兄弟姐妹，没有一个供应商面对的饥荒。他说，人被枪杀试图窃取谷物或马铃薯从当地集体农庄，周围是铁丝网和武装人员守卫。他说，人们甚至试图拿起几个松散的种子掉在了地上。
“的悲剧。人们变得浮肿，他们也因此丧命由成千上万的每一天。的集体农庄当局任命了六名男子收集和埋葬死者。从我们村的75家，5月24号的房子是空的，所有的居民已经死了“。
瑙缅科也见证了人吃人的实例。他说，他第一次发现，他的邻居们吃人的肉后，其中的一个，称为塔琪雅娜，尽管他刚刚帮助埋葬了她的父亲拒绝与他分享她的肉。
“我看到塔琪雅娜吃鸡肉，看到它有很多。我走近她，并问她一些，但她拒绝给我任何，因为它是人肉。”
数百名被处决或杀害其他村民的食人。苏联的记录显示，约1000人仍在服刑的同类相食在战俘营白海在1930年代末。
，奥莱娜Mukniak是在1933年10住在与她的母亲，姐姐，弟弟，在Poltavschyna地区的一个村庄。她的父亲离开了顿巴斯地区寻找食物。在村里，Mukniak说，通过马粪挑选的人找到粮食，炖皮靴，和烤的树叶和树皮。
“你做什么，如果有没有吃的？我们收集的白桦树叶和烤，然后吃了。我们还能做什么？”
她的妹妹在集体农场工作，并收到一小片面包，每天他们四。但它是不够的，让他们都还活着。
“我的哥哥死于饥饿。他又小又没有什么吃什么，我们的母亲给我们吃的时候有什么？我妹妹给我们带来了一小片面包每天一次，我们一饮而尽，等待，直到第二天，但你没有食物的时间。我的弟弟比我小，他死了，因为他需要吃什么可以给我们的母亲。“
许多人见了他们的死亡与安静的辞职，祈祷和安慰他们的饥饿儿童的童话故事。
并非所有部门都纹丝未动的悲剧。一些共产党积极分子和官员监督粮食征收感到非常震惊，他们所看到的和他们的上级提出抗议，或试图提供食物给饥饿的村民。对于他们的努力，他们被处决。
高级乌克兰共产党的分数，饥荒和斯大林的攻击对乌克兰文化的复兴是他们最后的幻灭的思想，他们曾的原因。他们中的许多人自杀，而不是面对酷刑和公开审判。
直到共产主义的秋天，大部分的饥荒中幸存下来的村民目击者讲述他们的故事持谨慎态度。即使是现在，很多人都不愿意谈论这期间，因为他们看到许多前苏联时代遗留下来仍然在权力的位置。
，似乎困扰着他们的记忆，是那些看着自己的亲人死了。特奥多拉索罗卡，谁失去了几乎每一个到“和饥荒dekulakization”的成员，她的家人说，这样的记忆永远无法抹去。她也没有忘记他们。
“我的妹妹死于饥饿在我的怀里，她乞讨一块面包，因为有一块面包，意味着生活在家里，她恳求我给她一小块面包，我也哭了，并告诉她说，我们没有任何她告诉我，我想她死。相信我，这是痛苦的，即使是现在，我小的时候，我自己然后，我哭了，但我的心没有撕成了碎片，因为我无法理解为什么这一切都发生，但到了今天，自从我长大后，我并没有在我的生活中时，我没有哭花了一天时间，我从来没有想到发生了什么事，我的家人进入了梦乡。“
这个系列的最后一部分看起来世界为什么仍然知道一些关于1933年灾难性的人为的饥荒，造成数百万人死亡。
第3部分 - 七十年后，世界在很大程度上仍然没有意识到悲剧
约瑟夫·斯大林政权的故意设计的，70年前的饥荒夺去了数百万人的生命，主要是在乌克兰，而且在其他一些地方的苏联。这是今天的苏维埃政权和恐怖的种族灭绝行为的最严重的暴行之一。即便如此，1933年的大饥荒是比较陌生的。 RFE / RL的记者Askold Krushelnycky检查和报告提请注意的暴行运动背后的原因。
布拉格，2003年5月8日（RFE / RL） - 估计有多少人死于1933年不同在斯大林的工程的饥荒。但他们惊人的规模 - 11万人之间。
但是，尽管可怕的人谁死了，这可怕的一章在苏联历史上人员伤亡同等规模的大屠杀是比较陌生的世界。其中一个主要的原因是，德国人最终打败了，数千名目击者告诉他们关于集中营和大屠杀的故事。的经验还抓获了难忘的照片，电影和书面记录，许多被抓获，并把那些对种族灭绝负责的试用。
Lyubomyr Luciuk是在乌克兰的加拿大公民自由协会研究部主任。他解释了为什么没有这样的机会，探讨在苏联饥荒。
“纳粹是如此完全彻底地打败并没有辩护者在第二次世界战争以外的其他一些坚果，苏联，相反，内爆，”Luciuk说。 “有没有军事上的征服。在意识形态上，也许，它被击败了，但在一定意义上，这个政权及其工作人员，管理员和官僚 - 昔日的 - 只是改变了他们的衬衫和，成为民族主义者和爱国者隔夜。存档记录仍然是不完全的。目前还没有纽伦堡审判，如果你喜欢的话，带来的诸多成千上万，如果不是数以十万计的人谁担任苏维埃政权司法“。
英国历史学家罗伯特占领期间，他1986年的饥荒研究专家，“悲伤逆流成收获，”带来的悲剧多的信息对西方观众的第一次。征服的饥荒和大屠杀的另一个对比是，而阿道夫希特勒写了下来，他打算做什么，斯大林并没有去纪录关于饥荒。
“[德国]第一，被抓，所以它结束了，他们有自己钻进的操作，他们说他们在做什么。斯大林从来没有说过他是想饿死人死亡。他只是拿走了他们的食物，他从来没有记录，这是所有做的主持下，以人为本的谈话，社会主义的谈话 - 否则完全拒绝。的操作是不同的，而在其他方面，他们是不同的，太。希特勒做了很多可怕的事情，但他不“T折磨他的朋友说假话。的操作是不同的。”
征服表示，虽然现在大多数历史学家接受，一场毁灭性的饥荒发生，一些持怀疑态度的仍然试图找到一个理由斯大林的行为。
“我不认为大家还接受[饥荒]。我已经看到了最近的采访中说，这是一次饥荒，我也读过一天的东西，说的人被逮捕和枪杀等在8月法令1932年，因为，毕竟，他们偷的，“征服说。 “我说，”是的，他们偷自己的东西已经从他们的状态。“他们没有想到的是，你看这仍然是写了，现在偶尔。“
但征服多的证据出现了自苏联解体使更多的访问苏联档案。他说，他自己也发现记录在案的证据表明斯大林知道，几十万农民试图进入俄罗斯在寻找食物。
“俄罗斯驱逐的乌克兰和库班农民的 - 只要他们试图进入俄罗斯，他们被送回 - 我只得到了约8个或10个私人的报告，通过了一项法令，斯大林，实际上是确认签署，这应该做了一份报告[Genrikh] Yagoda，秘密警察的头，说已经做了“几十万愚蠢的农民”。你看，秘密来源，确认后完成。“
征服是毫无疑问的饥荒主要目的是在乌克兰和斯大林讨厌不仅是全国的农民，而且甚至是所谓的高级共产党领导人，像尼古拉Skrypnyk，最终以自杀的人。
“斯大林试图打破乌克兰，如你所知，与领先的乌克兰布尔什维克Skrypnyk的自杀，把他们时，他们试图捍卫只是普通的字母乌克兰的压力下。这里斯大林]尝试去改变它，这样的事情，我想他也证明了他永远信赖的乌克兰共产党在1937年，即使是那些支持他的人被完全清除。整个乌克兰中央委员会。他这个了不起的每个人的不信任，但特别是乌克兰。 “
Luciuk为什么大饥荒的消息从来没有达到西方的乌克兰加拿大公民自由协会有不同的理论。他指责一些总部设在莫斯科的西方记者的时候，谁知道强迫饥饿，而是选择了不写或故意遮盖。
盖的是“纽约时报”记者沃尔特·Duranty发挥的记者，他说，最有影响力的角色。的药物成瘾者与阴凉的声誉，，Duranty也是一个狂热的风扇斯大林的，他形容为“世界上活着的最伟大的政治家。”他被授予了美国第一个面试的秘密政权与苏联领导人和特权信息。
Duranty一名英国外交官私下的时候，他认为消灭了10万人的饥荒。但是，当其他记者曾前往乌克兰开始写的可怕的饥荒肆虐有，Duranty品牌的信息作为反苏的谎言。征服认为，Duranty被苏联秘密警察勒索他的性活动，据报道，双性恋和恋尸癖。
前一年饥荒，在1932年，，Duranty赢得了普利策奖，美国最令人垂涎的新闻奖，对苏联经济进行了一系列的文章。 Luciuk说的乌克兰侨民，以及乌克兰政界人士和学者，在本月初推出了一项活动，有Duranty的获奖追授撤销。他说，他希望这项运动，让更多的人知道在世界的饥荒。
“因此，这是一个可怕的种族灭绝的灾难降临乌克兰，乌克兰人，和纪念今年70周年 - 这样做是试图普利策奖委员会做正确的事，并吊销Duranty奖追授 - 为什么我们从事这项运动。“
希德，Gissler，普利策委员会的一位发言人说，董事会已考虑撤回Duranty的奖金在以往的场合，但已决定不这样做，因为它没有被授予相关的饥荒。他说，他同情与乌克兰的活动，董事会将重新考虑的问题再次在今年晚些时候。
“我理解他们的关注，但正如我所说，该奖项去为一个离散集的故事和它的不是设计，说任何一个人，一个人的工作主体，或他们的一生 - 它是不是终身成就奖。 “
Duranty在1957年去世的贫困醉。 Luciuk说，关于饥荒的详细信息时，终于公开化，Duranty被记入与铸造著名无情的短语，“你不能让不打破鸡蛋的煎蛋卷。”
Luciuk说，他希望，同时，乌克兰将做更多的教育自己的关于饥荒的人口。自获得独立以来，连续乌克兰政府已做了一点宣传鼓动争议的国家依然强大的共产党，继续否认蓄意组织的饥荒的恐惧情节。此外，许多参加了处决，驱逐出境，并没收食品仍然活着，接收状态养老金。
在2月，乌克兰议会进行了一次特别听证会的饥荒。对人道主义问题的副总理，德米特罗Tabachnuk，说是蓄意的恐怖行为，夺去了10万人的饥荒。他说，政府正计划建立一个全国性的饥荒纪念大楼。
版权所有?2003。 RFE / RL，公司
再版的许可，乌克兰档案和新闻
自由欧洲电台和自由电台，1201康涅狄格大道，NW
华盛顿DC 20036。
http://www.rferl.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.rferl.org/
乌克兰文件和新闻
http://www.uanews.tv/archives/rferl/ukraine/ua69.htm
?2003www.uanews.tv
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
[/font]
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]=====================================[/font]
Ukraine Famine[/font]
Part 1: Eliminating An 'Enemy' Class Through Collectivization
Part 2: Survivors Recall The Horrors Of 1933
Part 3: Seventy Years Later World Still Largely Unaware Of Tragedy
By Askold Krushelnycky
Part 1 - Eliminating An 'Enemy' Class Through Collectivization
Ukrainians are commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Stalin regime's forced farm-collectivization program -- a process that culminated in a man-made famine in one of the world's most fertile regions. An estimated 14 million people died of starvation, mostly in Ukraine but also in the North Caucasus, Kazakhstan and Russia. In a three-part series, RFE/RL correspondent Askold Krushelnycky reports on the motivation behind Josef Stalin's notorious plan, the memories of those who survived the famine, and why even today so little is known about the tragedy.
Prague, 8 May 2003 (RFE/RL) -- This year marks the 70th anniversary of a collectivization program masterminded by former Soviet leader Josef Stalin that claimed the lives of millions of people, mostly Ukrainian peasant farmers.
An artificial famine of devastating proportions was the culmination of a savage piece of human engineering designed to eliminate an economic class that the Communists viewed as their fierce opponents. It was also intended to break the will of Ukrainians -- Communists and non-Communists alike -- who clung to their national identity.
The tsarist-era owners of sweeping plots of land had already been killed or driven out by the 1917 Communist revolution. But the Soviet leadership also despised the millions of peasant farmers who took their place, maintaining small farms and growing mostly grain. To the Communists, such farmers were a threatening example of self-reliance and capitalism.
Stalin, in particular, saw Ukrainian peasants as forming the front line of the Ukrainian nationalist movement he so intensely disliked. He resented the compromises Moscow had been forced to make with Ukrainian Communists -- compromises that gave them a degree of autonomy and that saw a revival of Ukrainian culture and language.
The Soviets divided the peasants into different categories. The primary class enemy was the kulak, relatively well-off farmers who could afford to own several heads of livestock and occasionally hire help with plowing or harvesting. To eliminate the kulaks, the Communists hoped to gain the support from poorer peasant farmers by drumming up class resentment.
In late 1929, Stalin launched a "dekulakization" program centered on Ukraine but encompassing the North Caucuses -- which had high proportions of ethnic Ukrainians among peoples like the Kuban Cossacks -- and Kazakhstan.
A venomous propaganda war fomented hatred against kulaks and their families, portraying them as a threat equal to an invading foreign army. Communists and brigades of so-called "activists" backed by Soviet secret police brutally stripped the kulaks of their homes and possessions, shooting those who resisted and deporting millions to Siberia and the Far North.
In 1931, Teodora Soroka was an 11-year-old girl in what was branded as a kulak family in a village in Ukraine's Poltavschyna region.
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"My grandfather hired laborers for harvesting and plowing when necessary and, in the fall, when they harvested wheat, he hired people," she says. "And because of that, the Soviet authorities persecuted him terribly. Not just him, but the entire family because they called him an exploiter. They destroyed my family in a completely inhumane way."[/font]
Around 7.5 million people, including one million in Kazakhstan, are estimated to have died during the period of "dekulakization." Many kulaks resorted to slaughtering their livestock and burning down their homes rather than seeing them confiscated. Thousands were shot for opposing the brigades sent to strip them of their property. Many died during the weeks of transport in unheated trains to labor camps, with little food to sustain them. The largest percentage perished in the first years after their deportation.
Soroka's grandfather and father were among those deported. She never saw them again. She, together with her mother, sister, aunt, and seven cousins, remained in Poltavschyna, not knowing that the still-greater horror of famine awaited them. Nearly all of her family died of starvation in 1933.
Together with "dekulakization," a process of collectivization was under way. The Communists imposed crippling grain demands on peasant farmers to make it unprofitable to sustain their small holdings and pressure them into joining collective farms.
Moscow sent 25,000 trusted Communists from Russia to organize collective and state farms. The secret police and often the army were used to terrorize peasants into joining. The Communists were dismayed that even after the vicious propaganda campaign most peasants sympathized more with kulaks than with the Communist Party.
Many of these poorer peasants were ultimately reclassified as kulaks themselves. Most joined the collective farms reluctantly. Many were executed for trying to sell off or slaughter their livestock rather than donating them to the collective farms.
The authorities worked vigorously to extract the unrealistically high grain yields demanded by Moscow, leaving pitifully little with which the farmers could feed themselves and their families.
The collective farms were notoriously inefficient. Even so -- and against the pleas of even senior Ukrainian Communist leaders -- Stalin in 1932 increased grain quotas in Ukraine, the North Caucasus, and Russia's Volga region. The demand made famine inevitable.
Communist loyalists during the Soviet era -- and some even today -- have blamed the famine on a poor harvest in 1932. But even Soviet records show the year's harvest as satisfactory. Soroka remembers the peasants were pleased.
"The collectivization of wheat had begun in 1932. In 1932 there was a big harvest. People said the grain had grown so high that the heads of people walking in the fields couldn't be seen. The stalks were so heavy with grain that they snapped. Nobody foresaw such a good harvest in 1932. When the Soviet authorities said [the famine] was the fault of a poor harvest, they were lying," she says.
As hunger begun to take a firmer grip on the peasant population, the communist authorities used force and terror to fulfill the grain quotas which left peasants and collective farms with little or nothing to sustain themselves with. Thousands of peasants who tried to hide grain or other food to feed their families were executed, as were many local Communist officials who objected to a policy that brought starvation to many areas as 1932 approached its end.
The book "Harvest of Sorrow" by British historian Robert Conquest is considered the most comprehensive study of the period. In it, he says Stalin was aware that the excessive grain requisitions would lead to famine, but persisted in order to destroy what he saw as the double threat of peasant anti-Communism and Ukrainian nationalism.
Soroka says she has no doubt this was the case.
"They thought up the idea of an artificial famine as the easiest way to break Ukraine's neck and to take control of Ukraine at little cost to themselves." Starvation was rampant in 1933, claiming at least seven million lives.
Part two of this series on Ukraine's famine focuses on eyewitness accounts of the events, including instances of cannibalism.
Part 2 - Survivors Recall The Horrors Of 1933[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/font]The month of May this year marks the 70th anniversary of the height of a devastating famine deliberately engineered by Soviet leader Josef Stalin that claimed at least five million lives in Ukraine and around two million in the North Caucasus and elsewhere. RFE/RL correspondent Askold Krushelnycky speaks to survivors about their memories of that devastating time.
Prague, 8 May 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Seventy years ago, the month of May saw the climax of a horrific artificial famine that reduced millions of people to living skeletons in some of the world's most fertile farm land, while stocks of grain and other foods rotted by the ton, often within the sight of families dying from starvation.
Oleksa Sonipul was 10 in 1933 and lived in a village in northern Ukraine. She said by the beginning of that year, famine was so widespread people had been reduced to eating grass, tree bark, roots, berries, frogs, birds, and even earthworms.
Desperate hunger drove people to sell off all of their possessions for any food they could find. At night, an eerie silence fell over the village, where all the livestock and chickens had long since been killed for food and exhausted villagers went to bed early.
But Communist requisition brigades looking to fulfill the impossibly high grain quotas continued to search even those villages where inhabitants were already dying from starvation. They used metal poles to probe the ground and potential hiding places where they suspected grain could be hidden.
Some of the brigade members, fueled by Soviet hate campaigns against the peasants, acted without mercy, taking away the last crumbs of food from starving families knowing they were condemning even small children to death. Any peasant who resisted was shot. Rape and robbery also took place.
Sonipul described what happened when a brigade arrived at her home.
"In 1933, just before Christmas, brigades came to our village to search for bread. They took everything they could find to eat. That day they found potatoes that we had planted in our grandfather's garden, and because of that they took everything from grandfather and all the seeds that grandmother had gathered for sowing the following autumn. And the next day, the first day of Christmas, they came to us, tore out our windows and doors and took everything to the collective farm."
As food ran out in the villages, thousands of desperate people trekked to beg for food in towns and cities. Food was available in cities, although strictly controlled through ration coupons. But residents were forbidden to help the starving peasants and doctors were not allowed to aid the skeletal villagers, who were left to die on the streets.
Fedir Burtianski was a young man in 1933 when he set out by train to Ukraine's Donbas mining area in search of work. He says thousands of starving peasants, painfully thin with swollen bellies, lined the rail track begging for food. The train stopped in the city of Dnipropetrovsk and Burtianski says he was horrified by what he saw there.
"At Dnipropetrovsk we got out of the carriages. I got off the wagon and I saw very many people swollen and half-dead. And some who were lying on the ground and just shaking. Probably they were going to die within a few minutes. Then the railway NKVD [secret police] quickly herded us back into the wagons."
Grain and potatoes continued to be harvested in Ukraine, driven by the demand of Stalin's quotas. But the inefficiency of the Soviet transportation system meant that tons of food literally rotted uneaten -- sometimes in the open and within the view of those dying of starvation.
The scene Burtianski described was repeated in towns and cities all over Ukraine. In the countryside, entire villages were being wiped out. The hunger drove many people to desperation and madness. Many instances of cannibalism were recorded, with people living off the remains of other starvation victims or in some instances resorting to murder. Most peasant families had five or six children, and some mothers killed their weakest children in order to feed the others.
Burtianski said at one point, he avoided buying meat from a vendor because he suspected it was human flesh. When the authorities heard about the incident, he was forced to attend the trial of a man and his two sons who were suspected of murdering people for food. Burtianski says during the trial one of the sons admitted in chilling terms to eating the flesh of his own mother, who had died of starvation.
"He said, 'Thank you to Father Stalin for depriving us of food. Our mother died of hunger and we ate her, our own dead mother. And after our mother we did not take pity on anyone. We would not have spared Stalin himself.'"
Mykhaylo Naumenko was 11 years old in 1933. His father was executed for refusing to join a nearby collective farm. Mykhaylo was left with his mother and siblings to face the famine without a provider. He said people were shot for trying to steal grain or potatoes from the local collective farm, which was surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed men. He said people were executed even for trying to pick up a few loose seeds dropped on the ground.
"A tragedy developed. People became swollen, they died by the tens each day. The collective farm authorities appointed six men to collect and bury the dead. From our village of 75 homes, by May 24 houses were empty where all the inhabitants had died."
Naumenko also witnessed instances of cannibalism. He said he first discovered that his neighbors were eating human flesh after one of them, called Tetyana, refused to share her meat with him despite the fact he had just helped bury her father.
"I saw Tetyana eating chicken meat and saw there was a lot of it. I approached her and asked her for some, but she refused to give me any. Because it was human flesh."
Hundreds were executed or killed by other villagers for cannibalism. Soviet records show that around 1,000 people were still serving sentences for cannibalism in prison camps on the White Sea at the end of the 1930s.
Olena Mukniak was 10 in 1933 and lived in a village in the Poltavschyna region with her mother, older sister, and younger brother. Her father had left for the Donbas area in search of food. In the village, Mukniak said people picked through horse manure to find grain, stewed leather boots, and toasted leaves and tree bark.
"What do you do if there's nothing to eat? We collected birch leaves and toasted them and ate them. What else could we do?"
Her sister worked at the collective farm and received a small piece of bread every day for all four of them. But it was not enough to keep them all alive.
"My brother died from starvation. He was small and there was nothing to eat. What could our mother give us to eat when there was nothing? My sister brought us a little piece of bread once a day and we gulped it down and waited until the next day. But you wanted food all the time. My brother was younger than I and he died because he needed to eat. And our mother could give nothing."
Many people met their deaths with quiet resignation, praying and comforting their starving children with fairy tales.
Not all authorities were untouched by the tragedy. Some of the Communist activists and officials supervising the grain expropriation were horrified at what they saw and protested to their superiors or tried to provide food for the starving villagers. For their efforts, they were executed.
For scores of senior Ukrainian Communists, the famine and Stalin's attack on the Ukrainian cultural revival were cause for their final disillusionment with the ideology they had served. Many of them committed suicide rather than face torture and show trials.
Until the fall of communism, most of the villager eyewitnesses who survived the famine were wary of telling their stories. Even now, many are reluctant to talk about that period because they see many Soviet-era holdovers still in positions of power.
The memories that seem to haunt them most are those of watching their loved ones die. Teodora Soroka, who lost nearly every member of her family to "dekulakization" and famine, says such memories can never be erased. Nor does she want to forget them.
"My little sister died of hunger in my arms. She was begging for a piece of bread, because to have a piece of bread in the house meant life. She pleaded for me to give her a bit of bread. I was crying and told her that we didn't have any. She told me that I wanted her to die. Believe me, it's painful even now. I was little myself then. I cried, but my heart was not torn to shreds because I couldn't understand why this was all happening. But today, and ever since I became an adult, I haven't spent a day in my life when I haven't cried. I have never gone to sleep without thinking about what happened to my family."
The last part of this series looks at why the world still knows so little about the calamitous man-made famine of 1933 that killed millions of people.
Part 3 - Seventy Years Later, World Still Largely Unaware Of Tragedy[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif][/font]A famine deliberately engineered by the regime of Josef Stalin 70 years ago claimed millions of lives, mostly in Ukraine but also in some other parts of the Soviet Union. It is today considered one of the worst atrocities of the Soviet regime and a terrifying act of genocide. Even so, the famine of 1933 is relatively unknown. RFE/RL correspondent Askold Krushelnycky examines the reasons behind this and reports on a campaign to draw attention to the atrocity.
Prague, 8 May 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Estimates of how many people died in Stalin's engineered famine of 1933 vary. But they are staggering in their scale -- between seven and 11 million people.
But despite the horrific number of people who died, the world is relatively unfamiliar with this grisly chapter in Soviet history which claimed lives on the same scale as the holocaust. One of the main reasons is that the Germans were eventually defeated, and thousands of eyewitnesses told their stories about concentration camps and massacres. The experience was also captured unforgettably in photographs, film, and written accounts, and many of those responsible for the genocide were captured and put on trial.
Lyubomyr Luciuk is the director of research at the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association. He explained why there was no such opportunity to investigate the famine in the Soviet Union.
"The Nazis were so completely and utterly defeated and had no apologists other than a few nuts after the second world war. The Soviet Union, in contrast, imploded," Luciuk said. "There was no military conquest. Ideologically, perhaps, it was defeated. But in a sense, the regime of yesteryear -- many of its functionaries, administrators, and bureaucrats -- simply changed their shirts and became nationalists or patriots overnight. The archival record is still not entirely available. There has been no Nuremberg trial, if you like, to bring the many thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people who served the Soviet regime to justice."
British historian Robert Conquest is an expert on the period and his 1986 study of the famine, "Harvest of Sorrow," brought much information about the tragedy to Western audiences for the first time. Conquest said another contrast between the famine and the holocaust is that while Adolf Hitler had written down much of what he intended to do, Stalin did not go on record about the famine.
"In the first place, [the Germans] were caught, so it ended and they had themselves got into an operation where they said what they were doing. Stalin never said he was trying to starve anyone to death. He just took away their food. He never went on record. It was all done under the auspices of humanist talk, socialist talk -- or else denied altogether. The operations were different. And in other ways they were different, too. Hitler did many horrible things but he didn't torture his friends to tell lies. The operation was a different one."
Conquest said that while most historians now accept that a devastating famine took place, some skeptics remain that try to find a justification for Stalin's behavior.
"I don't think everybody still accepts [the famine]. I've seen recent interviews saying it was a famine and also I've read the other day something saying that people were arrested and shot and so forth under the August decree in 1932 because, after all, they were stealing," Conquest said. "I said, 'Yes, they were stealing their own stuff which had been taken from them by the state.' They hadn't thought of that. You see this is still being written now occasionally."
But Conquest said more evidence has emerged since the disintegration of the USSR allowed greater access to Soviet archives. He says he himself has uncovered documented evidence that shows Stalin knew that hundreds of thousands of peasants were trying to enter Russia in search of food.
"The expulsion of Ukrainian and Kuban peasants from Russia -- as soon as they tried getting into Russia they were sent back -- which I only got from about eight or 10 private reports, that is actually confirmed by a decree Stalin signed that this should be done and a report was put in by [Genrikh] Yagoda, head of the secret police, saying it has been done to 'several hundred thousand stupid peasants.' See, that confirmation within secret sources was complete."
Conquest is in no doubt that the famine was primarily aimed at Ukrainians and that Stalin hated not only the country peasants but even senior Communist leaders, like Mykola Skrypnyk, who eventually killed himself.
"[Stalin] was trying to break the Ukrainians, as you know, with the leading Ukrainian Bolshevik Skrypnyk committing suicide under the pressures that were put on them when they tried to defend just the ordinary alphabet of the Ukrainians. Here [Stalin] was trying to alter it, things like that. I think he also proved he never trusted Ukrainian Communists. The whole Ukrainian Central Committee was totally purged in 1937, even the ones who supported him. He had this terrific distrust of everybody, but particularly of Ukraine."
Luciuk of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association has a different theory for why news of the famine never reached the West. He blamed a number of Western journalists based in Moscow at the time who knew of the forced starvation but chose not to write about it or deliberately covered it up.
The journalist he says played the most influential role in the cover-up was "The New York Times" correspondent Walter Duranty. A drug addict with a shady reputation, Duranty was also an avid fan of Stalin's, whom he described as "the world's greatest living statesman." He was granted the first American interview with the Soviet leader and received privileged information from the secretive regime.
Duranty confided to a British diplomat at the time that he thought 10 million people had perished in the famine. But when other journalists who had traveled to Ukraine began writing about the horrific famine raging there, Duranty branded their information as anti-Soviet lies. Conquest believes that Duranty was being blackmailed by the Soviet secret police over his sexual activities, which reportedly included bisexuality and necrophilia.
The year before the famine, in 1932, Duranty won the Pulitzer Prize, America's most coveted journalism award, for a series of articles on the Soviet economy. Luciuk says members of the Ukrainian diaspora, as well as Ukrainian politicians and academics, earlier this month launched a campaign to have Duranty's award posthumously revoked. He said he hopes the campaign will make more people in the world aware of the famine.
"So this was a horrific genocidal catastrophe that befell Ukraine, the people of Ukraine, and commemorating it this year on the 70th anniversary -- and doing so by trying to have the Pulitzer Prize committee do the right thing and revoke Duranty's prize posthumously -- is why we've engaged in this campaign."
A spokesman for the Pulitzer board, Sid Gissler, said the board has considered withdrawing Duranty's prize on previous occasions but had decided against doing so because it had not been awarded for articles related to the famine. He said he sympathized with the Ukrainian campaign, and added the board would reconsider the question again later this year.
"I understand their concern, but as I said, the award goes for a discrete set of stories and it's not designed to say anything about a person, the body of a person's work, or their lifetime -- it's not a lifetime achievement award."
Duranty died in 1957 an impoverished drunk. Luciuk said that when details about the famine finally came into the open, Duranty was credited with coining the famously callous phrase, "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs."
Luciuk said he hopes Ukraine, meanwhile, will do more to educate its own population about the famine. Since gaining independence, successive Ukrainian governments have done little to publicize the episode for fear of instigating a controversy with the country's still-powerful Communist Party, which continues to deny the famine was deliberately organized. Moreover, many of those who took part in the executions, deportations, and confiscation of food are still alive and receiving state pensions.
In February, the Ukrainian parliament conducted a special hearing about the famine. The deputy prime minister for humanitarian issues, Dmytro Tabachnuk, said the famine was a deliberate terrorist act that claimed the lives of up to 10 million people. He said the government is planning to build a National Famine Memorial Complex.
Copyright ? 2003. RFE/RL, Inc.
Republished by Ukrainian Archives & News with the permission of
Radio Free Europe & Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W.
Washington DC 20036.
http://www.rferl.org/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.rferl.org/
Ukrainian Archives & News
http://www.uanews.tv/archives/rferl/ukraine/ua69.htm" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.uanews.tv/archives/rferl/ukraine/ua69.htm