The Hoax About the Ukrainian Famine of the 1930s

 Challenge-Desafio,

The Lie that Stalin Was Worse than Hitler 

The Hoax About the Ukrainian Famine of the 1930s: Part 4 

Anti-Communists have always attacked communism using lies and half-truths. The following article is a continuation of our exposé of the lies around the Ukrainian famine during the first half of the 1930s. 

Starvation did occur on some scale in the Soviet Union during collectivization. When combined with premature deaths from disease which would not have occurred without malnutrition, casualties in the USSR as a whole may well have reached one to two million. 

This is far lower than the figures bandied about by the anti- Communist author Robert Conquest and the Ukrainian nationalists. Conquest "estimates" 14.5 million deaths from collectivization in the USSR as a whole, of which 5 million are starvation deaths in the Ukraine alone. Mace gives the figure of "almost 7.5 million" for Ukrainians alone, and an "irreducible minimum of over 5.5 million Ukrainians;" he really believes it was much higher than that. The Ukrainian nationalist film Harvest of Despair gives a figure of 7 million in the Ukraine, 10 million in all. 1.

Earlier articles in this series have shown that these figures are grossly exaggerated. But even a half or a quarter of the figure of 2 million, supported by recent studies, is a serious matter. Why do the film, Conquest, and others insist on tremendous figures? Why isn't the truth "bad enough" for them? 

And why the other lies: about Stalin's supposed "personal role;" the "deliberate starvation of the Ukraine," etc.? Why the use of false film footage and highly dubious photographs long proven to have been fakes? 

The explanation is to be found in the motives of the "researchers." They have particular political interests and ideas to push. Responsible scholarship does not support these ideas. Therefore, they cannot accept the results of the best bourgeois research. Neither the nationalists nor Conquest are in the least interested in the truth about what happened in the USSR. Let's take a look at the motives behind these lies. 

Self-Promotion 

The Ukrainian nationalist portray themselves as "champions" of the Ukraine. They hope to attract more support from the US ruling class as war between Soviet and US bosses comes nearer. Like all forms of nationalism, they serve the interests of the intellectual and other elites, who wold become the new ruling class if the Ukraine ever achieved "self-determination." [Note, 1996: this is exactly what has happened, and Ukrainian nationalists are fabricating anti-Communist lies harder than ever in an attempt to build Ukrainian nationalism to justify exploiting Ukrainian workers]. 

But Ukrainian workers and peasants would be no better off than they are now if their ruling class were Ukrainian. This point cannot be overstressed. Nationalism is a bourgeois, capitalist ideology. It can never serve the interests of the working class, because it urges the workers to "unite" behind those who exploit them -- the bosses of "their own" ethnic, linguistic, etc. group. The misery of the workers and peasants of India, South America, Africa, etc., now ruled by "their own" bosses instead of colonialists, proves this point. Ukrainian workers are now [1987 - ed.] exploited by Russian bosses; they'd be no better off under Ukrainian ones. But of course the nationalists have to try to show the opposite. Consequently, they must lie. 

The Ukrainian nationalists are encouraged by the growth and success of fascist Cuban exiles, racist Zionists, and especially the reactionary Polish "Solidarity" movement in winning support from US bosses. They hope to do the same. 

They also hope to use the famine to gain sympathy among US workers, where millions are aware of the Nazi murder of millions of Jews. They know that almost any lie can be spread without fear of serious contradiction, as long as it serves US bosses' anti- Communist purposes. 

Pushing the issue of the famine also helps unite many Ukrainian emigrants behind them who otherwise would not support them. As we have seen, the Ukrainian nationalists never got much support from the Ukrainian masses. 

To Cover Up Their Nazi Past 

Making noise about the famine also helps to cover up the nationalists' own dirty past. Ukrainian nationalists' support for Hitler has long held them back. The recent trial and deportation of John "Ivan the Terrible" Demyanyuk to Israel for participating in atrocities as a Ukrainian nationalist concentration guard for the Nazis was a serious public relations blow to the nationalist, whose staunch efforts to defend this fascist exposed them. (Last week PBS shows a BBC documentary on how the US government used Nazi war criminals to develop the US space program -- next issue of Challenge-Desafio will run an article about this). 

The US Department of Justice's "Office of Special Investigations" (OSI) is the body charged with pursuing and prosecuting Nazi war criminals in the US. Naturally, they investigate few and prosecute fewer, since most of these Nazis have worked for the CIA. Still, of only 45 cases the OSI has brought against former Nazis, about one-fourth have been against Ukrainians, including several members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN). 2. 

Ukrainian Fascists Useful to US Rulers 

Before and during WWII, the Ukrainian nationalists made themselves useful to the German Nazis. Since the Nazis' defeat, they've served the US ruling class, mainly in the CIA and Radio Liberty (which broadcasts US propaganda to the USSR). 

Ukrainians are the largest linguistic minority in the Soviet Union. Separatist feeling among minority groups in the USSR is one of the thin reeds Western bosses lean on to weaken the Soviets. 

As Frank Wisner, the CIA spymaster who helped to smuggle many Nazis and Nazi collaborators into the US after WWII, wrote in a secret 1951 memo: 

"Operating independently, the SB [special torture squad of the Nazi-sponsored Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists/Bandera] has upon occasion been more of a headache to American intelligence than a boon. Nevertheless in war-time a highly nationalistic Ukrainian political group with its own security service could conceivably be a great asset ... Luckily the attempt [by some Allied authorities pursuing war criminals] to locate these anti-Soviet Ukrainians was sabotaged by a few far- sighted Americans who warned the persons concerned to go into hiding. 3. 

Mykola Lebid, whose exploits we have already seen [in Part 3 of this series - ed.], was the head of the terrorist SB. 4. 

But in order to win Ukrainian-Americans and others to anti- communism, the nationalists have to lie. They must cover up their role in Nazi collaboration; lie about the history of the Ukraine, to exaggerate its independence from Russia; and invent stories about the "horrors" of Soviet control. The film, and Conquest's book, do all of these. 

Millions of Americans remember and hate Nazism. Most have not swallowed the notion that Stalin was "as bad as Hitler." Americans are still very suspicious of anyone who supported the murderous Nazis for any reason. The Ukrainian nationalists believe that their collaboration with the Nazis will seem more "understandable" only if millions of Ukrainians were deliberately and selectively starved to death by Communist monsters than if it is seen in its true light, as the logical result of elitism, anti-communism, and extreme nationalism. 

The "Stalin Equals Hitler" Lie and What The Bosses Gain By It 

Like his other major work, The Great Terror, Conquest's book is an attempt to make the very idea of building a communist society appear illegitimate. In the earlier book Conquest makes the claim that the "purges" of the '30s resulted in the deaths of as many people or more than Hitler's holocaust -- over 20 million. In Harvest of Sorrow, Conquest claims more died of famine and collectivization in the Soviet Union alone than as a result of WWI in all countries put together. 

The purpose of these fairy tales is to spread the idea that "anything is better than communism." Whatever the horrors of capitalism -- so this tale runs -- the horrors of communism in a single country has exceeded them! Therefore, any attempt to build a classless society is inherently evil, no matter how good it sounds. Any attempt at building a "utopia" will lead inevitably to mass murder -- or so the capitalists would have us believe. 

Many pro-capitalist groups push the same lie. For example, the Credo of a recently-formed conservative faculty group, "Campus Coalition for Democracy" [1996 note: now called the "National Association of Scholars" - ed.] states that: 

"...utopian, perfectionist and dogmatic modes of political and social thought inevitably carry within them the seeds of elitism, contempt for the ordinary individual and the embrace of violence as a favored political instrument. Anti-Communism is an eminently respectable intellectual posture... As Susan Sontag recently put it, 'Communism ... is a variant, the most successful variant, of fascism'." 5. 

These days the idea that Stalin was worse than Hitler is actively promoted to justify fascist anti-communism. According to Reader's Digest editor Eugene Methvin, "Hitler's plus-or- minus 11 million are no match for Stalin's killings; one is tempted to say that Hitler was not even in Stalin's league." 6. 

A recent article in the New York Times Magazine on the rise of neo-fascism in Europe was critical of recent right-wing apologists for German fascism. The only point on which the Times writer agreed with an apologist for Nazism was that "Stalin arguably killed more people than did Hitler." The German rightist, Ernst Nolte, has recently blamed all of Nazism on the USSR, and has received publicity and support from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, one of West Germany's major daily newspapers whose editor, Joachim Fest wrote an apologetic biography of Hitler 15 years ago. 7. All these capitalist calumnies rely heavily on phony Conquest-type analysis and phenomenal casualties for them to carry any weight whatsoever. The great value these lies have for the capitalists explains why there is little or no refutation of them in the media. The benefits of the anti-Stalin lies may be summarized: 

They push the lie that the attempt to build communism was a fraud from the beginning; that any attempt to build a classless society is inherently evil and will lead to mass murder. They hope to convince workers that any attempt to overthrow capitalism, or even question it in a fundamental way, is automatically illegitimate. 

Capitalists must often resort to fascism, usually to control the working class. Fascism is hard to justify to workers, while millions remember that it was the then-socialist Soviet Union, under Stalin, which led the way in defeating the German Nazis and Italian fascists during WWII. 

The purveyors of the "Ukrainian famine" myth, like anti- communists in general, wish to convince millions that anything -- including fascism -- is better than communism. This way of thinking gives capitalists the green light to carry out any horror, any atrocity, in the name of a "lesser of two evils." 

Once US capitalism hid behind the fig-leaf of building democracy and freedom. Increasingly, they no longer pretend even this, and openly defend fascist terror instead. So, Reagan not only supports the contra terrorists in Nicaragua; he likens them to George Washington. 

The rehabilitation of Ukrainian nationalists is the rehabilitation of fascism itself. This is necessary given the open support by the US of the fascist contras and Salvadoran government in Central America, the South African fascists, the "freedom-fighters" -- read fascist, heroin- smuggling, sexist, anti-Communist guerillas -- in Afghanistan, and many others. 

Capitalists Use Hitler's "Big Lie" Technique 

Capitalists know the truth of Hitler's statement in his autobiography, Mein Kampf, that a lie -- but especially an outrageous lie -- will be believed by many and partly believed by most if repeated loudly and often enough: 

"The size of a lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, because the vast majority of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad... They would never credit others with the possibility of such great impudence as the complete reversal of facts ... Something therefore always remains and sticks from the most impudent lie, a fact which all bodies and individuals concerned in the art of lying in this world know only too well, and therefore they stop at nothing to achieve this end." 

Even if they don't swallow the whole 14.5 million claimed by Conquest, many people will think: "Where there's smoke, there's fire; even if the truth is only half or a quarter as much, communism is unthinkable." So, the bigger the lie, the better for the liar! Finally, the Ukrainian famine story is a weapon in the Cold War against the USSR bosses today. Time and again film and book repeat that today's Soviet leaders have never "acknowledged," much less apologized for, the famine. None of these purposes would be served by an attempt to discover the truth about the collectivization movement. To quote Hitler again: 

"Propaganda must not serve the truth, especially not insofar as it might bring out something favorable for the opponent." 

The interests of Conquest and the Ukrainian nationalists, the capitalist bosses -- none of these would be served by an attempt to understand the real reasons for the failure of communism in the Soviet Union. This is the key to the weakness of the research which they carry out with such extensive resources, at such great cost.

What Really Happened in the Ukrainian Countryside?

Notes 

1. Conquest, Harvest of Sorrow, p. 306; Mace, in Problems of Communism, May-June 1984, p. 39; Mace, Problems of Communism, March-April 1985, p. 136; transcript of film, p. 1. 

2. Conason, "To Catch a Nazi," Village Voice, Feb. 11, 1986, p. 18. 

3. Quoted in John Loftus, The Belarus Secret (New York: Knopf, 1982), pp. 102-3

4. On Lebid, see Armstrong, Ukrainian Nationalism, 2nd edition (New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1963), p. 81-83; Conason; Armstrong, letter to Village Voice, March 25, 1986, p. 6. 

5. Credo, "Campus Coalition for Democracy", New York, 1982. 

6. Eugene Methvin, "Hitler and Stalin: 20th Century Superkillers," National Review, May 31, 1985, p. 22. 

7. Judith Miller, "Erasing the Past: Europe's Amnesia About the Holocaust," New York Times Magazine, November 16, 1986, p. 33.