U.S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine

The US Commission on the Ukraine Faminewas a commission set up on December 13, 1985, “to conduct a study of the 1932-1933 Ukrainian Famine in order to expand the world’s knowledge of the famine and provide the American public with a better understanding of the Soviet system by revealing the Soviet role”. Its findings were delivered to the US Congress on April 22, 1988.Soviets known what results will be prejudged and established a kind of counter-Commission at Ukrainian SSR. [ http://genocidecurriculum.org/category/curriculum-resources/general-archive/united-states-congressional-commission-on-the-ukrainian-famine/1report-to-congress ] [US Commission on the Ukraine Famine, "Investigation of the Ukrainian Famine 1932-1933: Report to Congress", United States Government Printing Office, 1988, ISBN 0160032903]

Members and Staff

*HON. DANIEL A. MICA, M.C (D-FL), Chairman
*HON. GARY L. BAUER, Assistant to the President for Policy Development
*HON. WILLIAM BROOMFIELD, M.C. (R-MI)
*SENATOR DENNIS DeCONCINI (D-AZ)
*AMBASSADOR H. EUGENE DOUGLAS, Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Government, University of Texas, Austin
*MR. BOHDAN FEDORAK, Public Member
*HON. BENJAMIN GILMAN, M.C. (R-NY)
*HON. DENNIS HERTEL, M.C. (D-MI)
*SENATOR ROBERT KASTEN (R-WI)
*SURGEON GENERAL C. EVERETT KOOP
*DR. MYRON KUROPAS, Public Member
*MR. DANIEL MARCHISHIN, Public Member
*MS. ULANA MAZURKEVICH, Public Member
*MS. ANASTASIA VOLKER, Public Member
*DR. OLEH WERES, Public Member
**STAFF OF THE COMMISSION ON THE UKRAINE FAMINE:
*DR. JAMES E. MACE, Staff Director
*DR. OLGA SAMILENKO, Staff Assistant
*MR. WALTER PECHENUK, Staff Assistant

Duties

#to study the Famine by gathering all available information about the Famine, analyzing its causes and consequences, and studying the reaction of the free world to the Famine;
#to provide interim reports to Congress;
#to provide information about the Famine to Congress, the executive branch, educational institutions, libraries, the news media, and the general public;
#to submit a final report to Congress on or before April 23,1988; and
#to terminate 60 days thereafter.

Findings

Based on testimony heard and staff research, the Commission on the UkraineFamine makes the following findings:
*1 There is no doubt that large numbers of inhabitants of the Ukrainian SSR and the North Caucasus Territory starved to death in a man-made famine in 1932-1933, caused by the seizure of the 1932 crop by Soviet authorities.:The Commission’s reasoning for this statement based on the eyewitness accounts were published before the Commission ever came into existence, which were confirmed by both testimony heard at the Commission’s hearings and hundreds of oral histories (57 and over 200 respectively) ; majority of the oral histories were collected directly by Commission staff; others were collected by Leonid Heretz as part of a pilot project which James Mace directed in 1984 under the sponsorship of the Ukrainian Professionals and Businesspersons Association of New York and New Jersey. In addition, the Ukrainian Famine Research Committee in Canada and a number of private individuals gave the Commission additional tapes which they collected. Additional evidence supporting the Famine’s historicity is found in Soviet Ukrainian samvydav (documents published without official sanction, samizdat in Russian) as well as in officially published historical fiction.
*2 The victims of the Ukrainian Famine numbered in the millions.:However, “The Commission avoided detailed demographic research.”
*3 Official Soviet allegations of "kulak sabotage," upon which all "difficulties" were blamed during the Famine, are false.:The Commission’s reasoning for this statement: If the term “kulak” is understood in its official Soviet meaning of a rural social stratum recognizably better off than other villagers, no kulaks existed by 1933. While in sources used by Commission under “kulak” in 1933 terms listed predominantly various level soviet officials, especially those within the Party, rather than peasants.
*4 The Famine was not, as is often alleged, related to drought.:The Commission’s reasoning for this statement: “In February 1932 Molotov officially acknowledged that the 1931 drought in the Volga Basin, Western Siberia, and Kazakhstan had damaged the grain crop. No such acknowledgement was made in connection with any drought that may have affected Ukraine in 1932.”
*5 In 1931-1932, the official Soviet response to a drought-induced grain shortage outside Ukraine was to send aid to the areas affected and to make a series of concessions to the peasantry.: In Commission’s documents also appeared what “On February 25, 1933, this led to a seed loan from Union stockpiles of 20,300,000 poods 63 of grain to Ukraine and another 15,300,000 poods to the North Caucasus Territory, specifically to the Kuban. According to the resolution, the reason for the loan was unfavorable weather, which had led to harvest losses in the steppe regions. Part of the grain loaned was consumed as food, given out in the fields as an incentive for working on the Spring sowing”
*6 In mid-1932, following complaints by officials in the Ukrainian SSR that excessive grain procurements had led to localized outbreaks of famine, Moscow reversed course and took an increasingly hard line toward the peasantry.:The Commission’s reasoning for this statement: “… adopted the grain procurements quota Moscow insisted on-356 million metric tons—and simultaneously called for an end to so-called leftist distortions”. While later in documents mentioned “Stalin on May 6, 1932, lowered the quotas throughout the Soviet Union, reducing Ukraine’s to 6.6 million tons. “
*7 The inability of Soviet authorities in Ukraine to meet the grain procurements quota forced them to introduce increasingly severe measures to extract the maximum quantity of grain from the peasants.:In Commission’s documents also appeared what “As a result of the backwardness of agriculture in Ukraine in 1932, there was a substantial decrease in the grain procurements. If by December 1930, 400 million poods (l pood = 36 lbs.) had been procured, and in 1931, 380 million poods, then by December 1932 the procurements constituted only 195 million poods.”
*8 In the Fall of 1932 Stalin used the resulting "procurements crisis" in Ukraine as an excuse to tighten his control in Ukraine and to intensify grain seizures further.:In Commission’s documents also appeared figures from On February 5-7 1933, Soviet Ukraine leader speech “The mere 225 million poods procured was inexcusable”
*9 The Ukrainian Famine of 1932-1933 was caused by the maximum extraction of agricultural produce from the rural population.:see two Commission’s documents above.
*10 Officials in charge of grain seizures also lived in fear of punishment.
*11 Stalin knew that people were starving to death in Ukraine by late 1932.:The Commission’s reasoning for this statement is the Pravda May 26,1964 article were Roman Terekhov, a former obkom (regional party organization) secretary in Ukraine spoke about “When in 1932, in connection with the poor harvest in Kharkiv region, it was necessary to tell Stalin about the grave situation in the villages and ask for bread to be sent to the districts”
*12 In January 1933, Stalin used the "laxity" of the Ukrainian authorities in seizing grain to strengthen further his control over the Communist Party of Ukraine and mandated actions which worsened the situation and maximized the loss of life.: In Commission’s documents also appeared what “On February 25, 1933, this led to a seed loan from Union stockpiles of 20,300,000 poods 63 of grain to Ukraine and another 15,300,000 poods to the North Caucasus Territory, specifically to the Kuban. According to the resolution, the reason for the loan was unfavorable weather, which had led to harvest losses in the steppe regions. Part of the grain loaned was consumed as food, given out in the fields as an incentive for working on the Spring sowing”
*13 Postyshev had a dual mandate from Moscow: to intensify the grain seizures (and therefore the Famine) in Ukraine and to eliminate such modest national self-assertion as Ukrainians had hitherto been allowed by the USSR.:In Commission’s documents also appeared what Pavel Postyshev, a Russian from Ivano-Voznesensk had served in Ukraine during the years of national cultural revival (1923-1930) and had even been an ardent public proponent of Ukrainization when that was the Party line.
*14 While famine also took place during the 1932-1933 agricultural year in the Volga Basin and the North Caucasus Territory as a whole, the invasiveness of Stalin's interventions of both the Fall of 1932 and January 1933 in Ukraine are parallelled only in the ethnically Ukrainian Kuban region of the North Caucasus.
*15 Attempts were made to prevent the starving from travelling to areas where food was more available. :In Commission’s documents also appeared what in the Spring of 1933 the areas where famine raged included not only the Ukrainian SSR but also Kazakhstan, the Don and Kuban areas of the North Caucasus Territory, and the Volga Basin, while American reporters reported about general lack of food and malnutrition in whole USSR by this time.
*16 Joseph Stalin and those around him committed genocide against Ukrainians in 1932-1933.:The Commission’s reasoning for this statement “One or more of the actions specified in the Genocide Convention was taken against the Ukrainians in order to destroy a substantial part of the Ukrainian people and thus to neutralize them politically in the Soviet Union. Overwhelming evidence indicates that Stalin was warned of impending famine in Ukraine and pressed for measures that could only ensure its occurrence and exacerbate its effects. Such policies not only came into conflict with his response to food supply difficulties elsewhere in the preceding year, but some of them were implemented with greater vigor in ethnically Ukrainian areas than elsewhere and were utilized in order to eliminate any manifestation of Ukrainian national self-assertion.”
*17 The American government had ample and timely information about the Famine but failed to take any steps which might have ameliorated the situation. Instead, the Administration extended diplomatic recognition to the Soviet government in November 1933, immediately after the Famine.:In Commission’s documents also appeared what “By mid-October of 1933, the existence of famine in Ukraine had been categorically confirmed by American diplomats in Riga, Latvia and Athens, Greece.” At same time Commission agreed what Famine ended with new harvest – July 1933.
*18 During the Famine certain members of the American press corps cooperated with the Soviet government to deny the existence of the Ukrainian Famine.:In Commission’s documents appeared what reporters reports rely to the situation in Soviet in general.
*19 Recently, scholarship in both the West and, to a lesser extent, the Soviet Union has made substantial progress in dealing with the Famine. Although official Soviet historians and spokesmen have never given a fully accurate or adequate account, significant progress has been made in recent months.

References