Non-Soviet Scholarship on the Ukrainian Famine
Were Solovey’s entire text ever translated into English, it would certainly be recognized as one of the major contributions to our understanding of the Famine.
In 1955 the Democratic Organization of Ukrainians Formerly Repressed by the Soviets (DOBRUS) published in often flawed English the second volume of The Black Deeds of the Kremlin: a White Book, subtitled The Great Famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933. This volume constitutes the most extensive collection of eyewitness material and documents relating to the Famine ever published in any language. It was financed by nearly 100 individuals who contributed one or two hundred dollars each. 39 The volume also contained a long introductory essay, written by Professor T. Sosnovy under the pseudonym of Petro Dolyna, called “Famine as a Political Weapon.”
Sosnovy-Dolyna saw the Famine as deliberately organized by the central Soviet authorities in Moscow to overcome a systematic refusal by the Ukrainian peasantry and that of the North Caucasus to carry out the government’s orders in agriculture. It was, in short, an “anti-collective bread strike.” These authorities responded by carrying out a “plan of starving the Ukrainian peasants, thus bringing them to their knees, and ending forever all ideas of small holdings and individual proprietorship”. 40 According to Sosnovy-Dolyna,
In order to carry out the planned famine, as part of the campaign, a whole series of decrees and measures were put into effect in the latter part of 1932 and early 1933…
A series of laws enacted at that time were formally directed against the peasant class of the USSR as a whole. But in effect, as events progressed and showed, their point was directed against the Ukrainian peasants. This was a logical consequence not only of the new course set by Moscow against Ukraine in the 1930s in connection with the development of imperialist tendencies by Moscow, but also with the obviously tough opposition to collectivization by peasants of Ukraine, regardless of their territorial location.
Planning the famine, the government was well aware that starving peasants would in desperation, and in order to survive, go after collective property, mainly food products. Therefore, well in advance, on August 7,1932, a decree was issued on the protection of socialist property.
The main idea of this decree was that “common property, i.e., government, collective or cooperative property is sacred and that people who are tempted to take such property are to be considered common enemies; therefore, it is the prime duty of the government organs of the Soviet authorities to lead in a firm fight against pilfering.” (Pravda, August 8,1932).
On the basis of these principles the Central Committee of the Party and the government decided: To identify in point of importance collective property with government property and augment the protection of this property from malefactors. Applying different standards of court procedure and law against the theft of collective and cooperative property by reason of social necessity—execution by firing squad and confiscation of all property, with an alternative, under mitigating circumstances, of no less than 10 years penal servitude and confiscation of property. No amnesty would apply to felons convicted of theft of collective or cooperative property.”
This decree raised the wave of terror to unheard of heights. Everyone fell under the persecution…
In order to expedite the fight against all enemies of the “collective order” and to combat theft of “socialist property,” the Commissariat of Justice (Moscow) created the new post
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39 S. O. Pidhainy, V. I. Hryshko, P. P. Pavlovych, eds., The Black Deeds of the Kremlin: a White Book. Vol II: The Great Famine in Ukraine in 1932-1933 (Toronto-Detroit, SUZERO-DOBRUS, 1955). This book was also issued in Spanish.
40 Petro Dolyna (T. Sosnovy), “Famine as a Political Weapon,” The Black Deeds of the Kremlin, vol. II, pp. 29-31.