Holodomor in modern politics

On May 15, 2003, the Ukrainian parliament of Ukraine also passed a resolution declaring the famine of 1932 and 1933 to be an act of genocide, deliberately organized by the Soviet government against the Ukrainian nation.[46]

In 2006, the Security Service of Ukraine declassified more than 5,000 pages of Holodomor archives which suggest that the Soviet regime gave Ukraine less humanitarian aid than other famine-struck regions.[47][48]

On November 28, 2006, the parliament passed a resolution recognizing the Holodomor as an act of genocide against the "Ukrainian people" and criminalizing both Holodomor denial and Holocaust denial. Supporting the bill were BYuT (118 deputies), NSNU (79), Socialists (30), 4 independent deputies, and the Party of Regions (2). Opposing the bill were KPU. 200 deputies did not cast a vote. In all, 233 deputies supported the bill, which was more than the minimum of 226 votes required to pass it into law.[49][50][51]

In 2007, President Viktor Yushchenko declared he wanted "a new law criminalising Holodomor denial", including the designation of the Holodomor as genocide or not, but such a law has never been adopted.[52] Communist Party head Petro Symonenko accused Yushchenko of "using the famine to stir up hatred" and stated he "does not believe there was any deliberate starvation at all".[53] Few in Ukraine share Symonenko's interpretation of history and the number of Ukrainians who deny the famine or view it as caused by natural reasons is steadily falling.[54]

On 12 January 2010, the court of appeals in Kyiv opened hearings into the "fact of genocide-famine Holodomor in Ukraine in 1932–33". In May 2009, the Security Service of Ukraine started a criminal case "in relation to the genocide in Ukraine in 1932–33".[55] In a ruling of January 13, 2010, Kyiv's Court of Appeal recognized the leaders of the totalitarian Bolshevik regime as those guilty of 'genocide against the Ukrainian national group in 1932-33 through the artificial creation of living conditions intended for its partial physical destruction.'"[56] The court dropped criminal proceedings against the leaders: Stalin, Vyacheslav Molotov, Lazar Kaganovich, Stanislav Kosior, Pavel Postyshev, Vlas Chubar and others, who all had died years before. This decision became effective on 21 January 2010.[57]

The Russian Federation officially says that the Holodomor is not an ethnic genocide.

The lower house of parliament passed a resolution in 2008 stating that the Holodomor should not be considered genocide:[58]

There is no historical proof that the famine was organized along ethnic lines. Its victims were millions of citizens of the Soviet Union, representing different peoples and nationalities living largely in agricultural areas of the country.

The Russian Federation condemned the Soviet regime's "disregard for the lives of people in the attainment of economic and political goals", along with "any attempts to revive totalitarian regimes that disregard the rights and lives of citizens in former Soviet states" yet stated that "there is no historic evidence that the famine was organized on ethnic grounds." [59]

Russian politician Mikhail Kamynin has claimed that Russia is against the politicisation of the Holodomor, and this question is for historians, not politicians.[60] Simultaneously the vice-speaker of the Russian State Duma, Lyubov Sliska, when asked in Kyiv when Russia would apologize for its part in repressions and famines in Ukraine, replied, "why always insist that Russia apologize for everything? The people whose policies brought suffering not only to Ukraine, but to Russia, Belarus, peoples of the Caucasus, and Crimean Tatars, remain only in history textbooks, secret documents and minutes of meetings."[60]

Ukrainian mass media censured Evgeny Guzeev, the Consul-General of the Russian Federation in Lviv, who stated that "the leaders of the period were sensible people, and it is impossible to imagine that this was planned."[61]

Kyiv Post believes that Russia contests the recognition of the famine as a genocide is because "as the Soviet Union's legal successor, Russia is also concerned about the possibility of legal action or having to pay reparations."[62]

On November 17, 2007 members from Aleksandr Dugin's Russian nationalist group the Eurasian Youth Union broke into the Ukrainian cultural center in Moscow and smashed an exhibition on the famine.[63]

According to a Moscow Times article: "The Kremlin argues that genocide is the killing of a population based on their ethnicity, whereas Stalin's regime annihilated all kinds of people indiscriminately, regardless of their ethnicity. But if the Kremlin really believed in this argument, it would officially acknowledge that Stalin's actions constituted mass genocide against all the people of the Soviet Union."[64]

The United States government authorized the building of the Holodomor Memorial to Victims of the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide of 1932–1933 in Washington D.C. in 2006. [lower-alpha 10]

The United States Senate also adopted a non-binding resolution on 3 October 2018 recognising the Holodomor as genocide. The resolution reads that the Senate "recognizes the findings of the Commission on the Ukraine Famine as submitted to Congress on April 22, 1988, including that...'Stalin and those around him committed genocide against the Ukrainians in 1932–1933'". As of January 2021, The United States Senate,[65][66][67] House of Representatives,[68][69][70] and multiple state governments[71][72][73] have recogized the famine as man-made and as an act of genocide.

The conference on "Recognition and Denial of Genocide and Mass Killing in the 20th Century" held at City University of New York on 13 November 1987 concluded that millions died in Soviet Ukraine during a famine in 1932–33 and that the famine was both man-made and widely known. The United States Government Commission investigating the famine concluded this was part of the central government's attack on Ukrainian nationality and culture. The United States received reports about the famine from diplomatic contacts in Europe. The conference concluded that political considerations regarding the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union played a role in not publicly sharing the information. The conference also found that leading American journalists working in the Soviet Union knowingly distorted or omitted information about the famine.[74]

According to the US Government Commission on the Ukrainian Famine,[11] the seizure of the 1932 crop by the Soviet authorities was the main reason for the famine. The US commission stated that "while famine took place during the 1932–1933 agricultural year in the Volga Basin and the North Caucasus Territory as a whole, the invasiveness of Stalin's interventions of both the Fall of 1932 and January 1933 in Ukraine are paralleled only in the ethnically Ukrainian Kuban region of the North Caucasus".

The Holodomor Memorial

In 2006, the United States govenment enacted Public Law 109-340 authorizing the establishment of a memorial to victims of the "famine-genocide". The law was passed by the 109th Congress and singed into law by President George W. Bush and states, "the Government of Ukraine is authorized to establish a memorial on Federal land in the District of Columbia to honor the victims of the Ukrainian famine-genocide of 1932–1933."[lower-alpha 10] The Holodomor Genocide Memorial was opened in Washington, D.C., on November 7, 2015.[lower-alpha 11]

Officially named The Holodomor Memorial to Victims of the Ukrainian Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933, the memorial is a joint project between the United States and the Ukrainian government. The memorial is operated by the National Park Service. The inscription on the memorial reads, "Famine-Genocide in Ukraine. In memory of the millions of innocent victims of a man-made famine in Ukraine engineered and implemented by Stalin’s totalitarian regime."[lower-alpha 12]

On 10 November 2003, the Ukrainian ambassador to the United Nations presented a Joint declaration at the United Nations in connection with 70th anniversary of the Great Famine in Ukraine 1932–1933 to the UNGA. It was signed by 25 member delegations, and by the end of the month the list of signatories grew to 36, plus the European Union.[85][86][87] The preamble:[88]

In the former Soviet Union millions of men, women and children fell victims to the cruel actions and policies of the totalitarian regime. The Great Famine of 1932–1933 in Ukraine (Holodomor), took from 7 million to 10 million innocent lives and became a national tragedy for the Ukrainian people. In this regard, we note activities in observance of the seventieth anniversary of this Famine, in particular organized by the Government of Ukraine. Honouring the seventieth anniversary of the Ukrainian tragedy, we also commemorate the memory of millions of Russians, Kazakhs and representatives of other nationalities who died of starvation in the Volga River region, Northern Caucasus, Kazakhstan and in other parts of the former Soviet Union, as a result of civil war and forced collectivisation, leaving deep scars in the consciousness of future generations.

Valeriy Kuchinsky, the chief Ukrainian representative, claimed that the declaration that the Holodomor was a result of the politics of the totalitarian Soviet regime was a compromise, between the position of the Ukrainian government to recognize the Holodomor as genocide, and the positions of the Russian, British, and American governments to not.[61]

Subsequent declarations on significant anniversary dates have recalled the 2003 statement as well as the 2007 UNESCO resolution.

The United Nations General Assembly has not recognized the Holodomor as a genocide.[89]

Declarations accepted by the United Nations General Assembly

• 2003, 10 November: Joint statement on the seventieth anniversary of the Holodomor of 1932–1933 in Ukraine (signed by 36 UNGA members)[86][87][lower-alpha 13]
• 2008, 16 December: Declaration on the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Holodomor of 1932–1933 in Ukraine (32 members)[90][lower-alpha 14]
• 2013, 12 December: Joint statement on the eightieth anniversary of the Holodomor of 1932–1933 in Ukraine (32 members)[91][lower-alpha 15]
• 2018, 11 December: Declaration on the eighty-fifth anniversary of the Holodomor of 1932–1933 in Ukraine (38 members)[23][92][lower-alpha 16]

At the 2007 General Conference of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 193 member delegations unanimously passed a resolution "On Remembrance of Victims of the Great Famine (Holodomor) in Ukraine". The November 1 statement recalled the 2003 UN Joint Statement, expressed sympathy, welcomed and encouraged members to participate in the upcoming 75th-anniversary commemorations, and requested the Director-General to promote awareness of the Holodomor.[93][94][95]

The final report of the Ukrainian World Congress's International Commission of Inquiry Into the 1932–33 Famine in Ukraine, delivered to the United Nations Under-Secretary for Human Rights in Geneva on May 9, 1990, concluded that the famine in Ukraine was, in fact, genocide. At same time the commission majority (5 of 6) deems it plausible that the constituent elements of genocide were in existence at the time of the famine. Commission is unable to affirm the existence of a preconceived plan to organize a famine in Ukraine, in order to ensure the success of Moscow policies.[96][97]

In 2007, the Baltic Assembly issued a statement, On Commemorating the Victims of Genocide and Political Repressions Committed in Ukraine in 1932 and 1933, "condemning the genocide and political repressions committed in 1932 and 1933 as a result of which the Ukrainian people experienced mental and physical sufferings".[98]

On 3 July 2008 the Parliamentary Assembly of Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe passed the resolution condemning the Ukrainian famine acknowledging the direct responsibility of the Soviet action. The resolution called upon all parliaments to take measures on recognition of the fact of Holodomor in Ukraine but fell short of recognizing it as an act of genocide as requested by the document prepared by the Ukrainian delegation.[99][100]

On 23 October 2008, the European Parliament passed a resolution titled, European Parliament resolution of 23 October 2008 on the commemoration of the Holodomor, the Ukraine artificial famine (1932-1933); the resolution includes the following statements:[5][101]

"Whereas the Holodomor famine of 1932-1933, which caused the deaths of millions of Ukrainians, was cynically and cruelly planned by Stalin's regime in order to force through the Soviet Union's policy of collectivisation of agriculture against the will of the rural population in Ukraine" ...

Makes the following declaration to the people of Ukraine and in particular to the remaining survivors of the Holodomor and the families and relatives of the victims:

• "Recognises the Holodomor (the artificial famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine) as an appalling crime against the Ukrainian people, and against humanity;
• Strongly condemns these acts, directed against the Ukrainian peasantry, and marked by mass annihilation and violations of human rights and freedoms;
• Expresses its sympathy with the Ukrainian people, who suffered in this tragedy, and pays its respects to those who died as a consequence of the artificial famine of 1932-1933;
• Calls on the countries which emerged following the break-up of the Soviet Union to open up their archives on the Holodomor in Ukraine of 1932-1933 to comprehensive scrutiny so that all the causes and consequences can be revealed and fully investigated;"

In 2010, The Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly approved Resolution 1723 (2010), titled Commemorating the victims of the Great Famine (Holodomor) in the former USSR, recognising and condemning the Holodomor as a "crime against humanity"[lower-alpha 17]. The resolution reads (in part),

Section 4: Millions of innocent people in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine, which were parts of the Soviet Union, lost their lives as a result of mass starvation caused by the cruel and deliberate actions and policies of the Soviet regime.

Section 11: It strongly condemns the cruel policies pursued by the Stalinist regime, which resulted in the death of millions of innocent people, as a crime against humanity. It resolutely rejects any attempts to justify these deadly policies, by whatever purposes, and recalls that the right to life is non-derogable.

Resolution 1723 references Resolution 1481 (2006) on the need for international condemnation of the crimes committed by communist governments and recognising other groups that were impacted by the wider famine of 1932-33.[102]