2024 © eng: genocide-copyright
For a long time Ukrainians kept silent about genocide 1932-1933, denied, detracted the scale of losses. The prohibition of the truth about Holodomor, which has always lived in the memory of those who survived, existed for more than half a century. The forth coming of the Soviet Union collapse, the active actions of Ukrainians in emigration and the courage of separate individuals in Ukraine in the mid-1980s became the beginning of the restoration of justice.
In 1986, the book of the British scientist Robert Conquest "The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Holodomor" was published. During this period, the policy of "publicity" was conducted in the USSR, which gave an opportunity to speak publicly about Holodomor. The first secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, Shcherbytskiy, officially acknowledged the fact of the famine 1933 in 1987. However, in the last years of the USSR existence, the Soviet authorities widely denied the artificial nature of the Holodomor, talking about the all-Union famine and tragedy of all the peoples of the USSR. Despite this, on April 22, 1988, in the Congress of the United States were presented the results of the US Commission on the Famine in Ukraine: "Joseph Stalin and his entourage committed an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people in 1932-1933."
In 1991, Ukraine came out of the USSR, and in 1992, the President of the UNR in exile, Mykola Plavlyuk, passed to the President of Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, a document which stated that the Ukrainian Independent State was the successor of the Ukrainian People's Republic. With the restoration of Ukrainian state independence in 1991, the memory about the Holodomor was also returned. On November 28, 2006, the Parliament of Ukraine adopted a law which recognized the Holodomor 1932-1933 as genocide of the Ukrainian people. On January 13, 2010, the Kyiv Court of Appeal made a decision in a criminal case on the fact of genocide in Ukraine in 1932-1933, which stated: " By the body of pre-trial investigation with all fullness and comprehensiveness was established the special intention of Stalin (Dzhugashvili) J.V., Molotov (Scryabin) V. M., Kaganovich L. M., Postyshev P. P., Kosior S.V., Chubar V. Y. and Khatayevich M. M. – the destruction of the part of the Ukrainian (and not any other) national group, and it was objectively proved that the intention concerned the Ukrainian national group as such. "
Today, the supporters of the Soviet Union are reducing the scale of Holodomor losses, by claiming that some people died from natural factors, that it was the hypothetical number of people who would die in the absence of hunger. Unfortunately, the Holodomor really happened. While moving this version the other fact is being denied - almost all the population of Ukraine was struck by hunger and malnutrition, which weakens the body and accelerates death. This point of view denies the genocidal nature of the murder of a part of the Ukrainian nation.
The world needs to know the truth about the Holodomor, because this knowledge will prevent tragedies like that in the future. As the world experience proves, the denial of genocides, the neglect of them is extremely dangerous.
Today, the biggest objection of the Holodomor is heard from the Russian Federation, saying that the famine killed not only Ukrainians in Ukraine but also Russians, Kazakhs, Tatars and others in the USSR, and if the famine of 1932-1933 on the territory of the Russian Federation wasn’t genocide, then the famine in Ukraine, also, can’t be claimed as genocide. This statement is false and has a purpose to impose a distorted interpretation of historical events on Ukrainians and the world community, which is a hidden form of denial of Ukraine's state independence. The qualification of the Holodomor as a crime of genocide in no way denies the criminal nature of the actions of Soviet authorities against other nationalities of the USSR. Ukraine doesn’t oppose the commemoration of the victims of the Stalinist regime and condemns the crimes of Stalinism.
The aggressive denial of the Holodomor by Russia causes great concern. Russian policy of "the Russian Peace" today kills and inflicts new suffering on the Ukrainian nation. There is a growing sense in the Ukrainian society that the crimes in the Donbas will be ignored and unpunished like the Holodomor. There is a warning about that, whether the "Russian Peace" will be implemented through the genocide of the Ukrainian nation?
Denial or deliberate underestimation of the past crimes is a continuation of deception. The open recognition of these crimes provides the basis for democratic changes in the world in which there will be no place for such crimes as Holodomor.
