48 Replies to “The Ukrainian Famine: Stalin’s Enforced Starvation of Millions”

  4. @ Fred:
    Gave that book to my son, as part of his ‘educational supplement’.
    Invariably, the ‘compassion of the left’ will kill you.
    NY Times Duranty, suggestion “they are only Russians” when he admitted as many as 10 million died, is grotesque in the extreme.
    Cheers
    Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
    1st Saint Nicolaas Army
    Army Group “True North”

  5. An understated atrocity. Yet socialism is considered okay in our schools. Respectable even. Madness.
    In Edmonton we have a memorial at city hall for this mass killing.

  6. Thank you Ken. That should be shown to every school kid and politico in Canukistan.
    And THIS is EXACTLY what Soosucker,Gorebull,the eco/enviro-cultists,the Lieberals,the NDPeers, ad nauseum want for us,amd the world.

  9. Stalin’s cold blooded pogrom to eliminate the last privately owned productive land. If there is cosmic justice the bastard should be burning eternally. Back on this reality I’ll settle for memprials that paint him as satan’s most dedicated soldier. I used to think Stalin’s evil was unparalelled (even by Hitler) until I read third party reports of Mao’s land reform and political purges. These government/leaders murdered 85 millon of their own people between them.

  10. Harvest of Sorrow by Robert Conquest has been hailed by many on the left and right, and historians for its meticulous description of this atrocity perpetrated by Josef Stalin on the kulaks and others in his drive for total power.

  11. Good work Ken. This is, of course, of great interest to me because of my Ukrainian heritage.
    As mentioned in the video, accounts and references of this tragedy are still being suppressed by Putin. Many see him as an appealing figure. I don’t.
    To wit, growing grassroot protests are now sowing the seeds of dissent throughout much of the FSU.
    To me he’s a dark, dangerous chameleon and I urge western leaders not to become complacent to his demeanor and be extremely wary of this cat! He plays the media game very well.

  13. Good post,Ken.
    Ukrainian people I knew when growing up in Manitoba alluded to this, but no one paid much attention to them.
    Snagglepuss, I believe Putin is behind a lot of the unrest occurring in the Middle East today,especially anything involving Iran.
    I well remember the Cold War rhetoric of our Allied leaders,which was pooh-poohed by the “intelligentsia” of Canada in the ‘sixties.
    I think the CW rhetoric understated the case,communism has always been a menace to people who value not being sheeple,now they’ve infiltrated our system so much it’s hard to tell who the enemy is anymore.

  14. Robert, great video creation. Thank you.
    small c conservative @ 7:50, you are right it is a great addition to anyone’s library if interest in how unfettered socialism works.
    @ snagglepuss, there is a small diplomatic argument going on at the moment between the Ukraine and Russia regarding the Holodomor. The Ukraine says the man made famine was aimed at killing enough Ukrainians to prevent them from ever rebelling and becoming independent. Russia says it was Stalin’s doing.

  15. What I’ve always understood what happened was that there was no famine, but as the Ukraine didn’t want to join the USSR, Stalin just took their wheat to feed others. Worse than a famine – forced starvation.
    The numbers I’ve seen for the last century are 150 million eliminated by the left. Mao @ 70, Stalin @ 50, Hitler @ 10, Pol Pot, et al for the rest. A number the world should be reminded of daily.
    Snagglepuss – you’re right. BEWARE

  16. Despite the horrors of the Holodomor:
    “Some polls find that almost half of Russians believe that Stalin played a positive role in history and that more than 25% would definitely or probably vote for him were he alive and running for president.”
    Andrei P. Tsygankov, Program Chair, International Studies Association 2006-07 Associate Professor, International Relations / Political Science San Francisco State University
    mailman.lbo-talk.org/2006/2006-March/005751.html
    “Socialism Viewed Positively by 36% of Americans,”
    http://www.gallup.com/poll/125645/socialism-viewed-positively-americans.aspx

  18. Hey everybody. Robert put this together and you should be thanking him. I just provided him with some photo links and some photos.
    And if Kate will indulge me.
    Some excerpts from a book by my second cousin that give some flesh to Robert’s video and that I am translating into English. I have left out the last names.
    “Our father realized this and decided at that time to join the Kolchos. But it was too late, as at a meeting in April, the largest eight farmers from our village were denounced as being Kulaks. This was confirmed by everyone at the meeting. If someone abstained in the vote, he was asked why he had abstained and then warned with threats, until there was a unanimous vote. Thus the following farmers were confirmed as Kulaks: 1. David P—–, 2. Abram V—, 3. Gerhard B—-, 4. Abram P—–, 5. Jakob H—-, 6. Aron H—-, 7. Johann B—-, 8. Gerhard G—–. All were stripped of the right to vote and were not allowed to work with the others any longer.[1]
    Our father was not at home then, as on March 27th, 1930, he, Aron H—- and Gerhard B—- were arrested and sentenced to five years in a labour camp and sent into the high north where they suffered for four years. Abram V— had already been arrested in the autumn 1929. The other five were at home when the expropriation of their property took place.
    Everything was taken away from us, the cattle from the stable up to the last chicken, all the farm machinery, furniture, bed linen, table-ware, dresses and shoes, everything except what we had on our bodies. We were allowed to keep a dish, a spoon, a fork, a knife and a cup, as well as a pot, pan and a large dish for the family. We were also allowed to keep a pillow, a cover and a sheet. Our mother sat on a chair and could say nothing, when everything was listed and carried out. We children were so shocked that we could not even cry. Our brother Jakob, who was 18 years old, could not restrain himself and attacked one of the officials and was arrested because he had resisted and taken to Kitschkas. When our mother, who was well pregnant, saw this she fainted and we carried her to bed and brought her some water to drink.
    Everything that the authorities carried out was packed on the wagons and taken to the sales shop in our village. The cattle and farm equipment was handed over to the Kolkhoz.
    From page 25.
    [1] Note: It is hard to imagine that a village of M——– people who grew up and went to church together could degenerate to the extent that they would denounce their neighbours knowing it meant imprisonment and death for them.
    On the 3rd of September 1933, the verdict of the court was brought to our mother and it said that our family were enemies of the people and were to be evicted from the village. We should be taken into the mountains to a place near the village of Abramowka, where we would be left to our fate.
    Next morning the wagon with Franz T—– and Peter T——- accompanied by a government official came to take us away. We were allowed to take a spade, an axe and a bucket, but no food. I remember that mother was about to put a small bag Hirsegrütze (millet gruel) in the wagon. The official saw this and tore the bag from my mother’s hands and poured the Grütze on the ground. He missed a half bag of flour, a few potatoes, a small box with fat and salt, some cooking pots and dishes. We were allowed to take our pillows, covers and empty straw bags, the dresses that we still had. With this equipment and personal effects we drove away from the village.”
    From page 29

  19. A Tribute to Fyodor Dostoevsky: Seer/Prophet.
    “Had he lived to see it, Dostoevsky would hardly have been surprised at the mass homicide perpetrated by the Bolsheviks and Maoists, whose millions of victims included many of their own communist collaborators.”
    Dostoevsky was of Lithuanian ancestry.
    …-
    “Chronicle
    Keith Windschuttle
    January February 2012”
    “In the nineteenth century, the novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky made a prediction of his own, not as dramatic as Levin’s but just as prescient. In 1872, in his novel The Possessed (also translated as The Devils), Dostoevsky predicted the brutality and murder that would follow if his own generation of Russian revolutionaries got into power. Dostoevsky also described accurately the social milieu that bred the radicals of his era and those that followed. They were not workers, peasants or serfs, nor were they poor, uneducated and hungry. Instead, those attracted to radical politics came from the intellectual and artistic avant garde. Rather than the wretched of the earth, its members saw themselves as the cream of their society: an elite whose taste and intellect made them a superior caste, estranged from the cultural mainstream. Dostoevsky introduced the character Stepan Trofimovich Verhovensky, an occasional writer and university lecturer: “He fondly loved, for instance, his position as a ‘persecuted’ man and, so to speak, an ‘exile’. There is a sort of traditional glamour about those two little words that fascinated him once and for all and, exalting him gradually in his own opinion, raised him in the course of years to a lofty pedestal very gratifying to vanity.”
    Although most of the radicals Dostoevsky described had some religious upbringing, they had given up religion to seek a secular cause worth living for and worth dying for. They imagined themselves people of the highest ideals, and believed they were transforming humanity and the world for the better. But their rejection of religion left them unrestrained by morality, and their grand ambitions quickly led them to murder those who stood in their way. In The Devils, their first target was one of their own group who sought to abandon the cause. Had he lived to see it, Dostoevsky would hardly have been surprised at the mass homicide perpetrated by the Bolsheviks and Maoists, whose millions of victims included many of their own communist collaborators.”
    http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2012/1-2/keith-windschuttle

  21. maz2, Dostoevsky could well have been describing the avant garde environmental zealots and social justice segment of our society today.
    I recall David Suzuki saying politicians not agreeing with him should be jailed.

  22. I recall David Suzuki saying politicians not agreeing with him should be jailed
    Really, comrade welfare bum? I call bullshit.

  23. What a terrible event Ken, something unbelievable your family went through. After reading Mao by Halliday a few years back one saw the connection between the sycophant Mao and his Russian heroes, he wanted to be recognized so bad by Russian leadership, and with their help Mao, (Trudeaus hero) went about his own re-creation of hell on earth for the poor Chinese like the bastard Stalin did to the Ukraine, hell must be getting crowded now, wait till Chavez Castro and all these leftie loons wanting to jail people who disagree with them start knocking, Lucifer will be adding on.

  26. Yes of course Ken. We all appreciate Robert’s integrity and his dedication to exposing the stupidities and injustices wherever they may be found..
    But you also deserve kudos for grabbing onto this genocidal atrocity and not letting go. I know its been a constant theme of yours. Some of us could use a wakeup call and do more.
    Phil, on the other hand could use a size 12 boot to the nuts.

  27. David Suzuki said that politicians who did not agree with his stance on global warming, should be jailed. Look it up, Phil

  30. Sorry, to clarify, the link is a story about Suzuki calling to jail politicians. He was just kidding, you know, like most lefties when caught out being just plain stupid.

  32. I will also concur with the Robert Conquest reference. Once you read Harvest of Sorrow you won’t be the same… My inlaws lived through this (Mennonites, living in Ukraine in the 30’s) and their descriptions are chilling. For anyone who doubts the existence of evil, history begs to differ…

  33. For those with a stronger tolerance than I for impassive descriptions of atrocity after atrocity, I recommend The Black Book of Communism. Although I consider myself to be somewhat numbed to the evils of the world (Thanks, television!), I have trouble dealing with the recitations of the evils of Communism. What was most appalling to me was that, even if a person decided to submit without question to the authorities, that person, his family and possibly his whole village might still be targeted for abuse or extermination. The hopelessness and injustice of the political environment described was truly depressing. Depressing, but important to remember.

  34. Fred at January 10, 2012 6:55 PM:
    Read the book “Bloodlands
    I am not a dramatist, but I have long thought that, if I were, I would travel to Eastern Europe and talk to as many of those who lived through WWII as I could. The material for tragedies of people faced with choosing either the evil of Nazism or the evil of Communism or risking being targeted by both by trying not to pick a side must be limitless.
    I worry that the stories of those caught between the millstones of evil are not being sufficiently documented before they pass away. There have been a number of efforts to get personal video records of those who were victims of the Nazis. Have there been similar efforts for the victims of the Communists in Eastern Europe?

  35. And anyone who thinks it won’t happen again has not learned much from history. There will always be people that will climb over as many corpses as necessary to achieve their own vision of utopia.

  36. The surest way to achieve absolute power is to acquire a monopoly on one of the necessities of life: food, water or shelter.
    Since it is difficult to obtain such a monopoly in some societies, politicians will sometimes aim for monopolistic control of a near-necessity of life: access to healthcare.
    I’m jus’ sayin’.

  37. peterj at January 11, 2012 12:16 AM:
    There will always be people that will climb over as many corpses as necessary to achieve their own vision of utopia.
    Perhaps I am just a cynic, but I think most of those who end up in control of Communist regimes are brutes who don’t care about the creation of a utopia, unless you consider a power-hungry dictatorship a utopia.
    Trotsky and Lenin may have been murderous utopian dreamers, but Stalin was a brute.

  38. Thank-you both Robert and Ken(kulak). I hope that some of the teachers who post here will use this material in the classroom.

  39. I remember bringing up the Holodomor in high school history class and being told by the teacher that it never happened. Curious how denial of commie genocides is never ground for prosecution but daring to publically question the numbers of how many people died in German concentration camps results in one doing more time in a Canadian jail than a murderer.
    My parents viewed Churchill and Roosevelt as war criminals who should have been shot. They couldn’t believe that anyone would actually form an alliance with Stalin who was by far the greater threat. However, the victors write the history books and inconvenient truths, such as the Holodomor, are expunged from historical narratives created by the state. The death totals don’t include the millions of Ukrainians and Russians who fought against Stalin on the German side and were “repatriated” to the USSR after WWII by the British where most died. At least whoever got my high school history books after I was finished with them would learn about all the lies that were taught about WWII as I made a point of highlighting them and inserting corrections in the margins.
    Hitler’s stupidity was most evident in German handling of Ukraine where Ukrainians were classed as untermenschen instead of possible allies as the Germans were initially seen as liberators when they invaded. Sadistic Ernest, the Ukrainian UPA was a military force that fought both the Germans and Russians and prevailed for a while in Western Ukraine but finally lost to the Russians after 1945 when Kruschev put massive numbers of Russian troops into Ukraine to wipe out any remaining resistance to communism.
    My father lived in Western Ukraine, which until 1939, was occupied by Poland. Fortunately he got out in the summer of 1939 otherwise I wouldn’t be around now as most of his family ended up dying at the hands of the communists when they helped themselves to the eastern half of Poland in 1939. Thanks for putting this clip together Ken (Kulak) and Robert. This subject needs a lot more publicity and the dangers of statism need to be taught in schools. Will likely never happen as long as the vast majority of teachers are state employees.

  40. The video and the commentary on this thread have left me speechless. As a father of young children my heart rends to see images of children suffering, and I cannot fathom the widespread suffering of families during the forced starvation.
    My heart goes out to you and your family, Mr. Kulak, and all those who suffered under Stalin’s cruel hand. If nothing else, I should read Bloodlands and teach it to my children.

  41. Remind me again how Communism and Nazism are different?
    Socialism is the philosophy of communism, it’s found pillar actually.

  42. Loki says it well and knows his history.
    “The death totals don’t include the millions of Ukrainians and Russians who fought against Stalin on the German side and were “repatriated” to the USSR after WWII by the British where most died.” Exactly!
    Those Russians and Ukrainians who were turned over to Stalin also included those who left Russia and settled in western Europe after the end of the Russian Civil War.
    The book “The Minister and the Massacres” by Nikolai Tolstoy tells about Harold Macmillan’s role in turning these expatriate Russians and Ukrainians over to the Stalin. The British military commanders did not want to do this, but Macmillan overruled them. The British military commanders did manage to be able to close their eyes a bit and some of these expatriate former White Army people escaped into the fog of the war’s aftermath.

  43. I recall a fella we had work for us, when I was a kid, his english was not great.
    He was a “white russian” rounded up after Poland was over-run in 1939. He went to the gulag and then was “recruited” by the Soviets at the beginning of Bararossa. He was one of the guys who took Monte Casino.
    As far as communist attrocities, I had the sad fortune to see the Killing Fields of Cambodia…which scars my soul….
    This is why when I encounter the John Bennetts, I mentally keep them at the tip of my sword….metaphically speaking.

  44. No Holocaust museum for Ukrainians, they can throw in an appeal with the CHRC like everyone else.
    It’s not a history the left wrote into Canadian history books, therefore it never happened.
    They are lucky the UN doesn’t go in and bomb them all over again for complaining about it, well for bringing it up anyway.

  45. phil @ 10.04, here it is:
    Like I said, bullsh*t.
    Phil, on the other hand could use a size 12 boot to the nuts.
    Whenever you feel man enough.

  46. Walter Duranty, New York Times correspondence agreed with Russia/Stalin there was no famine in the Ukraine…..he won a Pulitzer Prize for his writings about the famine or as he stated there was no famine just lack of nutrition. Everyone knows he lied about the famine and the New York Slimes still wont disown his Pulitzer Prize.
    Another idiot was George Bernhard Shaw who kissed Stalin’s boots and sang his glories.
    These two are partly responsible for Stalin’s
    atrocities as they portrayed him in a favorable way and helped him gain acceptance in Europe and America.
    As-h-l-s they are forever.

  47. Got some good payback though. Ukranians joined the Waffen SS by the thousands, and made a huge contribution to the murder of millions of Jews. Edmonton used to be the home of the largest population of Nazi war criminals in North America, and they weren’t Germans. I’ll duck now.

  48. So, coach, when you take into account the number of Ukrainians murdered in Soviet death camps designed and run by Jews, who do you think came out ahead?

Proudly powered by WordPress & Skyrocket Themes

MENU

Navigation