Ukraine: The politics of hunger

16 Jan 2008 | Comment

The battle over the legacy of the Ukranian famine threatens to divide the country, writes Michael Foley

So often that which politicians hope will unite their countries does exactly the opposite. The legacy of the famines which devasted Ukraine in the 1930s might do just that. Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko is to campaign internationally for the famine, or the Holodomor, as it is called in Ukrainian, that killed possibly as many as 10 million people in 1932-3 to be recognised by the United Nations as genocide. Mr Yushkenko is hoping to complete his task by November, 2008, to mark 75th anniversary of the Holodomor.

In November last year a law was tabled in the Ukrainian parliament in November making it illegal to deny the Holodomor.

The famine of 1932 and 1933 was a man-made one. Unlike, for instance, the Irish Famine of the 1840s, no crops failed. The Holodomor was the result of Stalin’s farm collectivisation programme. When in 1932 the grain harvest did not meet imposed targets, Communist party activists travelled to Ukraine’s villages and confiscated all the grain and bread, and all other foodstuffs, ensuring starvation. Watchtowers were erected in order to make sure no peasants tried to take a few ears of corn.

The confiscations continued into 1933, with devastating results. It is uncertain how many died, and most Ukrainians knew little of the famine due to the extreme secrecy of the Soviet period, but with records now open and historical investigations taking place, it is believed as many as 10 million people may have perished.

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