in which it was included would culminate in the destruction of the Bolshevik system in the Ukraine.

And my parents hoped that perhaps I didn’t have to go to school in Soviet schools, which turned children into conformists. But because it turned out that Moscow suc¬ceeded in squelching the resistance in Ukraine, it actually safeguarded the regime that it overthrew during the revolution. These were your two questions, am I correct?
Mr. MARCHISHIN: Now where did the people come from?
Dr. STROKATA (through interpreter): These people who went from door to door came only from the village and from no other place. There was no town in the entire Ukraine that had hunger as severe as the villages.
Mr. MARCHISHIN: Thank you.
Congressman MICA: Any other questions from Commissioners? Dr. KUROPAS: Yes, I have a question.
From your testimony, I have the impression that you believe that hunger is an ongo¬ing problem in the Ukraine, which has been going on as long as the Soviets have been around. You also suggest that hunger is a weapon used by the Soviet regime to im¬press the people.
Now recently, I’m sure you are aware, there have been many Soviet commentators who have said that under Mr. Gorbachev there have been dramatic changes and that the Soviet Union will never return to what it was, because the changes are so dramatic. My question to you is, based on your reading of the Soviet press and based on your understanding of what is happening in the Soviet Union now, is there anything in all of that that suggest to you that, indeed, the Soviet Union will never again use hunger as a weapon or that hunger will not be a continuing problem within the Soviet Union?
Dr. STROKATA (through interpreter): Gorbachev has undertaken reforms, not be¬cause he is an incredibly progressive leader, but because the country as a whole, the U.S.S.R., has paused before an abyss which could bring their whole system toppling down, and this is the economic crisis, technical crisis, scientific, problems of free-think¬ing, and the national problem.

In addition, such phenomenon as alcoholism and problems with narcotics, and the total ineffectuality in battling these issues has caused the entire nation to be faced with such questions. All the technology that they have, they have to import from the West, and much of this technology is gotten by means of spying and this is not such a simple way of getting technology.

A significant proportion of the population, alcoholism, and other problems, gives fewer people —or the yield—the soldiers, there are fewer soldiers as a result of these problems. In Afghanistan, in the conditions of war in Afghanistan, this is also a very serious problem among the young. And again, the question, how are we going to feed the population?

So, circumstances forced Gorbachev to undertake certain reforms, changes. But the system is not going to change. Insofar as that system will remain, so will the condi¬tions in the entire Soviet Union and therefore also in the Ukraine. What they write about now in the papers, people were afraid to talk even among themselves in the privacy of their own rooms. This does not signify true openness. This is simply a trick to make people think that they are free to say and write anything they wish.