the FAMINE of 1932-33 "DELIBERATE"? SNYDER'S "SEVEN POINTS" of PROOF
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Snyder must have been aware that no one else - none of the bevy of Ukrainian nationalist or Russian anticommunist scholars who claim that Stalin intended to kill Ukrainian peasants by intentionally starving them to death - has proven this claim. Snyder also knows that the Western experts on this question, Tauger and Davies-Wheatcroft, as well as many other historians of the Soviet Union including bitterly anticommunist writers like Nicholas Werth, reject the notion of a "deliberate famine."
Yet Snyder must claim the deaths were the result of "premeditated murder" because, without the five million famine deaths, the whole thesis of his book, that "the Nazi and Soviet regimes murdered some fourteen million people," falls to the ground, and with it goes the "Stalin-Hitler" comparison so treasured by ideological anticommunists.
Our analysis of Snyder's first chapter begins with a detailed study of each of what Snyder calls the "seven crucial policies." Snyder does not outline these seven points until the last third of his chapter. But the whole chapter, and indeed Snyder's whole book, depends upon these seven points. They are Snyder's "proof" that the several million Soviet citizens who died as a result of the famine of 1932-33 were "murdered" by Stalin and the Soviet leadership. It will be shown that in every case Snyder falsifies his claims and his evidence.
Because of the importance of these "seven points" to Snyder's whole project, somewhat more detail is devoted to them in the main text of the present study than to most of Snyder's other fact-claims. The reader may always consult the full documentation in the Appendix to this first chapter.
Point One (pp. 42-3): Were Ukrainian Peasants Required to Return Grain Advances?
Snyder states that on November 18, 1932 "peasants in Ukraine were required to return grain advances" and that the leadership of the CP(b)U unsuccessfully protested this policy. His note to this passage cites the following sources (n. 57 p. 466):
Graziosi, "New interpretation," 8;
Kuśnierz, Ukraina, 143;
Maksudov, "Victory," 188, 190;
Davies, Years, 175 and, on seed grain, 151.
Graziosi - clearly Snyder's chief "source" here - indeed makes these charges. But Graziosi cites no evidence at all, not a single reference of any kind for these statements or for the entire paragraph of which they are a part. Snyder had to know this, of course, just as anyone who reads Graziosi's article would know it. But Snyder cites these statements anyway. Of course Snyder's readers will not know that Graziosi has no evidence for these very serious charges.
Kuśnierz has nothing about any decision of November 18, 1932 on p. 143. He has nothing about returning grain advances, taking away seed grain, the Ukrainian Party leadership trying to "protect" it, etc., as stated by Snyder. Nothing about "shooting" "hundreds of officials" or "arresting thousands" of them.
Maksudov's article, in Harvard Ukrainian Studies (2001), contains no evidence itself. Instead it refers the reader to a volume in Ukrainian, Голод 1932-1933 рокiв. There are no relevant documents on the pages Maksudov cites from this book. Elsewhere in this volume there is a document dated November 18, 1932 regulating grain collections.(1) This is the document discussed below.
Davies, Years 175 has nothing about either returning grain advances or anything at all about seed grain. On pages 151-2 Davies does record the struggle between Moscow - Stalin and Lazar Kaganovich - and the Ukraine, mainly Kosior. Both the decrees of November 18 and November 29, which in part concerned seed grain, were cancelled. In any case these decrees permitted confiscation of seed grain only in exceptional circumstances.
On November 18 [1932], under strong pressure from Moscow to collect more grain, it [the Politburo of the Ukrainian Communist Party] granted permission to district soviet executive committees to respond to the 'completely unsatisfactory' grain collection by confiscating the Seed Fund of the kolkhoz concerned, and its other Funds held in grain...
The USSR Politburo [Stalin et al., in Moscow] did not catch up with these Ukrainian moves until Kaganovich and Chernov descended on Ukraine towards the end of December. Following telegrams to Stalin from Kaganovich, on December 23 the USSR Politburo brusquely cancelled the Ukrainian Politburo decision of November 18. The Ukrainian Politburo itself cancelled its decision of November 29, and Kosior sent an apology to members and candidate members for this document, of which 'I was the main author.' (151-2)
On December 25, 1932 Kosior self-critically discussed his responsibility for these two documents and made it clear that it was a case of confiscating seed grain only from kolkhozes that did not fulfill their plan for delivering grain to the state:
Остановившись перед вывозом семенных фондов из колхозов, которые не выполняют план хлебозаготовок,...(2)
Translated:
Referring to the export of seed funds from the collective farms that do not fulfill the grain procurement plan,...
Conclusion to Snyder's Point One: Not only is Snyder wrong here - in fact, he has it exactly backwards. Not the Soviet, but the Ukrainian Politburo did approve a document allowing for confiscation of seed grain, though only under extreme circumstances. It was Stalin and the Moscow Politburo that cancelled this decision! As a result Ukrainian First Secretary Kosior apologized for drafting the document in question. This is the opposite of what Snyder claims!
Point Two (p. 43): Did the "Meat Tax" Cause Starvation?
Snyder claims that on November 20, 1932 a "meat penalty" was imposed upon peasants "who were unable to make grain quotas" and that "they [the peasants] starved" as a result. His references (n. 58 p. 466) are:
concerning the meat penalty, Shapoval, "Proloh trahedii holodu," 162; and Maksudov, "Victory," 188;
for the "quotation," Dzwonkowski, Głód, 160 and 219.
Here is what Shapoval, Snyder's first citation has to say about the meat penalty (p. 162):
20 листопада 1932 року Раднарком УСРР ухвалив рiшення про запровад- ження натуральних штрафiв: «До колгоспiв, що допустили розкрадання кол- госпного хлiба i злiсно зривають план хлiбозаготiвель, застосувати натуральнi штрафи порядком додаткового завдання з м'ясохзаготiвель в обсязi 15-мiсячноï норми здавання даним колгоспом м'яса як усуспiльненоï худоби, так i худоби колгоспникiв». 6 грудня ухвалено постанову ЦК КП(Б)У i Раднаркому УСРР «Про занесення на "чорну дошку" сiл, якi злiсно саботують хлiбозаготiвлi.» Це рiшення спричинило збiльшення жертв голодомору.
Translated:
On November 20, 1932 the People's Commissar of the Ukrainian SSR approved a decision to introduce fines in kind: "to the collective farms, which allowed the theft of kolkhoz grain and maliciously sabotaged the grain procurement plan, to apply fines in kind of an additional task of meat requisitions in the amount of a 15-month norm in contribution by the kolkhoz in question of meat as socialized livestock and of the livestock of kolkhoz members." On December 6 was approved the decree of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian CP and of the People's Commissars of Ukrainian SSR "On entering on the 'black board' [= a "blacklist"] villages that willfully sabotage grain procurements." This decision caused an increase in the victims of the Holodomor.
We should note a few interesting things about this quotation from Shapoval's article - an article which is also available in Russian, in the volume cited by Snyder in his bibliography, and is also available in Ukrainian on the Internet.(3)
There is no source, either printed or archival, for the quotation.
Nothing is said about how many kolkhozes this meat penalty was applied to, or indeed whether it was ever applied at all.
Nothing is said in the course about it contributing to the famine. This sentence is present in Shapoval's article and in all the other Internet sites, but there is no evidence to support it.
Maksudov is Snyder's second and last citation about the "meat penalty." He does discuss the meat tax, but not on page 188. On page 191 Maksudov writes as follows:
Among the punishments for those who did not fulfill required grain deliveries was the penalty of having to surrender a fifteen months' supply of meat in advance. In other words, the state officials knew there was no grain to be seized in payment. The peasants, of course, considered their livestock as insurance against a famine, either slaughtering the animals for food or selling them in order to buy grain. State confiscation of this livestock was a particularly malicious act. If a peasant sold his livestock on the open market, he could easily have paid his tax, but the authorities did not want it, preferring instead to take the livestock on a low fixed price as a form of punishment for the peasant's non-payment of taxes. Such penalties in meat did not exempt the peasant from fulfilling his original grain procurement quote, which remained in effect.
Maksudov's conclusion in the second sentence does not follow from the first. It is likely - neither Snyder nor Maksudov gives sufficient context - that the "meat penalty" was intended to force peasants to give up grain that they claimed they did not have but in fact had hidden. Also, Maksudov says nothing about the meat tax causing starvation.
The question naturally arises: Why don't Snyder or any of his footnoted sources actually identify and quote the relevant passages from this meat penalty decree? As previously noted Shapoval quotes from it but does not give a reference to the original text. The document is called a "decree of the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR" but without any indication as to where such documents can be consulted.
As it turns out, this is the same document Maksudov refers to (see note 2, above). It may also be found in the multi-volume collection of documents on collectivization entitled Tragediia sovetskoi derevni. The relevant part of the lengthy decree of the Bolshevik Central Committee, dated November 18, 1932, reads as follows:
5. В колхозах, допустивших разворовывание колхозного хлеба и злостно срывающих хлебозаготовки, применять натуральные штрафы в виде установления дополнительного задания по мясозаготовкам в размере 15-месячной нормы сдачи для данного колхоза мяса, как по обобществленному, так и индивидуальному скоту колхозника.
Применение этого штрафа проводится райисполкомом с предварительного разрешения в каждом отдельном случае облисполкома. Причем райисполкомы устанавливают сроки взыскания и размеры штрафа для каждого колхоза (в пределах 15-месячной нормы мясосдачи) применительно к состоянию отдельных колхозов.
Наложение штрафа не освобождает колхоз от полного выполнения установленного плана хлебозаготовок. В случае, если колхоз принял действительные меры к полному выполнению плана хлебозаготовок в установленный срок, штраф может быть отменен с предварительного разрешения облисполкома.(4)
Translated:
5. In collective farms that have permitted the theft of kolkhoz grain and are willfully frustrating grain procurement, to apply penalties in kind in the form of fixing additional targets for giving in meat procurements on the order of a 15-month delivery of meat for the collective farm in question, for both socialized livestock and that of the individual farmer.
The application of this penalty is to be carried out by the regional (raion) executive committee with prior approval in each case of the provincial (oblast') executive committee. Moreover, regional executive committees are to set deadlines for the recovery and the size of the fine for each farm (within the limits of the 15-month norm of meat delivery) according to the situation of the individual collective farms.
The imposition of this penalty does not relieve the collective farm of the requirement of full compliance with the established grain procurement plan. If the collective farm has made real efforts for the full implementation of the grain procurement plan within the prescribed period, the penalty can be waived with the prior approval of the provincial executive committee.
This Russian text corresponds exactly to the text published in Ukrainian by Shapoval. But Shapoval gave only the first paragraph. With the full text in hand, including the part that describes the "meat penalty" it is clear that Shapoval and Snyder have withheld a few important details from their readers:
The local officials - those most closely in touch with each farm - were to impose this meat fine.
They had to receive prior permission from the provincial government each time before imposing this fine.
The 15-month meat delivery was the limit of the fine, its maximum size. A lesser fine could be levied "according to the situation of the individual kolkhoz."
The third paragraph makes it clear that the purpose is to push recalcitrant kolkhozes to make "real efforts" to fulfill its grain collection plan. If they did so the fine could be cancelled even if already levied.
This means the purpose was to get each kolkhoz to make "real efforts" rather than to withhold - hide - grain and then claim that they had none. Clearly, the government felt that it had to have some way of forcing recalcitrant peasants and collective farms to cough up hidden stores of grain. If they did not, what was to prevent every kolkhoz and peasant from claiming that they had no more grain while hiding whatever amount they could? The result would be starvation in those areas that genuinely had no grain, including the cities and towns.
Conclusion on Snyder's Point Two: If Snyder did find and read this text, he falsified its contents to his readers. But most likely Snyder never troubled himself to find this text. Yet it constitutes the evidence for his fact-claims in his "Point Two." It is his responsibility to verify that the fact-claims he makes are backed up by evidence.
Point Three (p. 43): Did the "Black List" Cause "Zones of Death"?
Snyder claims that the "black list," introduced in late November, 1932, required kolkhozes (= collective farms) that had not met their grain collection targets to give up fifteen times a one-month's tax in grain. As a result, says Snyder, such kolkhozes "became zones of death." His evidence (n. 59 p. 466):
Shapoval, "Proloh trahedii holodu," 162;
Maksudov, "Victory," 188;
Marochko, Holodomor, 172;
Werth, Terreur, 123.
None of these sources even mentions Snyder's central accusation here: the supposed "requirement to immediately surrender fifteen times the amount of grain."
Here, once again, is what Shapoval states:
6 грудня ухвалено постанову ЦК КП(Б)У i Раднаркому УСРР «Про занесення на "чорну дошку" сiл, якi злiсно саботують хлiбозаготiвлi.» Це рiшення спричинило збiльшення жертв голодомору. (162)
Translated:
On December 6 was approved the decree of the Central Committee of the Ukrainian CP and of the People's Commissars of Ukrainian SSR "On entering on the 'black board' [= a "blacklist"] villages that willfully sabotage grain procurements." This decision caused an increase in the number of victims of the Holodomor. (162)
Shapoval cites no evidence that anyone died as a result of the "blacklisting" of some villages.
Maksudov has nothing like this on page 188 or on any page of "Victory." He merely refers to the "meat procurement" of 15 months in advance (see discussion above). Marochko, Holodomor does not refer to such a policy on page 172 or on any page of this book, which in any case is merely a brief chronology of events. November 28, 1932 is dealt with on page 162; no such "black list" document is mentioned here. The December 6 1932 document, identified above, is mentioned on page 166. It says nothing about any fine of "fifteen times the amount of grain."
It is not clear that this "new regulation" was introduced on November 28, 1932. The collection by Georgii Papakin "Archival documents on the 'blacklist' as a weapon of Soviet genocide in the Ukraine in 1932-1933" mentions many documents, but none of them fit this description.(5)
Perhaps the following resolution mentioned by Shapoval and dated December 6, 1932, is the one meant (the complete text of this document may be found in the Appendix at the end of this chapter):
№ 219
Постановление СНК УССР и ЦК КП(Б)У «О занесении на черную доску сел, злостно саботирующих хлебозаготовки» 1*...
СНК и ЦК постановляют:
За явный срыв плана хлебозаготовок и злостный саботаж, организованный кулацкими и контрреволюционными элементами, занести на черную доску следующие села:
1. с. Вербка Павлоградского района Днепропетровской обл.
2. с. Гавриловка Межевского района Днепропетровской обл.
3. с. Лютеньки Гадячского района Харьковской обл.
4. с. Каменные Потоки Кременчугского района Харьковской обл.
5. с. Святотроицкое Троицкого района Одесской обл.
6. с. Пески Баштанского района Одесской обл.
В отношении этих сел провести следующие мероприятия:...(6)
Translated:
No. 219
Decree of the SNK of the Ukrainian SSR and CC of the CPU(b) "On inscribing on the black board of villages that maliciously sabotage grain collection."...
The SNK and CC decree:
For flagrant disruption of the grain collections plan and malicious sabotage organized by kulak and counterrevolutionary elements, the following villages are inscribed on the black board:
1. v[illage]. Verbka, Pavlogradsk raion, Dnepropetrovsk obl[ast'].
2. v. Gavrilovka, Mezhevsk raion, Dnepropetrovsk obl.
3. v. Liuten'ki, Gadiachsk raion, Khar'kov obl.
4. v. Kamennye Potoki, Kremenchug raion, Khar'kov obl.
5. v. Sviatrotroitskoe, Troitsk raion, Odessa obl.
6. v. Peski, Bashtansk raion, Odessa obl.
In relation to these villages the following measures to be carried out...(6)
This decree is restricted to six villages. No evidence is given about any "zones of death," much less as a result of this regulation.
The "black board" - "chorna doshka" (Ukrainian) or "chiornaia doska" (Russian) had been used in the Russian empire since the 1840s and in the USSR since the 1920s.(7)
Werth, Terreur, 123 and surrounding pages consist mainly of quotations from Kaganovich's letters to Stalin and a mention of the "black list." There is no mention of anything concerning "fifteen times the amount of grain..." Werth, by the way, asserts that collectivization caused the famine - a claim that Tauger and Davies-Wheatcroft both disprove.
But Werth strongly rejects the notion that the famine was deliberate:
On a beaucoup de documents durs et forts sur les terribles famines qui se sont abattues à la suite de la collectivisation forcée, qu'il serait absurde de qualifier de famines organisées, mais qui sont des conséquences directes de cet énorme chaos, de cette désorganisation de tout le système de production traitionnel, au moment de la collectivisation forcée,...(8)
Translated:
... the terrible famines that took place following forced collectivization, which it would be absurd to call organized famines... (Emphasis added, GF)
Conclusion on Point Three: None of Snyder's sources show any knowledge of the text of the resolution to which he refers - one "requiring" the "immediate" "surrender of fifteen times the amount of grain that was normally due in a whole month" (43). Snyder certainly never saw it himself.
Point Four (pp. 43-44): Did Vsevolod Balitskii Terrorize Ukrainian Party Officials?
According to Snyder, Vsevolod Balitskii, NKVD chief of the Ukrainian SSR "handpicked" by Stalin, "terrorized" Ukrainian party officials by treating anyone who "failed to do [their] part" in the grain collection as a "traitor to the state."(9)
His sole source (n. 60, p. 466) is "Shapoval, "Holodomor" (no page number)." This article has been "forthcoming" for several years now in the journal Harvard Ukrainian Studies.(10) Evidently it was delivered at a conference at the Harvard Ukrainian Institute on November 17-18, 2008.(11) It has finally been published (2013) in English translation in a collection devoted to this 2008 conference.(12) There is nothing in this article about "terrorizing" the Ukrainian Party officials or treating anyone as a "traitor to the state", as Snyder claims. As will be shown later in the present chapter, Snyder has a history of making false claims.
According to Snyder Balitskii claimed he had uncovered a Ukrainian Military Organization and underground Polish groups:
He would report, in January 1933, the discovery of more than a thousand illegal organizations and, in February, the plans of Polish and Ukrainian nationalists to overthrow Soviet rule in Ukraine. (44)
Snyder's sources: (n. 61 p. 466) are Davies, Years 190; Marochko, Holodomor, 171.
Davies, Years 190 simply quotes a part of a Politburo resolution of December 14, 1932, stating in part:
[C]ounter-revolutionary elements - kulaks, former officers, Petlyurians, supporters of the Kuban' Rada and others - were able to penetrate into the kolkhozes [and the village soviets, land agencies and cooperatives]. They attempt to direct the work of these organizations against the interests of the proletarian state and the policy of the party; they try to organize a counter-revolutionary movement;, the sabotage of the grain collections, and the sabotage of the village.
Marochko, Holodomor 171 does mention Balitskii's report of December 20, 1932 on Polish and Ukrainian nationalists as follows:
В. Балицького про арешт 27 тис. осiб за хлiбозаготiвельними справами, про засудження до розстрiлу 108, про виявлення 7 тис. ям та «чорних комор» i вилучення з них 700 тис. пудiв хлiба, про викриття великих повстанських груп польського походження, органiзованих урядом УНР.
Translated:
V. Balitskii [reported] the arrest of 27 thousand persons for grain procurement cases of condemnation to death 108, the discovery of seven thousand holes and "black barns" and removing them from 700 thousands poods of grain, the exposure of major insurgent groups of Polish descent, organized by the leadership of the UNR [Ukrainian National Rada, = anticommunist nationalist Ukrainian Party from the time of the Civil War].
In other documents Balitskii refers to the arrest of 38,000 village residents on various charges, and the fight against the Ukrainian Nationalist rebels. But Snyder does not refer to these documents at all.(13)
Conclusion to Snyder's Point Four: There is nothing in the passages cited by Snyder about January or February 1933 reports by Balitskii. Snyder gives no reference to such reports, so he has not seen them himself.
There is no documentation of Snyder's claim that "anyone who failed to do his part in requisitions was a traitor to the state." Snyder claims that it documented in Shapoval's article but, as we have seen, nothing like it is there. But even if Balitskii did say this, that is not evidence of 'deliberate starvation' - only of the efforts of the State to obtain and share the little existing grain among as many people as possible.
Point Five. Did Kaganovich Condemn Millions To Die of Starvation?
In his fifth point Snyder makes the following claims:
On December 21, 1932 Stalin and Kaganovich confirmed the grain collection quota for the Ukrainian SSR;
Kaganovich arrived on December 20 and forced the Ukrainian Politburo to meet and reaffirm the quota.
This was "a death sentence for about three million people."
Snyder concludes:
A simple respite from requisitions for three months would not have harmed the Soviet economy, and would have saved most of those three million lives. Yet Stalin and Kaganovich insisted on exactly the contrary. The state would fight "ferociously," as Kaganovich put it, to fulfill the plan.
Snyder's sources for this paragraph (n. 63 p. 466) are:
Quotation: Davies, Years, 187.
For the December 20 meeting, Vasiliev, "Tsina," 55;
Graziosi, "New Interpretation," 9;
Kuśnierz, Ukraina, 135.
None of the statements in this paragraph of Snyder's are supported by the sources in Snyder's footnote 63 to this passage.
Davies, Years, 187: The only "quotation" in this paragraph is the single word "ferociously." Davies, 187, does not mention Kaganovich and does not contain the word "ferociously."
Vasiliev, "Tsina," 55 - the December 20th meeting is actually discussed on page 54. Vasil'ev is honest enough to note that:
Виступаючi були переконанi в тому, що збiжжя сховано селянами в «чорних» коморах або закопано в ямах.
Translated:
The speakers were convinced that grain was hidden by peasants in "black" closets or buried in pits.
As we show below, there is clear evidence that peasants did indeed hide grain in pits and other places.
Graziosi, "New Interpretation," has no page 9. Snyder may have in mind this passage on the ninth page of the article, page 105:
On the night of 20 December, at the urging of Kaganovich, the Ukrainian Politburo committed itself to new targets for grain requisitions. Nine days later it declared that the precondition to fulfilling the plan was the seizure of seed stock reserves.
Note 28 on p. 114 of Graziosi reads:
"28. Danilov, Manning, and Viola. Tragediia sovetskoi derevni, 3: 603, 611"
Now to check Graziosi's sources:
Vol. 3 p. 603 is Kaganovich's letter to Stalin of December 22, 1932, concerning the meeting of the Politburo of the Ukrainian CP on measures for strengthening the collection of grain.
Vol. 3 p. 611 is the same document briefly considered above from the volume Golod 1932-1933 rokiv na Ukraini. There it is document number 129. The text is as follows:
До сих пор еще районные работники не поняли, что первоочередность хлебозаготовок в колхозах, не выполняющих своих обязательств перед государством, означает, что все имеющееся наличное зерно в этих колхозах, в том числе и так называемые семенные фонды, должно быть в первую очередь сдано в план хлебозаготовок.
Именно поэтому ЦК ВКП(Б) отменил решение ЦК КП(Б)У от 18 ноября о невывозе семенных фондов как решение, ослабляющее наши позиции в борьбе за хлеб.
ЦК КП(Б)У предлагает в отношении колхозов, не выполнивших план хлебозаготовок, немедленно, на протяжении 5-6 дней, вывезти все наличные фонды, в том числе так называемые семенные, на выполнение плана хлебозаготовок.
ЦК обязывает немедленно мобилизовать для этого все перевозочные средства, живую тягловую силу, автотранспорт и трактора. В однодневный срок дать твердый ежедневный наряд на поставку необходимого количества лошадей, в том числе и единоличниками.
Всякую задержку в вывозе этих фондов ЦК будет рассматривать как саботаж хлебозаготовок со стороны районного руководства и примет соответствующие меры.
Translated:
Even at this point the regional (raionnye) workers have not understood that the priority of grain collections in those collective farms that have not fulfilled their obligations to the state means that all the grain on hand in these collective farms, including the so-called seed reserves, must be included as a priority in the plan of grain collection.
That is the reason that the CC of the VKP(b) set aside the decision of the CC of the CP(b)U of November 18 on not exporting the seed reserves as a decision that weakens our position in the struggle for grain
The CC of the CP(b)U proposes in relation to those collective farms that have not fulfilled the plan for grain collection to immediately, within the next 5-6 days, bring forth all the reserves they have, including the so-called seed reserves, for the fulfillment of the grain collection plan.
The CC demands immediate mobilization for this purpose of all means of transportation, live animal power, automobile and tractor transportation. Within one day give a firm daily accounting to supply the required number of horses, including by individual farmers.
The CC will regard any and all delay in the transportation of these reserves as sabotage of the grain collections on the part of the regional (raion) leadership and will take appropriate measures.
Here it is Graziosi who has falsified the meaning of the document. Recall that Graziosi wrote:
Nine days later it declared that the precondition to fulfilling the plan was the seizure of seed stock reserves.
But the document says nothing about any "precondition" and strictly limits seed stock seizures, as the bold-faced passages above indicate.
The issue seems to be as follows. Some kolkhozes had stated that they had no more grain except for seed grain. The Party did not believe them. If the Party accepted the statement of every such kolkhoz, then more kolkhozes would make the same claim, in order to avoid grain collections, and the grain collection would fail. That would mean starvation in the cities and towns, where the residents could not grow their own grain. Therefore, the excuse that "we only have our seed grain left" was not to be accepted.
Note that Graziosi lied when he stated that all seed grain had to be given in. The document Graziosi himself identifies as his source clearly states that seed grain was to be collected only from those kolkhozes that had failed to fulfill their quota in the grain collections.
Kuśnierz, Ukraina 135 simply outlines a few of the events and decisions of late November to late December 1934.
Snyder (45) says that Kaganovich toured the Ukrainian SSR, demanding "100% fulfillment" of the grain collection quota while "sentencing local officials and ordering deportation of families as he went." Moreover, Snyder claims, on December 29, 1932 Kaganovich told Ukrainian party leaders that they also had to collect the seed grain. His evidence (n. 64 p. 466): "Davies, Years, 190-192."
Davies does discuss Kaganovich's trip, though only on page 192. But Davies' outline of what Kaganovich's message was is quite different from Snyder's characterization of it.
When the Plenipotentiary of the USSR party central committee in Chernigov declared that the region would complete 85 per cent of its plan by January 1, Kaganovich interrupted: "For us the figure 85% does not exist. We need 100%. Workers are fed on grain and not on percentages."
He addressed a conference of district secretaries in Odessa region in even more uncompromising terms:
There is no need to punch people in the jaw. But carefully organized searches of collective farmers, communists and workers as well as individual peasants are not going too far. The village must be given a shove, so that the peasants themselves reveal the grain pits... When our spirit is not as hard as metal the grain collections don't succeed.
According to Davies Kaganovich specifically opposed the demand that collective farmers return the grain they had been issued as advance payment for their labor days.
...the compulsory return of part of their grain advances by collective farmers risked 'creating a united front against us, insulting the shock worker, and undermining the basis of the labor days.' Instead he [Kaganovich] advocated an intensive search for stolen grain... (194).
As for the seed grain,
Kaganovich defended the seizure of seed on the grounds that it could be assembled again after the grain collection was complete. (194)
In other words Kaganovich never planned to keep the seed grain but, evidently, to hold it hostage to guarantee grain deliveries and then to return it. Davies concludes:
The decision was perverse, and was ultimately ineffective. Its consequence was that the central authorities had to issue substantial seed loans to Ukraine during the spring sowing. (195)
So some seed grain was to be collected from recalcitrant peasants but it was returned for sowing in the spring.
Conclusion for Snyder's Point Five: There is no evidence for Snyder's claim that the demand that "requisition targets were to be met" meant "a death sentence for about three million people." Nor does Snyder cite any evidence at all for his claim that "A simple respite from requisitions for three months would not have harmed the Soviet economy, and would have saved most of those three million lives." These are pure assertions by Snyder. They are good examples of the logical fallacy of "begging the question" - of "asserting that which should be proven."
According to Davies and Wheatcroft, where seed grain was collected it was returned for spring sowing. Since seed was not intended to be eaten in the first place, no one starved as a result of all the confiscating and returning.
Point Six (p. 45): Did Stalin Doom Peasants to Starve by Forbidding Train Travel?
That the borders of the Ukrainian SSR and certain other areas were sealed is not disputed. But did this cause starvation? Snyder claims it did, concluding (45-6):
By the end of February 1933 some 190,000 peasants had been caught and sent back to their home villages to starve.
His evidence (n. 65 p. 466):
"On the interpretation of starving people as spies, see Shapoval, "Holodomor."
"On the 190,000 peasants caught and sent back, see Graziosi, "New Interpretation," 7.
"On the events of 22 January, see Marochko, Holodomor, 189; and Graziosi, "New Interpretation," 9."
As noted above Shapoval's Ukrainian language article "Holodomor" has not appeared but the English version has been published (2013). There is nothing about "interpreting starving people as spies" in it. Moreover, it is hard to believe that primary documents with contents as dramatic as Stalin describing starving people as "spies" have not been published somewhere else. But Shapoval may simply mean the document reproduced below.
Graziosi, "New Interpretation," p. 105 (not, as Snyder has it, page 7 or page 9) refers (note 29, p. 114) to the well-known order of January 22, 1933, to stop peasants generally, not just Ukrainian peasants, from moving to other areas. Here is the text:(14)
22 января 1933 г.
Ростов-Дон, Харьков, Воронеж, Смоленск,
Минск, Сталинград, Самара
N. 65/ш
До ЦКВКП(б) и СНК дошли сведения, что на Кубани и Украине начался массовый выезд крестьян «за хлебом» в ЦЧО, на Волгу, Московскую обл., Западную обл., Белоруссию. ЦК ВКП и Совнарком СССР не сомневаются, что этот выезд крестьян, как и выезд из Украины в прошлом году, организован врагами Советской власти, эсерами и агентами Польши с целью агитации «через крестьян» в северных районах СССР против колхозов и вообще против Советской власти. В прошлом году партийные, советские и чекистские органы Украины прозевали эту контрреволюционную затею врагов Советской власти. В этом году не может быть допущено повторение прошлогодней ошибки.
Первое. ЦК ВКП и Совнарком СССР предписывают крайкому, крайисполкому и ПП ОГПУ Северного Кавказа не допускать массовый выезд крестьян из Северного Кавказа в другие края и въезд в пределы края из Украины.
Второе. ЦК ВКП и Совнарком предписывают ЦК КП(б)У, Балицкому и Реденсу не допускать массовый выезд крестьян из Украины в другие края и въезд на Украину из Северного Кавказа.
Третье. ЦК ВКП и Совнарком предписывают ПП ОГПУ Московской обл., ЦЧО, Западной обл., Белоруссии, Нижней Волги и Средней Волги арестовывать пробравшихся на север «крестьян» Украины и Северного Кавказа и после того, как будут отобраны контрреволюционные элементы, водворять остальных в места их жительства.
Четвертое. ЦК ВКП и Совнарком предписывают ТО ГПУ Прохорову дать соответствующее распоряжение по системе ТО ГПУ.
Предсовнарком СССР
В. М. Молотов
Секретарь ЦК ВКП(б)
И. Сталин
(РГАСПИ. Ф. 558.Оп. 11. Д. 45. Л. 109-109об.)
Translated:
It has come to the attention of the CC of the VCP(b) and the SNK that there has begun a massive exodus of peasants "in search of bread" into the Central Black Earth District, the Volga, Moscow oblast', the Western oblast', and Belorussia. The CC VCP(b) has no doubt that this exodus of peasants, like the exodus from the Ukraine last year, is being organized by enemies of the Soviet Government, Socialist Revolutionaries, and agents of Poland with the goal of agitating, "through the peasants," in the northern regions of the USSR against the collective farms and against Soviet power in general. Last year party, Soviet and Chekist organs of the Ukraine neglected this counterrevolutionary plot by enemies of Soviet power. This year a repetition of last year's mistake cannot be permitted.
First. The CC VCP(b) and the Council of People's Commissars [in Russian, "Sovnarkom," abbreviated SNK] of the USSR instructs the area committees, the area executive committee, and the PP [plenipotentiary representatives] of the OGPU of the Northern Caucasus not to permit a massive exodus of peasants from the Northern Caucasus into other areas or entry into the regions of the area from the Ukraine.
Second: the CC of the VCP(b) and the Sovnarkom instructs the CC of the CP(b)U, Balitskii, and Redens, not to permit any massive exodus of peasants from the Ukraine into other regions or entry into the Ukraine from the Northern Caucasus.
Third: the CC VCP and the Sovnarkom require the PP of the OGPU of the Moscow oblast', Central Black Earth District, Western oblast', Belorussia, the Lower Volga, and the Middle Volga to arrest "peasants" making their way north from the Ukraine and Central Caucasus and, after detaining counterrevolutionary elements, to return the rest to their places of residence.
Fourth. The CC of the VCP and the Sovnarkom require the director of the GPU service division Prokhorov to give appropriate directives throughout the system of the service division of the GPU.
Representative of the Sovnarkom V.M. Molotov
Secretary of the CC of the VCP(b) J. Stalin
(RGASPI f. 558. Op. 11. D. 45. L. 109-109ob.)
Graziosi continues:
In the following month, the decree led to the arrest of 220,000 people, predominantly hungry peasants in search of food; 190,000 of them were sent back to their villages to starve.
This conclusion and these figures, which Snyder simply repeats verbatim, are not supported by any primary sources Graziosi cites.
Graziosi has no way of knowing how many of the persons stopped were "hungry peasants." In reality, very few of them, if any, could have been. Starving people do not travel long distances by train to seek food - they do not have the energy for long trips, much of which would have to be on foot. Nor do starving people spend their money on train tickets. They would remain at home and use their money to buy food.
As in previous famines, most of these travelers would have been speculators trying to purchase grain and foodstuffs in areas not as hard-hit by the famine in order to return to famine areas to resell them at a high profit. This "market" process benefitted the well-to-do and guaranteed that only the poor would starve. In fact, poor peasants starved even when harvests were good, since speculators could drive up the price by buying it for resale elsewhere.
Note too that the document in question makes it clear that peasants were moving from the North Caucasus and Kuban into the Ukraine as well as the other way around. This is consistent with the movements of people buying and selling grain, but not of people who were starving.
Why would Snyder mention only the Ukraine? Probably to please Ukrainian nationalists, who have indeed celebrated Snyder's book, invited him to give talks in Ukraine, and published a Ukrainian translation of Bloodlands.
Marochko, 188-189, summarizes Stalin's and Balitskii's outline of peasant movements in and out of Ukraine and why they should not be permitted. Graziosi, "New Interpretation," 9 (really, p. 105, as already noted) briefly summarizes the document of January 22, 1933, reproduced in full above.
Conclusion to Snyder's Point Six: Snyder's claims are not supported by his documentation. There is no evidence that those who were travelling by train were "begging" or "starving," and of course few if any of them could have been.
Point Seven (pp. 45-6): Did Stalin Seize the Seed Grain in December 1932?
As his seventh point Snyder claims that in December 1932 Stalin decided that seed grain should be seized to meet the grain collection quota, while the USSR still had a reserve of three million tons of grain and continued to export grain. He further claims that "many" of the 37,392 people recorded as having been arrested that month were "presumably trying to save their families from starvation." His evidence (n. 66, page 466):
"On the 37,392 people arrested, see Marochko, Holodomor, 192."
Davies, Years, 161-163.
Marochko, Holodomor, 192, gives the number of 37,797, not 37,392.
Протягом сiчня скоєно 150 «терористичних актiв», з них «фiзичний терор» становив 80,9% випадкiв, а в селах арештовано 37 797 осiб. Серед арештованих iз «полiтминулим» -8145 осiб, 1471 голова колгоспу, 388 голiв сiльських рад, 1335 голiв правлiнь колгоспiв, 1820 завгоспiв та комiрникiв, 7906 колгоспникiв. Розглянуто 12076 справ звинувачених, iз них до розстрiлу засуджено 719, до концтаборiв - 8003, до виселення - 2533, до примусових робiт - 281 / Holodomor 1932-1933 рокiе е Украïнi: Документи i матерiали. - К.,2007. - С. 633-634.
Translated:
During January, 150 "terrorist acts" were committed, of which "physical terror" amounted to 80.9% of the cases, and in villages 37,797 persons were arrested. Among those arrested were "fugitives" - 8145 people, 1,471 heads of kolkhozes, 388 heads of village councils, 1335 chairmen of boards of collective farms, 1820 steward and storekeepers, 7,906 kolkhozniks. 12,076 cases of those indicted were reviewed, including 719 sentenced to death, to labor camps - 8003, to exile - 2533, to forced labor - 281
This is a simple list of arrests and dispositions of cases during January, 1933. There is no indication whatsoever that even a single one of these cases have to do with "trying to save their families from starvation," as Snyder claims. Even Snyder has to add the word "presumably" - an admission that he has invented the business about "saving their families from starvation."
Davies, Years, 161-163, is entirely concerned with the illegal trade in grain and Soviet attempts to suppress it - with good, though far from complete, success.
The grain trade harmed everything the Soviets were trying to do: collect grain as tax from the collective farms to feed workers in the cities; ration grain so as to spread out what was available as equitably as possible given the crop failures and famine. Collective farmers who sold grain sometimes stole it from the kolkhoz, which meant it was not available either for grain collection by the State or for the use of the kolkhozniks. Only those with money- that is, not the village poor - could buy grain, so the grain trade threatened to destroy any attempt to ration grain in the famine conditions. That would mean that, as in all previous famines, those better off would eat while the poor would starve.
One last point here: Snyder claims that the Soviet Union had three million tons [of grain] in reserve. Davies and Wheatcroft do not directly state how much "reserve" (they use the term "stocks") were on hand in December 1932, but the say "the June [1933] plan" was for 3.608 million tons, and conclude:
This hopeful estimate must have been regarded with great skepticism by the few officials who knew the fate of previous attempts to stockpile grain. (186-7)
Later they state that in fact "on July 1, 1933 total stocks amounted to 1.392 million tons," some of which was seed grain. (229) Snyder does not tell us where he has found the figure of 3 million tons of reserves in December 1932.
Conclusion to Snyder's Point Seven: All of the significant claims in Snyder's paragraph are entirely undocumented by either of the sources he cites.
The following statement of Snyder's reveals his dishonesty with special clarity:
A the end of December 1932, Stalin had approved Kaganovich's proposal that the seed grain the for spring be seized to make the annual target. This left the collective farms with nothing to plant for the coming fall. (46)
Of course nothing of the kind happened. Stalin and Kaganovich would have indeed been stupid to take away seed grain and leave nothing to sow. This is probably a reference to the Politburo directive of December 29, 1932, and the other decisions, discussed above under Snyder's point 5.
The government refused to accept less than the grain delivery quota, assuming that kolkhozes and individual peasants who did not fulfill their grain collection quota were hiding grain. Why hide grain? To eat, of course - but also, to sell. Large profits could be made by selling grain illegally, on the black market, during a famine, when its price would be much higher than normal.
The Fraud of Snyder's "Seven Points"
Snyder requires the "deliberate starvation" thesis in order to compare the Soviets with the Nazis, Stalin with Hitler, in respect to "mass murder." The "seven points" are supposed to represent Snyder's evidence that the Soviet leadership was deliberately starving the Ukraine. Readers should satisfy themselves that every reference Snyder cites to document his claims in the "seven points" has been carefully checked. Not a single one of them provides any evidence for Snyder's claim of deliberate starvation.
Types of Dishonest Citations
Snyder employs several kinds of phony citations. In one type, the citation Snyder gives simply does not contain any evidence to support Snyder's statement. Such citations are "bluffs." The reader is evidently supposed to assume that a full professor of history at Yale University, as Snyder is, would cite his sources honestly, and therefore assume that Snyder does in fact have evidence to support the claims he makes in his text.
Phony citations of a second type do contain statements like those in Snyder's own text. But these citations either have no evidence to support these claims or they give further citations to yet other works - which do not support their statements either. An example of this type is Kuśnierz's book, which is Snyder's single most frequent secondary source on the famine. It is mainly a summary of Ukrainian nationalist studies rather than a work of independent scholarship. Moreover, Kuśnierz falsifies his summary of the scholarship on the famine. For example, Kuśnierz says the following:
Istnieją także inne, nie poparte w zasadzie żadnymi poważnymi dowodami, poglądy nt. powodów pojawienia się głodu na Ukrainie. Np. według Amerykanina Marka Taugera głód był rezultatem nieurodzaju, a Stalin musiał podjąć trudną decyzję o ratowaniu ludności miejskiej kosztem wsi. (197)
Translated:
There are also other views, no supported, in principle, by any serious evidence, about the reasons for the emergence of the famine in the Ukraine. For example, according to the American Mark Tauger the famine was the result of crop failures, and Stalin had to make a difficult decision to save the urban population at the expense of the village.
This is a lie. All of Mark Tauger's research on the famine of 1932-33 is heavily documented. But few of Kuśnierz's Polish readers will check Tauger's works and realize that Kuśnierz is lying here.
Kuśnierz is guilty of the same kind of scholarly malpractice as is Snyder: of pretending to do objective research while in reality supporting a preconceived idea. Kuśnierz's book, like that of Snyder, has no evidence at all either that the famine of 1932-33 was "caused by collectivization" or constituted "deliberate starvation" whether of Ukrainians or of anyone else.
A third type of phony citation is a form of "bias by omission." Snyder does not inform his readers about crucial information concerning the works to which he refers. For example, the long and detailed study by Davies and Wheatcroft, one of Snyder's major sources, concludes that the Soviet regime was not guilty of deliberate starvation - but Snyder fails to inform his readers of their conclusion.
None of the many Ukrainian nationalist or anticommunist researchers who proclaim that "Stalin" deliberately starved the Ukraine has ever produced any evidence to support this claim. Of course Snyder, who is not a specialist in this field and who simply relies upon the work of other anticommunists, has not produced any such evidence either.
The anticommunists and Ukrainian nationalists have been searching assiduously for evidence to support their preconceived notion of "deliberate starvation" since at least the 1980s. The fact that they have never found any such evidence is perhaps the best possible evidence that there was no such deliberate starvation.
In fact there was no "Holodomor" - no deliberate or "man-made" starvation. There was just "holod" - a famine, as there had been every few years for centuries. Thanks to collectivization and mechanization of agriculture, the famine of 1932-33 was to be the last famine in Russian history (except for the post-war famine of 1946-47, which was also not "man-made").(15)
False Statements in Shapoval's article "Lügen und Schweigen."
Snyder cites Yurii Shapoval's work very frequently. Shapoval is a leading Ukrainian nationalist, and highly anticommunist, scholar. But Shapoval cannot be trusted to quote his sources accurately. Here is one example from the very beginning of the article, "Lügen und Schweigen," that Snyder cites here:
Čuev hat diese Begegnungen in einem Büchlein aufgearbeitet: "Einhundertvierzig Gespräche mit Vjaceslav Molotov," in dem folgendes zu lesen ist:
- Unter Schriftstellern wird darüher gesprochen, daß die Hungersnot 1933 ahsichtlich von Stalin und Ihrer gesamten Fuhrung organisiert worden ist.
- Das sagen die Feinde des Kommunismus!- Aber es hat den Anschein, daß beinahe 12 Millionen Menchen bei der Hungersnot 1933 zugrunde gegangen sind.
- Ich halte diese Fakten für nicht bewiesen, behauptete Molotov.- Nicht bewiesen?
- Nein, keinesfällls. Ich bein in jenen Jahren bei der Getreidebeschaffung herumgereist. Ich komme an solchen Dingen nicht vorbeigehen. Ich bin damals zweimal in der Ukraine wegen der Getreidebeschaffung gewesen, in Sichevo, im Ural war ich, in Sibirien - have ich etwa nichts gesehen? Das ist ja absurd! Nein, das is völlig absurd!
Das ist tatsächlich absurd, denn auf der Sitzung des Politbüros des ZK der VKP(B) am 3. August 1932 sagte niemand anderes als Molotov: "Wir stehen tatsächlich vor dem Gespenst einer Hungersnot, und zwar in den reichen Getreiderayons."
Translated:
Felix Chuev wrote an account of this meeting in a little book, One Hundred Forty Talks with Viacheslav Molotov, where we read the following:
- Some writers have said to one another that the famine of 1933 was organized on purpose by Stalin and your whole leadership.
- The enemies of communism say that.
- But it appears that almost 12 millions persons died because of the famine in 1933.
- I consider that these facts are unproven, asserted Molotov.
- Unproven?
- No, not at all. During those years I travelled around to the grain collections. I never encountered such things. At that time I was in the Ukraine twice because of the grain collection, I was in Sichevo, in the Urals, in Siberia - and was there something I did not see? That is absurd. No, that is completely absurd.
That is certainly absurd, because at the session of the CC of the VCP(b) on August 3, 1932 Molotov, and no one else, said: "We are really facing the spector of a famine, and particularly in the rich grain regions."
Here is what the text of this book, Molotov. Poluderzhavnyi Valstelin (Moscow, 1999), p. 453, actually says:
- В писательской среде говорят о том, что голод 1933 года был специально организован Сталиным и всем вашим руководством.
- Это говорят враги коммунизма! Это враги коммунизма. Не вполне сознательные люди. Не вполне сознательные...
Нет, тут уж руки не должны, поджилки не должны дрожать, а у кого задрожат - берегись! Зашибем! Вот дело в чем. Вот в этом дело. А у вас все - давай готовенькое! Вы как дети. Подавляющее большинство теперешних коммунистов пришли на готовое, и только давай все, чтоб у нас хорошо было все, вот это главное. А это не главное.
Найдутся люди, которые займутся этим. Найдутся такие люди. Борьба с мещанским наследием должна быть беспощадной. Не улучшается жизнь - это не социализм, но даже если жизнь народа улучшается из года в год в течение определенного периода, но не укрепляются основы социализма, неизбежно придем к краху.
- Но ведь чуть ли не 12 миллионов погибло от голода в 1933-м...
- Я считаю, эти факты не доказаны, - утверждает Молотов.
- Не доказаны?
- Нет, нет, ни в коем случае. Мне приходилось в эти годы ездить на хлебозаготовки. Так что я не мог пройти мимо таких вещей. Не мог. Я тогда побывал на Украине два раза на хлебозаготовках, в Сычево, на Урале был, в Сибири - как же, я ничего не видел, что ли? Абсурд! Нет, это абсурд. На Волге мне не пришлось быть. Там, возможно, было хуже.
- Конечо, посылали меня туда, где можно хлеб заготовить.
- Нет, это преувеличение, но такие факты, конечно, в некоторых местах были. Тяжкий был год.
Translated:
- Some writers have said to one another that the famine of 1933 was organized on purpose by Stalin and your whole leadership.
- The enemies of communism say that. That's the enemies of communism. Not completely conscious persons. Not completely conscious...
- No, here our hands, or muscles could not tremble, and beware those whose do tremble - beware! We'll throw them out. And if you have everything - give up what you have prepared! you are like children. The vast majority of present-day communists came when everything had been prepared, and just make it so everything is good for us, that's the main thing. But that is not the point.
- There are those who will be engaged in it. There are people. The fight against the bourgeois heritage must be ruthless. If you don't improve life - that is not socialism, but even if the life of the people is improving from year to year for a specified period, but the foundations of socialism are not being strengthened, we will inevitably come to ruin.
- But almost 12 million persons died of hunger in 1933....
- I consider that these facts are unproven, asserted Molotov.
- Unproven?
- No, not at all. During those years I had to travel around to the grain collections. I could not have missed such things. Impossible. At that time I was in the Ukraine twice because of the grain collection, I was in Sichevo, in the Urals, in Siberia - and was there something I did not see? That is absurd. I did not go to the Volga. Perhaps it was worse there. Naturally, they sent me to places where it was possible to get grain.
- No that is an exaggeration, but such things, of course, did exist in some places. It was a very difficult year.
Note that:
* Molotov does not deny that a famine existed. Rather, he denies that "12 million people died of hunger in 1933."
* Shapoval has omitted Molotov's last two sentences: "No, this is an exaggeration, but such things did exist in some places. It was a very difficult year."
Shapoval quotes this passage to "prove" that Molotov was "telling lies and remaining silent" ("Lügen und Schweigen") about the famine. In reality Molotov did know and did speak out about it in 1932. In addition, Molotov did not remain silent about the famine. Shapoval simply omitted Molotov's reference to it!
* Molotov did not "lie." What he said was correct: (a) the estimate of 12 million dead of starvation in 1933 was an exaggeration - in fact, a gross, "absurd" exaggeration; and (b) this story was indeed spread by "enemies of communism" - specifically, the Ukrainian Nationalists who collaborated with the Nazis. They originated the fales story about the "Holodomor" after the war.(16)
Shapoval's statement should not be accepted as accurate any more than Snyder's should. Every fact-claim has to be checked. In practice this ruins his usefulness as a historian - as it does Snyder's.
~~||For Snyder's story about "Petro Veldii / Vel'dii, which occurs at this point in Bloodlands, see the Introduction||~~
Snyder Falsifies Gareth Jones's Story
Snyder praises Gareth Jones as one of "a very few outsiders" who "were able to record" something of the famine. He states that Jones boarded a train from Moscow to Khar'kiv, "disembarked at random at a small station and tramped through the countryside with a backpack full of food." He found "famine on a colossal scale." Snyder concludes his account of Jones' account as follows:
Once, after he had shared his food, a little girl exclaimed: "Now that I have eaten such wonderful things I can die happy." (47)
Snyder (n. 70 p. 466) gives his source as "New York Evening Post, 30 March 1933." According to the Gareth Jones website the only article in the New York Evening Post by Jones is the one of March 29, 1933. It does not contain this story. However, in an article published in the London (UK) Daily Express of April 6, 1933 Jones wrote:
When I shared my white bread and butter and cheese one of the peasant women said, "Now I have eaten such wonderful things I can die happy."(17)
Not "a little girl" but a peasant woman! Perhaps Snyder felt that putting these words into the mouth of "a little girl" would make the story more pathetic? Or perhaps Snyder never bothered to read the article at all? Whatever the case, it is another of Snyder's false statements.
Raphael Lemkin and the Accusation of "Soviet Genocide"
Snyder says:
Rafał Lemkin, the international lawyer who later invented the term genocide, would call the Ukrainian case "the classic example of Soviet genocide." (53)
Lemkin's view was never accepted by the United Nations Genocide Convention. Lemkin's attempts to redefine the concept of genocide to cover Soviet actions have been universally rejected.(18) So why does Snyder mention Lemkin and his long-discredited attempt to redefine genocide so as to cover the USSR? According to Anton Weiss-Wendt Lemkin's efforts received support in one corner only - that of right-wing Eastern European émigrés:
At the time when Lemkin and his ideas found little support in government offices, East European ethnic communities became Lemkin's most trusted allies. (Weiss-Wendt 555)
Lemkin became closely involved with these right-wing anticommunist groups.
Lemkin was actively involved with émigré organizations: he attended their meetings, participated in their lobbying campaigns, and even edited their public appeals. For example, on December 20, 1954, the Assembly of Captive European Nations adopted a resolution which had the following line: "Communist puppet governments have suppressed all freedoms and all human rights." Lemkin augmented that sentence by adding: "By resorting to genocide they are threatening our civilization and weaken the forces of the free world." For his planned three-volume History of Genocide Lemkin intended to write a chapter on Soviet repression in Hungary. The chapter was to be drawn from the "UN report" on the Soviet invasion of the country. (Weiss-Wendt 556)
Weiss-Wendt concludes that the term "genocide" became just another expression of Lemkin's strong anticommunism - in short, an insult:
Lemkin explicitly stated that for him "Soviet genocide" was just an expedient: "genocide is a concept that carries the highest moral condemnation in our cold war against the Soviet Union."
Snyder has to be aware of this well-known critique of Lemkin but withholds it from his readers.
Snyder: Almost No One Claimed that Stalin Meant To Starve Ukrainians To Death..."
Snyder laments that the famine "never took on the clarity of an undisputed event. Almost no one claimed that Stalin meant to starve Ukrainians to death..." (56) Indeed, "deliberate famine" was not reported at the time - but that was because the myth of the "deliberate famine" had not yet been invented! The notion of a "deliberate famine" or "Holodomor"(19) was invented by pro-Nazi, anticommunist Ukrainian nationalists after World War II. One of the earliest statements of it, if not the earliest, is in Volume 2 of The Black Deeds of the Kremlin published in Toronto in 1953. Some the coauthors of this book were complicit in the mass murder of Ukrainian Jews during the Nazi occupation and had written hair-raising anti-Semitic propaganda linking Jews with communism.(20) The same book also claims that there was no starvation outside the Ukraine - completely false, of course.
Snyder's Dishonest Attack on Walter Duranty
Snyder claims that New York Times Moscow correspondent Walter Duranty "did his best to undermine Jones's accurate reporting."
Duranty, who won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932, called Jones's account of the famine a "big scare story." Duranty's claim that there was "no actual starvation" but only "widespread mortality from diseases due to malnutrition" echoed Soviet usages and pushed euphemism into mendacity. ... Duranty knew that millions of people had starved to death. Yet he maintained in his journalism that the hunger served a higher purpose. Duranty thought that "you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs." (56)
Snyder's evidence (n. 95 p. 468): "For Duranty, see New York Times, 31 March 1933."
Snyder is wrong about Duranty and Duranty's article of March 31, 1933. Duranty did use the words "a big scare story" - but to refer to Jones' "conclusion that the country was 'on the verge of a terrific smash'." Duranty said of Jones' words to him, "nothing could shake his conviction of impending doom." This is where Duranty said he disagreed with Jones. Of course it was not Jones but Duranty who was right - the USSR did not suffer "a terrific smash."
Then Duranty goes on to say that he agreed with Jones! He wrote:
But to return to Mr Jones. He told me there was virtually no bread in the villages he had visited and that the adults were haggard, gaunt and discouraged, but that he had seen no dead or dying animals or human beings.
I believed him because I knew it to be correct not only of some parts of the Ukraine but of sections of the North Caucasus and lower Volga regions and, for that matter, Kazakstan, ...
According to Duranty Jones himself had said he had seen "no actual starvation" - that is, "no dead or dying animals or human beings." Snyder gives no evidence that "Duranty knew that millions of people had starved to death."
As for this claim of Snyder's:
Yet he maintained in his journalism that the hunger served a higher purpose. Duranty thought that "you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs."
Here is what Duranty actually wrote:
But - to put it brutally - you can't make an omelette without breaking eggs, and the Bolshevist leaders are just as indifferent to the casualties that may be involved in their drive toward socialization as any General during the World War who ordered a costly attack in order to show his superiors that he and his division possessed the proper soldierly spirit. In fact, the Bolsheviki are more indifferent because they are animated by fanatical conviction.
Snyder is deliberately deceiving his readers. There is no hint here that Duranty "maintained... that the hunger served a higher purpose." In reality Duranty explicitly stated that Bolshevik leaders were even more "indifferent to the casualties" than were commanders in WW1 who callously ordered attacks for the purposes of career advances only.
Why does Snyder go out of his way to attack this article of Duranty's when in it Duranty states plainly that he agrees with what Jones told him concerning what he, Jones, had observed; called the Bolsheviks "indifferent" to casualties; and termed them "fanatical," therefore even "more indifferent to casualties"?
The reason seems to lie in his sponsors, the Ukrainian nationalists. For some reason the Ukrainian Nationalists have tried time and again to have Duranty's Pulitzer Prize posthumously revoked on the grounds that he did not report the famine. Their latest effort of about a decade ago was unsuccessful, in large part due to the fact that Duranty's Pulitzer was for reporting done in 1931, before any famine existed, and therefore had nothing to do with anything he wrote (or did not write) about the famine later on.
Evidently, therefore, Snyder's misrepresentation of Duranty's March 31, 1933 article is simply a "tell," a signal that he is taking his cues from the Ukrainian nationalists.
Duranty was one of the New York Times Russian correspondents whose reporting on the Russian Revolution and ensuing Civil War was so anticommunist and biased that it completely distorted the truth, as determined in the famous study "A Test of the News" by Walter Lippmann and Charles Merz, published as a supplement to the August 4, 1920 edition of The New Republic. Lippmann went on to be advisor to presidents and Merz to being an editor of The New York Times. After this experience, it seems, Duranty determined to curb his anticommunist bias and report only what he himself had witnessed, as reporters are trained to do in the US.
Resolution of the Soviet of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR and the CC of the Communist Party of the Ukraine on the "Black Board"
This is the full text, the first part of which we quoted verbatim in the main part of this chapter.
No. 219
Resolution of the Council of People's Commissars [CPC] of the USSR and the Communist Party (Bolshevik) "On the inscription on the black board of villages that maliciously sabotage grain reserves."
December 6, 1932
In view of the particularly shameful failure of grain procurements in some regions of the Ukraine, the CPC and Central Committee [CC] pose before the regional executive committees and regional committees, district executive committees and regional party committees the task of breaking the sabotage of grain procurements organized by kulak and counterrevolutionary elements, of destroying the resistance of a part of the rural communists, who have become in fact agents of sabotage and eliminate passivity and conciliation towards saboteurs, which is incompatible with the title of party member, and of ensuring a rapid increase in the rate of full and unconditional implementation of the grain procurement plan.
The CPC and CC decree:
For blatant failure of the grain procurement plan and malicious sabotage organized by kulak and counterrevolutionary elements, to inscribe on the black board the following villages:
1. Verbka, Pavlograd district, Dnepropetrovsk oblast'.
2. Gavrylivka, Mezhevskii district, Dnepropetrovsk oblast'.
3. Liuten'ki, Gadiach district, Khar'kov oblast'.
4. Kamennye Potoki, Kremenchug district, Khar'kov oblast'.
5. Sviatotroitskoe, Trotskii district, Odessa oblast'.
6. Peski, Bashtanksy district, Odessa oblast'.
With regard to these villages to conduct the following activities:
1. Immediate cessation of the transport of goods, the complete cessation of cooperative and state trade in place and removal from the relevant cooperative and state stores of all available products.
2. Complete prohibition of collective farm trade for both collective farms, kolkhoz farmers, and individual farmers.
3. Termination of any kind of lending, the holding of early loan credits, and other financial obligations.
4. Verification and purging by the organs of Workers and Peasants Inspection Bureau of the cooperative and state apparatus from any kind of alien and hostile elements.
5. Verification and purging of the collective farms in these villages by removing counter-revolutionary elements and organizers disrupting grain procurements.
The CPC and CC call upon all collective farmers and individual peasants who are honest and loyal to the Soviet government to organize with all their forces for a ruthless struggle with kulaks and their accomplices in order to overcome kulak sabotage of grain procurements in their villages, for procuring an honest conscientious fulfillment of grain collection obligations to the Soviet state, and for the strengthening of the collective farms.
Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR V. Chubar
Secretary of the Communist Party (Bolshevik) of the Ukrainian SSR S. Kosior
RGASPI. F. 17. Op. 26. D. 55. L. 71-72. Certified copy
Footnotes
(1)№ 293 cc. 388-395.
(2)At http://www.archives.gov.ua/Sections/Famine/Publicat/Fam-Pyrig-1932.php#nom-126
(3)For some reason Shapoval is not cited here as author of this article.
(4)Tragediia sovetskoi derevni. T. 3. Konets 1930 - 1932. M.: ROSSPEN, 2001, p. 543.
(5)Georgiy Papakin. "Arkhivni dokumenty pro 'chorni doshky" jak znariadda radians'kogo genotsidu v Ukraini v 1932-1933 rokakh." In Golodomor 1932-1933 rokiv - Genotsid ukrains'kogo narodu. (2008), 14-28.
(6)ТСД Т. 3, cc. 562-3. The same decree in Ukrainian is widely available on the Internet.
(7)For example see http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Чорнi_дошка and http://uk.wikipedia.org/wiki/Чёрные_доски
(8)Nicolas Werth, "Staline et le stalinisme dans l'histoire." April 12, 2012.
(9)This was Balitskii's office from July 15, 1934 to May 11, 1937, according to Petrov and Skorkin, Kto rukovodil NKVD 1934-1941. Spravochnik. (Moscow, 1999)
(10)This journal is subsidized by Ukrainian nationalists. As of December, 2012 the last issue of this journal published is that of 2007. Snyder's book was published in 2010 and, presumably, written a year or more before that time. Shapoval's article has now been "forthcoming" for six years. The article is probably the same one that has now been published in a 2013 collection; see below.
(11)Cf. Свобода, No 46 п'ятниця, 14 листопада 2008 року, c. 14: «Конференцiя про Голодомор.»
(12)Yuri Shapoval, "The Holodomor. A Prolog to Repressions and Terror in the Soviet Ukraine." In After the Holodomor. The Enduring Impact of the Great Famine in Ukraine. Ed. Andrea Graziosi et al. (Cambridge, MA: Ukrainian Research Institute, 2013) 99-122.
(13)Pyrig, R. ed., Holodomor 1932-1933 rokiv v Ukraini: dokumenty i materialy (Kyiv, 2007), No. 458, pp. 631-634; No. 476, cc. 672-3.
(14)Tragediia sovetskoi derevni t.3, 634-5; Document No. 258.
(15)This postwar famine is briefly discussed in a later chapter. For the present, see Stephen G. Wheatcroft, "The Soviet Famine of 1946-1947, the Weather and Human Agency in Historical Perspective." Europe-Asia Studies 64 no. 6 (2012), 988-1005.
(16)Heorhiy Kar'ianov. Danse macabre. Holod 1932-1933 rokiv u polititsi, masoviy svidomosti ta istoriiografii (1980-ti - pochatok 2000-kh). Kiev, 2000, gives the history of the concept of the "Holodomor."
(17)The quotation is in the third column of the story.
(18)See Anton Weiss-Wendt, "Hostage of Politics: Raphael Lemkin on "Sovet Genocide." Journal of Genocide Research 7 (4) 2005, 551-559.
(19)The term "Holodomor," or "famine-death" to denote that the famine was deliberate and aimed at Ukrainians did not come into official use until the 1990s. See J.-P. Himka, "Encumbered Memory. The Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33," Kritika 14, 2 (Spring 2013), 420.
(20)(http://www.rationalrevolution.net/special/library/tottlefraud.pdf) See Douglas Tottle. Fraud, Famine, and Fascism. The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard (Toronto, Canada: Progress Books, 1987), Appendix: "From Third-Reich Propagandist to Famine-Genocide Author," outlining the career of Olexa Hay-Holowko.
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