Italian Scholar on Holodomor – Annual Ukrainian Famine Lecture

By Daniel Fedorowycz

 “In the mind of Stalin, the national and the peasant question....were one and the same,” remarked Andrea Graziosi of the University of Naples, on November 17, 2009, at the Annual Ukrainian Famine Lecture in Toronto. In his presentation entitled “The Holodomor and the Soviet Famines, 1931–­­­1933,” Graziosi discussed the relations between the pan-Soviet 1931–1933 famines, and special phenomena such as the Kazakhstan famine-cum-epidemics of 1931–1933 and the Ukrainian-Kuban Holodomor of late 1932 to early 1933. The event was sponsored by the Canadian Foundation for Ukrainian Studies, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress (Toronto Branch), the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, and the Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine.

Beginning on an optimistic note, Graziosi stated that the progress over the last twenty years in Holodomor studies has been immense.  With the partial opening of Soviet archives after the fall of the USSR, a flood of new research has left no one in the academic world denying that there was a famine in 1932–1933 in Ukraine.  The debate has now shifted to whether or not this famine was an act of genocide, or whether it was the unplanned result of Soviet anti-peasant policies under Stalin’s regime which were not aimed at a specific nationality. The speaker was unequivocal in his opinion that it was genocide, that the facts are clear, and that their sheer strength should convince people. 

Graziosi brought attention to the fact that there was an unplanned famine in 1931 due to ideologically inspired policies of collectivization and excessive grain requisition.  This resulted in pockets of famines throughout the Soviet Union, especially in grain-producing regions, such as Ukraine.  This pan-Soviet famine is not to be confused with the Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932–1933.  Furthermore, according to Graziosi, the famine in Kazakhstan, which claimed some 35 to 38 percent of the population, was the result of the technocratic idea of settling nomads in a country lacking resources.  There was no political plan per se to destroy the Kazakhs. 

What made Ukraine different and unique was its extremely strong opposition to forced collectivization launched in the 1930s, bringing back memories of the resistance that temporarily drove out the Bolshevik government from Ukraine in 1919.  Graziosi referred to official OGPU documents, in which the head of the Ukrainian security services, Vsevolod Balitsky, clearly wrote in a report that the revolts happening in 1930 were occurring in the same villages as in 1919, as well as under Tsarist rule in 1905 and 1906. 

According to Graziosi, in Stalin’s mind the driving force of the Ukrainian national movement was the peasantry.  This notion provides the necessary background to understanding decisions made by Stalin in 1932.  This is because the peasantry constituted the main army of the national movement - there would be no national movement in Ukraine without wide-spread peasant support.  Referring to mortality rates in the countryside, Graziosi pointed out that in the Soviet Union the mortality rate increased from 100 per 1000 rural inhabitants in 1926, to 188 in 1933.  When comparing specific republics, however, in Ukraine the figure increases dramatically to 367.7 in 1933, while Russia’s drops to only 110–115.  Furthermore, these events must be considered against the backdrop of classified Politburo decrees in 1932, stating that “Ukrainization” was a mistake, because it gradually resulted in an increasingly nationally conscious Ukrainian population.  Consequently, Ukraine was the only republic in which the process of “korenizatsiia” (indigenization) was reversed completely and in 1933–1934, the decision was made to purge a large part of the Ukrainian intelligentsia and party members who advocated and led “Ukrainization.”  This also explains the disproportionately low number of ethnic Ukrainians eradicated during the Great Purge of 1937–1938, since most had already been purged a few years earlier.

In Graziosi’s opinion, trying to get world-wide political recognition of the Holodomor as an act of genocide is an uphill battle that may never be won, even though the Famine clearly falls under the United Nation’s definition of genocide.  This is due to the fact that the term “genocide” is not a historical category, but instead is a legal term with considerable legal and political meaning. This is especially significant for Russia, the legal heir of the Soviet Union, which (in the speaker’s opinion) is unlikely to ever risk the potential consequences of acknowledging the Holodomor as genocide.

Graziosi concluded on an inspiring note, urging all young scholars to embrace the task of studying the hundreds of volumes of documents now available on the Holodomor, that have yet to be read.  He continued by suggesting that the study of the Holodomor should shift, at least in part, away from the causes, and instead should start examining the effects of this tragic episode in Ukrainian history.  What was the situation in Ukrainian villages after the Holodomor?  How did they mourn the deaths? What was the psychology and religious mentality of the peasants?   Following the reversal of “Ukrainization” and the re-introduction of “Russification” after 1933, will the Ukrainian language and culture bear the imprint of this period for a long time?  These are just a few of the unanswered questions waiting to receive the attention they deserve. 

For an audio recording of Professor Graziosi’s lecture, visit the Petro Jacyk Program for the Study of Ukraine Web site at http://www.utoronto.ca/jacyk/ (link to Multi Media Archive).

Daniel Fedorowycz in an M.A. student, Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the University of Toronto.