At 4 p.m. this Saturday, Ukrainians will honor the memories of millions of victims of three Soviet-engineered terror-famines, the most devastating of which began 75 years ago with the Great Famine of 1932-33.
The government is urging Ukrainians to light a candle in honor of the victims of Soviet repressions and place it on their windowsills as a sign of solidarity. Memorial services will be held nationwide and around the world.
Ukraine’s political and religious elites have largely recognized the Holodomor as genocide. Even the head of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church – Moscow Patriarchate, Volodymyr Sabodan, did not mince words when he wrote in an encyclical last year that “this genocide was an attempt to destroy the very soul of the people, to spiritually enslave the people.” He used words like “hell, diabolic, anti-Christ” to describe Soviet rule. Thus, all four major Ukrainian Christian prelates agree that the Holodomor was genocide – a rare instance of ecumenical consensus among church leaders.
All three of Ukraine’s presidents since independence agree that the Holodomor was genocide. President Leonid Kravchuk drove the final nail into the coffin of the Kremlin-sponsored “bad weather and harvest” disinformation campaign regarding the Holodomor in his autobiography. Kravchuk, who as a Communist ideologue was responsible for denying the Holodomor in the 1980s, proved that rainfall levels were normal in 1932-33.
President Leonid Kuchma was the first to ask the world to recognize the Holodomor as genocide in 2003. The declassification of State Security Service archives began in the last years of Kuchma’s rule, a process that is continuing by leaps and bounds under President Viktor Yushchenko today.
Since 2003, Ukraine’s parliament has twice voted on condemning the Holodomor as genocide. Both times the votes passed with slim majorities with the support of the Socialist Party, which was hesitant, but whose ties to the countryside made it impossible to deny the truth.
The Communists aside, the only hold-out on the genocide issue is the Party of Regions, led by Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych. If Ukraine’s efforts to secure international recognition are to be successful, then this political force must add its voice to the condemnation. We hope to see this party’s leaders standing with the president and other national leaders on St. Michael’s Square Saturday to honor the victims.
As for Moscow’s recognition of the genocide, while Ukraine has made significant progress in dealing with its Soviet past, Russian leaders are still in a state of denial, or defensive paranoia. No one is blaming Russia’s current leadership or the Russian people for the Holodomor. Rather, it is the Kremlin’s former rapacious leaders who are to blame. Yet, the Kremlin’s current leadership has stubbornly opposed recognizing the genocide, labeling it as fear-mongering with Kyiv roots.
Last week’s attack on a Holodomor exhibit in Moscow and the Russian Foreign Ministry’s subsequent accusations that political forces are “speculating” on the famine, are signs that the Kremlin still prefers to look at its record through rose-colored glasses. In fact, the Kremlin’s record is blood-colored, and the sooner Russian society recognizes that fact, the better.
The Kremlin’s claim that Ukraine is somehow trying to monopolize the Soviet terror-famine is essentially recognizing that Ukraine has done a far better job in shedding light on the darkest episodes of Soviet rule. Instead of criticizing Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin should open up Russian Federation archives on the terror years. There is no denying that the Soviets forced famines in other regions of Eurasia in the 1930s, including areas of modern-day Russia and Kazakhstan. But the campaign within the closed borders of Ukraine was ruthless in its efficiency and organization and targeted the rural population that was primarily Ukrainian.
The histories of all Soviet forced famines need to be addressed the same way the Holodomor has been handled in Ukraine. From Russia, Kuban to Kazakhstan, the bitter truth deserves to be known.
Ultimately, promoting awareness of the crimes of Communism is in the national interests of Ukraine and Russia. Given Russia’s current denial, Yushchenko has rightfully appealed to other countries to recognize the famine as genocide, one that Kremlin spin doctors and powerbrokers can’t deny. We call upon the world’s leaders to recognize the genocidal nature of the famine and, in doing so, help break the information blockade isolating the Russian people.
