Chapter 2

In general, it became difficult to find more than a passing reference to the Famine when an author mentioned it in order to explain something else. For example, the Russian Soviet ethno-demographer, V. I. Kozlov, explained the fact that the number of Ukrainians and Kazakhs in the USSR declined precipitously in the period between 1926 and 1939:

Judging by certain isolated bits of data, the lowering of the mortality rate in the period of reconstruction of the people’s economy slackened a bit and in some regions of the country proceeded according to an uneven tempo. Thus, the loss of cattle in Kazakhstan in 1930 and the harvest failure of 1932 in Ukraine probably even caused a very temporary rise in mortality.

At another point, however, he added:

The lower rate of growth of Ukrainians could be explained by the lowering of its natural growth rate (especially in Ukraine in the early 1930s); the decline in their number was obviously caused by the fact that significant population groups in the South and in other districts of the European RSFSR, who declared themselves to be Ukrainians at the time of the 1926 census, were actually in a condition of ethnic transition and identified themselves as Russians in the 1939 census. 53

Kozlov made no attempt to differentiate between these two factors governing the number of Ukrainians in the Soviet Union in 1926-1939.

Thereafter, when Soviet historiography cited errors and excesses, it was usually only in reference to the initial phase of collectivization, with the explanation to the effect that the party itself exposed and overcame the errors in the aftermath of Stalin’s March 1930 denunciation of distortions.

In the 1980s, however, Western research made it impossible for the Soviets to ignore the Famine. It was first revived in the consciousness of Soviet diplomats. Soviet representatives in the West, who periodically were confronted with the issue, felt obliged to answer questions raised by Western scholars. On April 28,1983, the Soviet Embassy in Canada issued a press release, “On the So-Called ‘Famine’ in the Ukraine,” which denied that there had been a famine, only difficulties, mainly because of drought. Despite the fact that the majority of Ukrainian peasants had enthusiastically supported collectivization, the embassy claimed, wealthy peasants called kulaks had opposed it and committed acts of terrorism and sabotage. Yet, “Of course, many families were badly affected, some did suffer, especially those whose villages or sons were murdered by kulak bandits. Some villages felt a terrible strain after their grain reserves were burned, or cattle poisoned. Nevertheless, the whole picture in the Ukraine was not that of a nearly complete collapse with a smell of a nationwide tragedy as it is portrayed by the most zealous of the anti-Soviet writers in the media in Canada. On the contrary, the atmosphere of vigorous work and unparalleled enthusiasm prevailed as the nation embarked on great economic and social programs” 54

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52 V. I. Kozlov, Natsional’nosti SSSR: etnodemograficheskii obzor (The Nationalities of the USSR: an Ethno-Demographic Survey) (Moscow, Statistika, 1975), p. 153.

53 Ibid,p.251.

54 Press Office of the USSR Embassy in Canada, “On the So-Called Famine* in the Ukraine,” News Release No. 60, April 28,1983, pp. 2-3.