MATERIALS SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD
POLITICAL CAUSES OF THE FAMINE-GENOCIDE IN UKRAINE
1932-1933
Volodymyr Kosyk
(Historian, Paris)

Ukraine, which had been a sovereign state for three years, lost its independence in November 1920 as a result of Russian Soviet aggression. Existing at first as a sup¬posedly “independent” Soviet republic, it was incorporated into the Soviet Union which was created by the Russian Communist Party of Bolsheviks in December 1922. (Of 2215 delegates that supported the decision to create the U.S.S.R., 2,092 delegates -with an overwhelming majority being Russians-were party members; in 1922, Uk¬rainians constituted only 3% of the membership).

The years 1923-1928 were marked by an easing up of the economic regime (period of N.E.P.:: New Economic Policy), and by efforts at Ukrainianization. This was a period when even official literature indicated that Ukrainian authors should turn away from Moscow and turn to Europe (M. Khvyliovyi), and that, like before the revolution, the Ukrainian economy was still in a colonial state; there was no advantage, therefore, in Ukraine being a member of the U.S.S.R. (M. Volobuyev). Outside Ukraine’s bor¬ders, an active Ukrainian government-in-exile sought out allies among western powers with the intention of helping Ukraine re-establish her independence.

But Russia remained a powerful adversary to Ukraine’s independence. She did not want to lose Ukraine’s natural wealth and resources. In 1925-26, Ukraine’s input into the Soviet Union’s productivity was large: 81% coal, 68% iron ore, 77% cast iron, and 82% sugar. In 1927, Ukraine contributed 80% coal, 85% iron ore, 70% metals and played a vital role in machinery manufacturing and in providing raw materials to a wide range of food processing and light industries in the U.S.S.R.1

Moscow did everything within its power to prevent Ukraine from separating from the Soviet Union. At the 10th All-Ukrainian Congress of Soviets (April 6-13, 1927), the head of the Peoples’ Commissars of the Ukrainian S.S.R., Vlas Chubar, reminded the meeting that, There are some who attempt to separate Ukraine from the Union. During the first half of 1927, the tension between Russian and the western powers be¬came sharpened. As a result of Anglo-Soviet diplomatic incidents in China and Lon¬don, and because of the Communist International supported the English coal strikes,

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1 Rozvytok narodnoho hospodarstva ukraindkoi R.S.R.,, 1917-1967 (Development of Commerce and Industry in the Ukrainian S.S.R., 1917-1967), vol 1. Kiev, 1967, p. 274; Istoriya robitnychoho klasu ukr. R.S.R. (History of the Working Class of the Ukrainian S.S.R.), vol 2. Kiev, 1967, p. 134.

2 Ukraina i zarubizhniy svit (Ukraine and the Foreign World). Kiev, 1970, p. 220