Source: http://khpg.org/index.php?id=1384036879
Timestamp: 2018-02-21 01:19:51
Document Index: 26645415

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 2', '§ 3', '§ 2', 'art 2']

Legal classification of Holodomor 1932-1933 in Ukraine and in Kuban as a crime against humanity and genocide - Права Людини в Україні
10.11.2013 | Yevhen Zakharov
As mentioned in items 1 and 2[1] , the grain requisition quota for 1930 was already excessive, however the Soviet leadership increased it still further from 440 to 490 poods, and the 1930 quota was fulfilled already in spring 1931, taking away all grain reserves. It did not prove possible to meet the increased quota, although 127 million poods of grain were collected, this being 127 million poods more than in 1929. The grain requisition quota for 1931 issued from the Kremlin according to Stalin’s policy of “geeing up” once again significantly exceeded Ukraine’s capacity, being 510 million poods. At the end of the year the quota had been 79% met (Item 3). To fulfil the “first commandment” – first meet the quota and only then settle with people for their labour – in January 1932, on Molotov’s instructions, grain began being taken away, this leading to famine in the first half of 1932. As a result of the grain being taken away, 144 thousand peasants in Ukraine died of starvation during this period (Items 4, 5 and 6). It was only at the end of April 1932 that the State became providing food aid to the starving (Item 7).
Ukrainization of territory with a dense population of ethnic Ukrainians had been the official policy of the USSR. According to the All-Soviet Census of 1938 there were 915 thousand Ukrainians in Kuban, this being 62% of the population. They had generally retained their language and culture. 729 thousand of them said that Ukrainian was their native language. In some areas of Kuban Ukrainians made up 80% or even 90% of the population[10], while overall in the North Caucuses there were 3, 06 thousand Ukrainians.
: […] 3) The most important thing now is Ukraine. The current situation in Ukraine is terribly bad. It’s bad in the Party. They say that, in two regions in Ukraine (Kiev and Dnipropetrovsk, I think) around fifty district committees have spoken out against the grain requisition quota, calling it unrealistic. Things are no better, so they say, in the other district committees. What is this? It’s not a party, but a parliament, and a caricature of a parliament. Instead of managing the districts, Kosior has been manoeuvring between the directives of the Party Central Committee and the demands of the district committees: Now look where he’s ended up. Lenin was right that a person who doesn’t have the courage to go against the tide at the necessary time can’t be a real Bolshevism leader. Things are bad with the soviets. Chubar is no leader. And it’s bad with the GPU. Redens isn’t up to being in charge of the fight against counter-revolution in a republic as large and specific as Ukraine. If we don’t immediately set to straightening out the situation in Ukraine, we could lose Ukraine. Remember that Pilsudski never rests, his espionage capabilities in Ukraine are far stronger than Redens and Kosior realize. And remember too that, in the Ukrainian Communist Party (500 000 members, ha ha !), there are not just a few (no, not a few!) rotten types, conscious and unconscious ‘petliurites’, and also direct agents of Pilsudski. As soon as things get worse, these elements will lose no time in opening up a front within (and outside) the Party, against the Party. The worst thing is that the Ukrainian leaders don’t see these dangers
Some Russian government officials – O. Smirnov, V. Tolmachov, M. Eismont – expressed the view that Stalin was responsible for the failure of grain requisitions, and blamed him. On 27 November 1932 Stalin called a joint session of the Politburo and the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party at which he spoke out against Smirnov’s group. He said that anti-Soviet elements had penetrated kolkhozes and sovkhozes in order to organize sabotage and destructive measures, and that a significant percentage of rural communists had the wrong attitude to kolkhozes and sovkhozes. Stalin called for the use of coercion to eradicate sabotage and anti-Soviet phenomena, and stressed: “It would be unwise if communists, working on the premise that the kolkozes are a socialist form of management, did not respond to the blow inflicted by these particular kolkhoz workers or kolkhozes with a devastating blow”.[13].
The greatest threat to Stalin’s power was in his view Ukraine. He was clearly disturbed by the resistance of the Ukrainian Politburo to the passing of a grain requisition quota and the adoption of the “5 ears of wheat law” (see Items 15, 16 and 17). Stalin was afraid of a union between “petlurites” and Pilsudski, and suspected Ukrainian communists of having connections with the Poles. It is typical that having written “The most important thing now is Ukraine”, he put the words “most important thing” in italics. Stalin was most afraid of losing Ukraine which over the period of Ukrainization had developed its own nationally oriented communist –Soviet elite (Ukrainians made up the absolute majority of the members of the Ukrainian Communist Party) and was trying to get the territories of adjoining regions of Russia and Byelorussia where there was a majority Ukrainian population, for example, Kuban joined to Ukraine. This elite was carrying out an active policy of Ukrainization there, and could generally in the conditions of crisis exercise its rights and declare its withdrawal from the USSR.
The policy of Ukrainization by the end of the 1920s had gone well beyond the boundaries set by the Bolsheviks. Ukrainian national consciousness had by that stage taken on proportions which placed the united structure of the USSR in jeopardy. Ukraine was endeavouring to carry out autonomous policy, including with regard to international relations. One of the leaders of the CC CPU, Volodymyr Zatonsky, asserted that the first aim of Ukrainization was the consolidation of the Ukrainian SSR as a State organization within the framework of a Union of Soviet Socialist Republics[14]. Such a course of events could not suit Stalin and his henchmen. If the process in Ukraine continued in the same direction, this would significantly influence all processes in the USSR, since Ukraine at that time was a single national and State unit which could stand up to pressure from the Kremlin. For these reasons Stalin went out for direct war against Ukrainian peasants as the social resistance to the State organism. He decided to pay the villages a preventive devastating blow so as to eliminate the threat to his regime. As James Mace very accurately expressed it back in 1982: “Stalin wanted to destroy the Ukrainian people as a political factor and as a social organism[15]. This was the motive of the crime.
The definitive element for a crime being classified as genocide according to the Convention is that there was direct intent to eliminate the members of a particular group by virtue of their being part of the group. The actions set down in the provisions of Article II of the Convention clearly demand the presence of certain subject factors, including intent, to make the crime that of genocide: “the actions indicated in Article II must have been committed with intent to eliminate [the defended] group totally or a part of it”.[16]
Did Stalin have the intention to organize an artificial famine? Scholars are divided in their answer to this question. One group of researchers believes that the mass famine was begun deliberately, organized from back in 1930 in order to reduce the vital capacity of the Ukrainian people, turning them into slaves who would meekly work in kolkhozes and not make any encroachments against the Soviet regime. Another group considers that Stalin’s policy was criminal however explains the famine as being caused by a complex political situation, the wish to modernize the economy, and payment of interest on foreign loans. This group denies direct intent to organize an artificial famine and does not agree with the classification of Holodomor 1932-1933 as an act of genocide.
In our view it is not possible to say definitely whether Stalin had a plan in advance for eliminating a part of the Ukrainian peasants by organizing an artificial famine. Here it is useful to apply the approach taken by researcher into famine in the USSR Andrea Graziosi who made a summary of different explanations given for the cause of Holodomor.[17]. He asserts that the famine in the third quarter of 1932 had the same causes as the famine in the first half of 1931 – non-fulfilment of an excessive grain requisition quota. While in October 1932 Stalin took the decision to use famine to destroy the peasants of Ukraine and Kuban who provided the greatest resistance to the “new serfdom”. For example, all the actions of the Communist Party leadership of the USSR beginning from October 1932 suggest direct intent to organize Holodomor and political repression against those who obstructed these plans.
Indication of the intention to destroy the Ukrainian “opposition” and place responsibility on it for deliberately organizing famine can be found as well in the plans of OGPU and their implementation. At the end of November 1932, Stalin sent Vsevolod Balytsky from OGPU with special powers to Ukraine. His task, set out in "Operational Order of the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR No. 1” which spoke of “organized sabotage of the grain requisitions and autumn sowing; organized mass-scale thefts in kolkhozes and sovkhozes; terror against the most steadfast and consistent communists and activists in the village; the deploying of dozens of petlurite emissaries; the distribution of petlurite leaflets” in Ukraine. From this it drew conclusions regarding “the undoubted existence in Ukraine of an organized counter-revolutionary, insurgent underground which has links abroad and with foreign intelligence services, mainly, the Polish military headquarters”. The order ended by setting out the task: “the basic and main task is an urgent breakthrough, uncovering and crushing the counterrevolutionary insurgent underground and inflicting a decisive blow against all counterrevolutionary kulak-petlurite elements which are actively opposing and sabotaging the main measures of the Soviet regime and Party in the villages.”[18]. In Operational Order No. 2 from 13 February 1933 of the GPU of the Ukrainian SSR, Balytsky was already summing up the implementation of Stalin’s Order: operational activist group No. 2 “has uncovered a counter-revolutionary, insurgent underground in Ukraine which covered up to 200 raions, around 30 railway stations and depots, a number of points on the border zone. In the process of liquidating it, its link was established with foreign Ukrainian nationalist centres (UNR, “UVO”, UNDO) and the Polish Military Headquarters.[19] This meant that OGPU was provided with a ready strategy for uncovering artificially organized counter-terrorist organizations.
Stalin’s awareness that “the national issue is in essence a peasant issue”[20], prompted him to solve both the national and the peasant problems together. A plan was set in motion for destroying the national political elite, the representatives of which were accused of being in conspiracy with peasant saboteurs (see Stalin’s letter to Kaganovich from 11 August 1932). On 14 and 15 December 1932, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party passed two secret resolutions (Items25, 26, 47, 48), which brought in special national policy with regard to Ukrainians (it did not apply to other ethnic groups). According to these resolutions, responsibility for the food crisis was placed not only on the peasants, but also on the Ukrainian political elite.
On 1 January 1933 a telegram was sent from the “leader, teacher and friend of all peasants” (Item 29). It was made up of two points, the first being that those who voluntarily handed over to the State “previously stolen and hidden grain” would not face repression. The second point stated that those who continued to hide it would face the harshest forms of punishment. All grain which was not recorded had to be handed over. If they didn’t hand it over there would be a search. If they found grain, the punishment was the death penalty or 10 years imprisonment. If they didn’t find it, they would take away, as a fine, other foodstuffs. Stalin’s telegram resulted in the merging of searches and fines in kind. Furthermore, Stalin had been informed about the results of previous searches (Item 27) and knew that there was no grain in the villages, and that the requisition quota could not be met. This was his “devastating blow”[21], which demonstrates the intention to remove food from the peasants in order to organize famine.
Intent to eliminate is also proven by the rejection of the offer of international assistance and continuing export of grain and storing of reserves in grain silos (the grain would have been enough to feed the starving – see item 35), although the Soviet leadership was well-informed about the scale of the famine. Another indicator of intent was the speed with which the famine was brought to an end in the second half of 1933 after the “final blow” had been dealt.[22]
The intention to destroy the peasants through starvation was reflected in the words of the Second Secretary of the CC CPU Mendel Khatayevych from 1933: “A fierce struggle is waging between the peasants and our regime. This is a fight to the death. This year has become the test of our strength and their resilience. The famine has proved to them who is boss. It cost millions of lives however the kolkhoz system will last forever. We’ve won the war!”[23]
As follows from the conclusion of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda of 1998 – “the offender is considered guilty since he knew or should have known that the acts he committed would destroy in part or totally the group”.[24] – Stalin and his henchmen should be considered guilty of genocide. They knew of the size of the harvest, knew and understood the consequences of confiscating food and preventing peasants from leaving regions gripped by famine.
We have demonstrated that the famine in Ukraine of 1932-1933 has all the necessary elements of a crime against humanity in accordance with the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court of 1998 and of genocide according to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide of 1948. The object, subject, event and makeup of the crime of genocide have been established, as well as its motive and the direct intent to commit this crime. Can one however apply the provisions of these international agreements with regard to events in Ukraine 1932-1933, and in keeping with them classify Holodomor 1932-1933 as a crime against humanity and act of genocide? Do these international agreements have retroactive force in the given case? Legal specialists are divided in their views. There are two lines of argument which lead to mutually exclusive conclusions although both seem unequivocal.
The first can be formulated as follows. Pursuant to Article 7 § 1 of the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1950), «No one shall be held guilty of any criminal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a criminal offence under national or international law at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the criminal offence was committed». This fundamental principle is enshrined in the first paragraph of Article 15 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The second paragraphs of these same articles of both the Convention and the Covenant states that offences shall be punishable if at the time they were committed, they were considered crimes “according to the general principles of law”. For example, Article 7 § 2 of the 1950 Convention reads that: “«This article shall not prejudice the trial and punishment of any person for any act or omission which, at the time when it was committed, was criminal according the general principles of law recognized by civilized nations.» It follows from this that the Convention on Genocide can have retroactive force. Indeed the Convention itself refers to UN General Assembly Resolution 96 (I) of 11 December 1946 “The Crime of Genocide” which states that “genocide is a crime under international law which the civilized world condemns”;[25]. Confirmation of the possibility of the Convention being applied retroactively is also found in the judgment of the Supreme Court of Israel in the case of Adolph Eichmann 1961-1962 (this judgment is a vivid example of retroactive force of the law[26]) and the Advisory Opinion of the UN International Court from 28 May 1951 “Reservations to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide”. Israel’s Supreme Court, stating that the difference of genocide from crimes against humanity were merely in the presence of specific intent, confirmed that Resolution 96 (I) and the 1948 Convention do not create a new crime, but firmly establish the existing one. The UN International Court also expressed its view with regard to this: “The principles underlying the Convention are recognised by civilised nations as binding on States even without any conventional obligation»[27]. Moreover, according to the UN Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity of 1968, no statutory limitations apply to the crime of genocide. This means that any statutory limitation set down in law, does not apply to judicial prosecution and punishment for war crimes and crimes against humanity
The other argument rejects the possibility of applying the Convention on Genocide with respect to events which took place before it came into effect. The commitments taken on through the UN Convention of 1968 to not apply statutory limitations in the case of crimes against humanity, including genocide, do not indicate retroactive force at the time of the 1948 Convention, and the application of Article 7 § 2 of the European Convention and Article 15 § 2 of the Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is not possible since the international community had still not recognized such acts as a crime at that time. Furthermore, according to Article 58 of Ukraine’s Constitution “No one shall bear responsibility for acts that, at the time they were committed, were not deemed by law to be an offence”. The Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR of 1927 did not include genocide among criminally liable acts. The word “genocide” did not then exist, it being suggested for use by the author of the Convention on Genocide Raphael Lemkin in 1944. Pursuant to Article 3 § 3 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code of 2001, “the criminality of actions, as well as whether they are subject to punishment and other criminal-legal consequences, are determined by this Code”. According to Article 4 § 2 of the Criminal Code which regulates issues regarding the force of the law on criminal liability in time, the criminality and liability of an action are determined by the law on criminal liability which was in force at the time the act was committed. The principle prohibiting retroactive force of a law which establishes criminal liability is one of the fundamental principles of law. This principle is enshrined in Article 28 of the UN Conference on the Law of Treaties (Vienna 1969), according to which “Unless a different intention appears from the treaty or is otherwise established, its provisions do not bind a party in relation to any act or fact which took place or any situation which ceased to exist before the date of the entry into force of the treaty with respect to that party”. The Convention on Genocide of 1948 does not contain provisions regarding its own retroactive force, which does not make it possible to apply it for recognizing as genocide actions committed before it came into effect. The 1948 Convention can thus not be applied for classification of Holodomor 1932-1933 as genocide.
One can conclude that the issue around whether there can be retrospective application of the Convention on Genocide of 1948 remains in dispute[28]. However the Eichmann trial shows how one can explain this paradox – of there being two mutually exclusive lines of argument. Israel’s Supreme Court stated that in those countries where the principle that the law cannot be applied retroactively is included in the Constitution or Criminal Code, its retrospective use is impossible. Yet this does not apply to all countries. For example, in the United Kingdom there is no such prohibition. The Court decided that in Israel the sphere of application of this principle was the same as in Great Britain[29]. Thus, if the domestic legal system allows for the law to have retroactive force, then the retrospective application of the Convention on Genocide can be warranted. Unfortunately, Ukraine’s Constitution in Article 58 strictly affirms the principle that the law cannot have retroactive force and its Articles 9 and 151 presume correspondence of international agreements to the Constitution. Where they do not correspond to the Constitution, they do not have force. This means that Ukrainian courts, unlike Israeli or British courts, cannot qualify a crime as genocide which happened before the Convention on Genocide came into effect. In order to have a legal qualification of Holodomor 1932-1933 as genocide, Article 58 of Ukraine’s Constitution needs to be changed as follows:
1. Laws and other normative legal acts have no retroactive force, except in cases where they mitigate or annul the responsibility of a person.
2. No one shall bear responsibility for acts that, at the time they were committed, were not deemed by law to be an offence.
3. This article shall not obstruct court examination and punishment of any person for any action or failure to act which at the time it was committed constituted a crime or criminal offence in accordance with general principles of law recognized by civilized nations.
However the Convention can always be used to provide a historical assessment of certain events. Such an assessment was given by the Verkhovna Rada which “recognizing Holodomor 1932-1933 in Ukraine in accordance with the UN Convention from 9 December 1948 on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide as a deliberate act of mass destruction of people; passed the Law “On Holodomor 1932-1933 in Ukraine “. Article 1 of this Law recognizes Holodomor to have been genocide of the Ukrainian people.
On 21 November 2007 the President of the European Parliament Hans-Gert Poettering made a statement about Holodomor 1932-1933 in Ukraine. He called for remembrance of Holodomor and stated that the famine, which had taken the lives of 4-6 million Ukrainians during the winter of 1932-1933 had been cynically and cruelly planned by Stalin’ s regime in order to force through collectivization against the will of rural people in Ukraine. “Today we know that the famine, known as Holodomor, was in reality a terrible crime against humanity, ” Mr Poettering said.
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has included on its agenda consideration of a report on the issue of condemning Holodomor as a crime of the totalitarian regime in Ukraine and in other regions of the former USSR. The PACE Political Committee on 26 June 2008 appointed a rapporteur on this issue – PACE Vice President Alexander Biberaj (Albania). Two years have been set aside for preparation of the report however Alexander Biberaj expects to complete it much earlier[30].
On 23 October 2008, the European Parliament adopted a Resolution on Holodomor 1932-1933 in which it “recognises the Holodomor (the artificial famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine) as an appalling crime against the Ukrainian people, and against humanity” and “strongly condemns these acts, directed against the Ukrainian peasantry, and marked by mass annihilation and violations of human rights and freedoms”.
The domestic legislation of some countries has gone further in defining genocide. For example, the 1991 French Criminal Code adds to the groups listed in the Convention “a group defined on the basis of any other normative criterion”.[31]. With respect to this it is worth recalling the comments from the author of the Convention Raphael Lemkin, who a short time before its adoption, noted that "Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves."[32].
1. The requisition quota for 1930 for Ukraine was set in April 1930 at 440 million poods (this despite the fact that the Ukrainian Grain Centre was expecting a harvest of 425-430 million poods), and in September was increased to 472 million poods. However this quota could also not be met since there were already no grain reserves in the villages. On 27 January 1931 the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Soviet Communist Party (Bolshevik) [hereafter Politburo] stated that the villages owed 34 million poods. Stalin reduced the debt to 25 million poods and ordered the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (hereafter CC CPU) to declare February a month of accelerated grain requisitions and to fulfil the quota[33].
2. Sowing began, yet the previous year’s quota could still not be met. At the beginning of May V. Molotov reported that the harvest quota for 1930 was returning to the previous figure of 490 million poods (“geeing up”). The leadership of the republic was forced to recommence a requisition campaign for the previous year’s grain. After taking away all grain reserves, Ukraine achieved the previous version of the quota which in February 1931 seemed unattainable. By June 1931, in the agricultural sector (kolkhozes and independent farmers) 393 million poods from the 1930 harvest had been gathered, and in all for the republic – 471 million poods. This was 167 million poods more than the figure for 1929.[34]
3. In the requisition quota for 1931 even more demands were imposed on Ukraine. The agricultural sector was set a quota for 434 million poods, i.e. 41 million poods more than the amount of grain actually handed over for 1930. The overall requisition quota was set at 510 million poods. At the end of 1931 this quota had only been 79% met[35] Molotov was sent to Kharkiv to intensify the requisition process. As the reports of the Party leaders indicate, this “intensification”, in accordance with Molotov’s directives and the Resolution of the CC CPU from 19 December 1931 turned into searches by local activists to confiscate “grain squandered or stolen from kolkhozes”. Until the quota was fulfilled, kolkhoz workers could not receive grain for their labour therefore any grain found in a peasant’s home was a priori considered squandered or stolen.[36] However the grain was confiscated regardless of whether the kolkhoz workers had fulfilled their obligation to the State. The requisition quota could still not be achieved. As of 25 June 1932 the quota was only 86.3% met.[37]
4. The confiscation of grain during the first half of 1932 resulted in hunger which in some regions turned into real famine. A similar situation was seen in other agricultural regions of the USSR, however in Ukraine the famine was on a wider scale since the quota, being more excessive, was achieved to a worse extent and therefore considerably more pressure was brought to bear. 144 thousand people died in this famine[38]. In 1931-1932 it was only in Kazakhstan that the famine was on a greater scale. There hundreds of thousands of people died.
5. A large number of peasants left their villages in search of food. As of the middle of July 1932, according to OGPU figures in some rural areas of Ukraine up to half of the population had left. 116 thousand peasants had left 21 raions[39]. If you extend this figure to cover the entire number of raions – 484, then the approximate number of peasants fleeing starvation would be around 2 million, 700 thousand. This migration elicited strong irritation among the Soviet Party leaders, however at that time they did not obstruct wide-scale moves in search of food.
6. We can cite testimony about the situation with starvation in the countryside. In April 1932 the Deputy People’s Commissar of Agriculture in the USSR A. Hrynevych arrived in the Zinovyevsky raion (now the Kirovohrad region) in order to see how the sowing was getting on. In a reporting note to the People’s Commissar Y. Yakovlev he says that the raion has been 98% collectivized, since 1 January 28.3 thousand peasants have left, including all the qualified tractor drivers (the total population of the raion was about 100 thousand). Those who’ve remained are mostly going hungry with kolkhoz workers’ grain having run out back in March, and there are cases of people bloated from starvation. Within the raion several dozen food points for the children of kolkhoz workers have been organized. Those working in the field have State assistance of 200 g. of bread a day, with tractor drivers having 400 g. The supply of food stuffs for providing food aid to the population among raion organizations was exhausted by 5 May. The productive forces of the raion are so undermined that the raion will not be able to cope with harvesting the grain without assistance in the form of forage for the cattle and food for the kolkhoz workers, without purchasing draft animals, without the provision of tractors and loading vehicles.[40].
7. Worrying about the fate of the future harvest of 1932, the State began providing assistance in the form of seeds, forage and food grain o the countryside which was starving as the result of its policy. On 6 March 1932 the grain requisitions campaign was halted. At the end of April 15 thousand tonnes of maize and 2 thousand tonnes of wheat intended for export were returned from ports. 9.5 million poods of grain were purchased from China, Persia and Canada for the needs of the Requisitions Committee.[41] At the end of May 1932 those starving began receiving dried fish, sardelle, cereals, and other food products. Stalin, however, considered that “Ukraine has been given more than it should get” (from a letter to Kaganovich from 15 June).[42] On 23 June the Politburo passed a decision to stop the supply of grain to Ukraine.[43].
8. Stalin’s irritated reaction and the decision of the Politburo of 23 June were in total contradiction to the conclusions in the letters from Petrovsky and Chubar to Molotov and Stalin on their impressions from travelling about raions in the republic. Both letters reached the Kremlin on the same day – 10 June.[44] Hryhory Petrovsky wrote that the CC CPU was to blame for having unconditionally agreed to a requisition quota of 510 million poods of grain that was unrealistic for the republic. Meeting this quota had caused starvation and many villages were still gripped by famine. Petrovsky warned that there was still a month or 6 weeks to the new harvest and in that time the famine would intensify unless the State provided the villages with more food aid. Vlas Chubar in his letter pointed out that at the beginning of June at least 100 raions were in need of food aid (against 61 at the beginning of May). Due to the severe situation of these raions the sowing campaign was not being carried out satisfactorily. Chubar asked for the republic to be provided with at least 1 million poods of food cultures as aid. He suggested rejecting a quantitative extension of the tasks and basing themselves on qualitative indicators.
9. Stalin reacted to Chubar and Petrovsky’s letters in a letter to Kaganovich from 15 June in the following way: “The first is trying on “self-criticism” so as to get new millions of poods of grain from Moscow, the other is playing self-righteous, and sacrificing himself to the “directive” of the Central Committee of the Communist Party” so as to get a reduction in the grain requisition quota. Both the first and the second are unacceptable.”"[45]. The Ukrainian village in 1932 once again faced an unrealistic quota and new waves of famine.
10. The new grain requisition quota from the harvest of 1932 for Ukraine was approved on 6 July at the III All-Ukrainian Party Conference at 356 million poods, 40 million poods less than from the 1931 harvest. Yet this quota was also beyond the capacity of the republic’s weakened agricultural economy. On the eve of the conference, the Politburo of the CC CPU demanded that Molotov and Kaganovich who had been sent by Stalin to Kharkiv reduce the quota. The Ukrainian communists also tried in vain to influence Molotov and Kaganovich during the conference. For example, Mykola Skrypnyk directly said that in the villages of Ukraine everything that could be taken had already been taken away. Yet Molotov and Kaganovich declared that “there will be no concessions, no vacillation in implementing the tasks imposed on Ukraine by the Party and Soviet government”[46] and that the party forces must mobilize to fight losses and squandering of grain”[47]. The Ukrainian Party leadership gave in and the quota was passed.
12. After the publication of this resolution the “Pravda” editorial office, together with the Communist Party local machine organized a mass-scale two week raid aimed at fighting thefts of grain in which 100 thousand “press udarniki” [udarnik was the term for ultra-productive and enthusiastic workers – translator]. They searched for an “underground wheat city”, but in vain, since they found nothing.[48]. At the same time Stalin understood that he had forced the Ukrainian leadership to take on a clearly unrealistic grain requisition quota. On 24 July, in a letter to Kaganovich and Molotov, he wrote that overall the position of unconditional fulfilment of the quota was correct, but that it would be necessary to make an exception for “particularly affected raions of Ukraine”. However he preferred to announce the reduction of the quota later “so that the sowing of winter crops will be more energetic”[49]. And the peasants didn’t want to work in the sovkhozes, rightly considering that they would again receive nothing for their labour.
13. In the third quarter of 1932 starvation continued in Ukraine’s villages. This is demonstrated, for example, in the statistics for mortality recorded in registrar offices. For the period from March to June they recorded 195, 411 deaths, while from July to October the number was 191, 105.[50]. In order to escape starvation, the kolkhoz workers even resorted to such measures as uncovering mouse burrows. Workers from the “Peremoha” [“Victory”] Kolkhoz in the Barvinkovsky raion of the Kharkiv region through superhuman efforts uncovered mouse burrows over an area of 120 hectares. As a result they received 17 centners of good-quality grain. Each burrow had between 2 and 6 kilograms of wheat.[51].
14. The August “assault” on Ukraine’s villages gave the State 47 million poods of grave, and in September they squeezed out another 59 million. As of 5 October from 23, 270 kolkhozes only 1, 403 had met the requisition quota. After staff changes in the Ukrainian local leadership and the plenum of the CC CPU, on 12 October 1932 the entire Party organization was mobilized for the gathering of the harvest. Nevertheless, the year’s requisition quota had been 39% met as of 25 October.[52].
16. On 29 October 1932 at a session of the Politburo of the CC CPU, together with the first secretaries of the regional committees of the Party, the Commission reported that the Kremlin had agreed to a reduction of the quota. On 30 October the final quota task divided up into regions, sectors and grain cultures was passed. The Ukrainian SSR had to provide 282 million poods of grain: the kolkhozes 224.1 million, independent farmers – 36.0 million, and sovkhozes – 21 million poods. At the same time, Molotov managed to get a directive passed by the CC CPU on increasing help from the justice bodies to those carrying out the grain requisitions. The courts were ordered to examine this category of case first during outreach sessions at local level and applying harsh repressive measures.[53].
17. On 5 November Khataevych and Molotov sent secretaries of the regional committees of the Party a telegram with the following: “In reports from the regional bodies of the OGPU there are a lot of accounts of theft, criminal squandering and concealment of kolkhoz grain with the participation and under the leadership of the kolkhoz management, including some communist members who are in fact kulak agents who are dividing the kolkhozes. Despite this, the Central Committee of the CPU does not know what the regional committees are doing to fight this phenomenon. Noting the unacceptable inaction of the courts and prosecutor’s office and the passivity of the press with regard to the relevant specific facts, the CC CPU categorically demands that regional committees take immediate and decisive measures to fight this phenomenon with mandatory and swift undertaking of judicial repression and merciless punishment of criminal elements in the kolkhoz management on the basis of the well-known decree on the protection of public property, with coverage of these facts in the press and issuing of decisions of kolkhoz meetings which condemn these facts.”[54].
18. On 18 November 1932 the CC CPU and on 20 November the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR passed resolutions with the same name “On measures to increase grain requisitions» prepared by the Molotov Commission. These resolutions demand that the grain requisition quotas be met by 1 January 1933 and that seed funds be created by 15 January 1933. It is prohibited to spend the natural funds created in kolkhozes which have not settled with the State. The district executive committees must immediately check these funds and appoint people in cooperatives responsible for their preservation. The district executive committees were given the right to count all natural funds of the kolkhoz as part of the grain requisition quotas. And those kolkhoz debtors who issued advances for people’s labour or for public food over the established norm (15% of the actual amount threshed) had to immediately organize the return of “unlawfully issued grain” in order to direct it towards meeting the quota. The district executive committees were instructed to organize the confiscation from kolkhozes, those not part of a collective and workers of sovkhozes grain stolen when cutting, threshing or transporting. In order to crush sabotage in the management ranks, it was required that accountants, bookkeepers, storekeepers, managers etc be held to answer if they concealed grain from the inventory, on the basis of the resolution from 7 August 1932, as thieves of State and public property.[55].
19. In Item 9 of the Resolution of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Ukrainian SSR of 20 November it is stated that “With respect to kolkhozes that have allowed the theft of kolkhoz grain and maliciously sabotage the grain requisition quota, fines in kind are applied in the form of an additional quota from the meat requisitions of the size of the 15-month norm of the meat task for the given kolkhoz, both of the common cattle, and that of the kolkhoz workers.[56]. The Party resolution duplicated this item, however added to it the following: “In kolkhozes which do not satisfactorily meet the grain requisition quota, with regard to kolkhoz workers who have grain sown on their garden plots, all grain which they get from these garden plots as natural issue for labour with the removal of the excess of grain handed over to fulfil the grain requisition quota”[57]. The Party resolution included yet another item not in the government’s resolutions: those farming not in a collective who did not meet their grain quotas could be fined by the imposition of extra demands not only from the meat requisitions of the 15 month norm, but also from potatoes (the annual norm).[58].
20. Furthermore, the resolution further pushed the idea that there was grain and that it was communist saboteurs and former petlurites who were obstructing implementation of the quota. “Since a number of agricultural party organizations, especially during the period of cattle requisitions there has proved to be unity between whole groups of communists and some leaders of party branches with kulaks, petlurites, etc which in fact turns such communists and party organizations into agents of the class enemy and is clear proof of how far removed these branches and communists are from the poor and middle-level kolkhoz masses, the Central Committee and the Central Controlling Commission decrees that a purge be carried out immediately of a number of village party organizations which are clearly sabotaging the implementation of the grant requisition quotas and are undermining fact in the Party among the workers.”[59].
21. On 21 November Molotov, Chubar, Stroganov and Kalmanovich addressed a request to Stalin to provide the CC CPU, as represented by a special commission (the General Secretary of the Central Committee, the Head of the GPU of the UkrSSR, and a representative of the Central Controlling Committee) for the duration of the grain requisitions with the right of decision with regard to using the death penalty. The Special Committee of the CC CPU needed only to report once every 10 days before the Central Committee of the CPSU on its decisions in these cases.[60].
22. Similar commissions at the regional (oblast) level, made up of the First Secretary of the regional committee, the head of the regional division of the GPU and the regional prosecutor were created in order to accelerate the repressions in accordance with the Resolution of the CC CPU from 5 December 1932. The courts had to consider cases within 4-5 days under the direct leadership and surveillance of the commission[61]. Analogous “troikas” and Special Commissions were created in regional divisions of the GPU (Order of the GPU UkrSSR from 11 December 1932)[62].
23. In order to force the peasants to give up their grain, the Party bosses made examples of villages which for a long time could not settle with the State, putting them on the so-called “black board”. This term was first used in Kaganovich’s diary during his visit to Kuban. It entailed closure of all State and cooperative shops with the confiscation of all reserves, total ban on trading, kolkhoz or private, a purge of counter-revolutionary and kulak elements and ban on leaving the village.[63]. The idea was supported in Ukraine and already on 6 December 1932 a resolution of the All-Ukrainian Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of the UkrSSR placed six villages on the black board, while local authorities applied this against 400 villages.
24. Despite the exceptional measures, the rate of grain requisitions fell. As S. Kosior wrote to Stalin on 8 December 1932, the hay threshing had ended almost everywhere, and therefore the Ukrainian Party organization should be redirected “towards uncovering concealed, wrongly issued and stolen grain”[64]. Grain could be taken from kolkhoz workers or independent farmers either through searches or repression. Kosior considered the best means to be repression in the form of “fines in kind” (“a kolkhoz worker and even an independent farmer is now holding tight to a cow or pig”) or depriving them of their garden plots[65].
25. Displeased with the activities of the Ukrainian and Kuban leaders, Stalin subjected them to severe criticism at a meeting of the Politburo on 10 December 1932. On 14 December a secret resolution of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party and Sovnarkom “On grain requisitions in Ukraine, North Caucuses and in the Western Region” was passed. This changed the deadline for fulfilling the grain requisition quota for Ukraine to the end of January, and in the North Caucasus Territory to 10-15 January. The resolution again asserted that as the result of the poor work of the Party leadership, former kulaks, officers, petlurites, etc had penetrated the kolkozes and were trying to organize “a counterrevolutionary movement and the sabotage of the harvest and sowing campaigns”. The Central Committee of the All-Soviet Communist Party and Sovnarkom issue the order “to resolutely extirpate these counterrevolutionary elements by means of arrests, long-term deportation to concentration camps, without stopping short of capital punishment for the most malicious of these elements”. The Resolution also stated that “the worst enemies of the party, working class, and collective farm peasantry are saboteurs of grain procurement who have party membership cards in their pockets” and ordered that they apply “severe repressions, five- to ten-year deportation to concentration camps, and, under certain circumstances, execution by shooting”[66].
26. The Central Committee Resolution of 14 December 1932 sharply criticized the policy of Ukrainization. It asserted that it “was carried out mechanically, without taking into consideration the peculiarities of every raion and meticulous selection of the Bolshevik cadre. This made it easier for bourgeois-nationalistic elements, Petliurites and others to create their legal cover-ups and counterrevolutionary cells and organizations”. The Central Committee and Sovnarkom suggest “paying serious attention to the correct implementation of Ukrainization, eliminating its mechanical implementation, expelling Petliurite and other bourgeois-nationalistic elements from Party and government organizations, meticulously selecting and raising Ukrainian Bolshevik cadre, and ensuring systematic Party management and supervision over Ukrainization”[67]. The Resolution basically contained the instruction to stop Ukrainization in the North Caucasus Territory (more about this in Items 46, 47, and 48). And on 15 December 1932 a telegram signed by Stalin and Molotov was sent to the Central Committees of the republic communist parties; the territory and regional (oblast) committees, the heads of the councils of people’s commissars of the territory and regional committees. This contained yet another secret resolution which ordered the immediate cessation of Ukrainization in al places with Ukrainians living together throughout the entire territory of the USSR. As well as the North Caucasus Territory (3, 106 million Ukrainians), this included such regions as the Kursk region (1.3 million), Voronezh region (1 million); the Far East, Siberia and Turkestan (with around 600 thousand Ukrainians each).
27. No longer relying on Ukrainian leaders, on 18 December 1932 Stalin sent Kaganovich and P. Postyshev to Ukraine with special powers to use “all necessary measures of an organizational and administrative nature for fulfilling the grain requisition quota”. The Deputy Head of the OGPU of the USSR V. Balytsky had been sent to Ukraine at the end of November 1932. On 20 December 1932 during a meeting of the Politburo of the CC CPU Balytsky stated that from the beginning of December through blanket searches 7 thousand pits and 100 concealed storing places had been uncovered, holding 700 thousand poods of grain.[68]. It followed from this that it was impossible to meet the quota in this way. Nonetheless Kaganovich considered that it was necessary to uncover “an underground grain city” in Ukraine. On 29 December he forced the CC CPU to adopt a decision on confiscating all kolkhoz funds, including seed funds. Chubar deemed the lack of fines in kind a failing of the grain requisitions.[69].
28. At the Politburo meeting, Balytsky reported that from the middle of July to the middle of November 11 thousand people had been arrested on “grain cases” and from 15 November to 15 December 1932 – 16 thousand people, including 409 heads of kolkhozes and 107 heads of district executive committees. The “troika” had issued 108 death sentences and a further 100 cases were presently under examination.[70].
b) with regard to kolkhoz workers, kolkhozes and individual farmers who stubbornly persist in hiding grain previously stolen and hidden from inventory, the most severe measures of punishment set out in the Resolution of the Central Executive Committee and Sovnarkom of the USSR from 7 August 1932 “On the protection of property of State enterprises, kolkhozes and cooperatives, and the consolidation of socialist property” will be applied.[71]
31. At the present time many oral accounts from survivors have been gathered, and a lot published. This testimony coincides with the historical facts. After Stalin’s telegram the searches and confiscation of grain were merged into a single campaign of repression. Brigades of activists were organized who removed from the kolkhoz workers and independent farmers not only grain, meat and potatoes, but all food that they found, even cabbage, pickled beetroot, a handful of wheat – absolutely everything, and if they found food cooked, they destroyed it. In this way they saved themselves from starvation, since they got to keep a part of what they found. The three volume work Oral History Project on the Ukrainian Famine which fills 1, 734 pages and published by the US Congress Commission on the Ukrainian Famine 1932-1933 led by James Mace, is full of such accounts from all regions of the country.
5. that brief reports be provided no later than 6 p.m. on 24 January about the actual situation with mass exodus of peasants for your oblast”[72]
33. Special patrols and operations groups, as well as filter points, were created at railway stations. Chekists [secret police], police officers and local activists monitored the roads. According to figures from the OGPU, during 50 days following the issuing of the directive 219.5 thousand peasants were stopped, this including 38 thousand in the UkrSSR, 47 thousand in the North Caucasus Territory , in the Central Chernozem Region – 44 thousand, in the Western Region – 5 thousand and at railway stations – 65 thousand peasants. Of those detailed, 186.5 thousand were sent home under convoy, and almost 3 thousand had been convicted, while the rest were awaiting trial or under investigation in filtration camps.[73].
34. Ukrainian peasants, tormented by the endless searches, confiscation of food productions, and blockade were starving en masse. Those who survived testify that beginning from February 1933 the famine became particularly horrific. Whereas up till January tens of thousands were dying, from February to May the numbers were in the millions. According to a document from the GPU of the UkrSSR, during the entire period from 1 December 1932 to 25 January 1933 14, 956 pits, 621 “black cellars” and 1, 359 other hiding places were found, with 1, 718.5 thousand poods of grain confiscated.[74].
35. On 5 February a resolution of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party concluded the requisitions from the 1932 harvest. The UkrSSR had in total fulfilled 83.5% of a quota which had twice been reduced. A total of 4, 171.4 thousand tonnes of grain had been requisitioned against 7, 047.1 thousand tonnes of grain from the 1931 harvest. Up to 1 November 136.1 million poods were handed over, and from November through January 1933 – another 87 million poods of grain.
The well-known German historian Gerhard Simon[75] writes: “The Bolshevik leadership denied any famine and rejected the possibility of measures of assistance either from within the country, or from abroad. When news of the famine nonetheless reached Western Europe and North America, Soviet diplomacy and propaganda received the instruction to pass it off as anti-Soviet slander and reject any offers of support for starving Soviet villages.
However export of grain from the Soviet Union did not stop although the scale was somewhat reduced. In 1931 the Soviet Union exported 5.2 million tonnes of grain, while in famine-hit 1933 – 1.7 million tonnes. Using the money obtained, the Soviet authorities bought machines and other industrial equipment from the West. Furthermore, in famine-hit1932 and 1933 the state grain stocks were taken to silos, although on a smaller scale.
According to calculations by Michael Ellman from the Amsterdam School of Economics, one of the leading experts on Holodomor, just the grain exported would have been sufficient to feed 1.5 million people for a year. If the Stalin regime had allowed national and international aid and stopped the export of grain, then they would have been able to feed the entire population of the country without any problem despite the bad harvest “if ensuring that the entire population had food had been the highest priority for Stalin”. However that was not his aim”.
36. At the end of January 1933 Postyshev was again sent to Ukraine to prepare the spring sowing which against a background of mass starvation and the lack of seeds was problematical. Back on 23 September, on Stalin’s initiative, the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party and Sovnarkom passed a resolution according to which all proposals to provide seed loans were rejected, and sovkhozes and kolkhozes were warned that there would be no loan either for the winter crops or for the spring sowing[76]. Therefore on 4 February Postyshev stated that seeds would be gathered by means of grain requisitions. Since there was no grain among the starving peasants, the party leaders resorted to rewards for denunciations. Each person who informed where a neighbour was hiding grain received between 10 and 15% of the grain discovered. On 17 February 1933 these “measures” were approved by a government resolution.[77].
37. In February the Ukrainian leadership began providing aid to the starving in order to safeguard the sowing. On 19 February 1933 Postyshev received Stalin’s consent to unblock 3 million poods of State grain reserves to provide food aid to the peasants. However the scale of the famine was increasing by the day. Therefore Postyshev decided that it wasn’t worth giving food to those not working. A CC CPU Resolution from 31 March 1933 on the preparations for the spring sowing contained the following: “Suggest that the Kyiv regional committee carry out the following measures for organizing food aid to kolkhoz workers and independent farmers in need: b) divide all those hospitalized into the ill and those recovering, and considerably improve the food supplied to the latter so that they can be discharged and back to work as quickly as possible.”[78]. Thus, the peasants were divided into those who could provide labour and those weakened by hunger and unable to work. The first survived, the second died. This was the “charitable” State assistance.
38. Mortality in the first half of 1933 increased each month. And despite the fact that the work of the registrar offices was partly paralyzed, from March to August 1933 they registered hundreds of thousands of deaths.[79]. Overall for 1933 registrar offices registered 1, 678 deaths in rural areas, 1, 552 of these being Ukrainians. These statistics cannot give an idea of the scale of Holodomor as they are incomplete.[80]
41. At the end of February 1933 a campaign was launched against Mykola Skrypnyk and the communists supporting him. Skrypnyk was removed from his post as Minister of Education. Everything that was linked in Ukraine with the literary renaissance, introduction of the literary language standards, creation of new dictionaries, development of Ukrainian theatre, historical research and Ukrainization of schools was all stigmatized as “skrypnykovshchyna” [i.e. connected with Skrypnyk], became the target of political repression which did not abate through 1933 and 1934. People carrying out Ukrainization – from rural teachers to members of the Academy of Sciences - were repressed on a wide scale as bourgeois nationalists. On 13 May 1933 the well-known writer Mykola Khvylyovy committed suicide. In June 1933 at the plenum of the CC CPU Postyshev blamed Skrypnyk and his nationalist “deviation” for all the “difficulties of the previous year”, and accused him of harbouring in the People’s Commissariat of Education “deviationists, saboteurs, counter-revolutionaries”.[81]. On 7 July 1934, unable to withstand the hounding, Skrypnyk killed himself. His death spelled the end to Ukrainization and nationalism as a whole (overall the CPU was halved, while the members of the Ukrainian Politburo were later, during the Great Terror of 1937-1938 all eliminated). Another leader of Ukrainization and People’s Commissar of Education Oleksandr Shumsky was also arrested, together with communists connected with him. On 5 September 1933 Shumsky was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment. In November 1933 the Director of the “Berezil” Theatre Les Kurbas was arrested. In 1934 first-class writers who were later to become known as “rozstrilyane vidrodzhennya” [“Executed Renaissance”] were repressed, being labelled as “bourgeois nationalists” and “terrorists”. In total the OGPU arrested 199 thousand people in Ukraine in 1932-1933, against 119 thousand in 1929-1931, and 71 thousand in 1934-1936. Death from starvation coincided with repression of the national Ukrainian cultural, intellectual, creative and political elite.
42. Just as Ukraine received the most onerous grain requisition quota among agricultural regions in 1931-1932, so to were the planned figures for grain requisitions in Kuban for 1931-1932 higher than for the other 10 districts of the North Caucasus Territory. It was for this reason that the rural population of Kuban, together with Ukraine, had the worst results for grain requisition quotas and became the target of efforts by the Party-State leadership of the USSR aimed at extracting grain. As stated in the decision of the Soviet Politburo from 1 November 1932 with regard to the commission headed by Kaganovich: “the main task of the said group of comrades is to devise and carry out measures aimed at breaking down sabotage of the sowing and grain requisition, organized by counter-revolutionary kulak elements in Kuban.”[82].
45. Those who refused to rob the peasants and Cossacks themselves ended up within the machine of repression. Even before the arrival of the Kaganovich Commission, the OGPU had arrested 5 thousand communists of Kuban, and overall around the territory – 15 thousand. On 4 November 1932 another decision was adopted by the North Caucasus Territory Committee, this being to carry out a purge of the Party organizations of the Territory, and first and foremost, Kuban. Throughout November and December 1932 and in 1933, approximately 40 thousand people were expelled from the Party, while up to 30 thousand other members of the Party fled beyond the Territory.[83].
46. The people of Kuban faced the same fate as the Ukrainian peasants – blanket searches, confiscation of food, and after 22 January 1933 – a blockade with it being impossible to leave in search of food. Earlier, however, discrimination had been added on ethnic grounds. Item 7 of the Resolution of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party “On grain requisitions in Ukraine, North Caucuses and in the Western Region” from 14 December 1932 stated that “the irresponsible, non-Bolshevik “Ukrainization, ” which was at variance with the cultural interests of the population and which affected nearly half of the raions in the Northern Caucasus, as well as the complete lack of supervision on the part of territorial agencies over the Ukrainization of schools and the press, had provided the enemies of the Soviet power with a legal form for organizing resistance to the Soviet authorities’ measures and tasks on the part of kulaks, officers, Cossack resettlers, members of the Kuban Rada, etc.»[84].
47. “For the purpose of crushing the resistance to grain requisitions mounted by kulak elements and their party and non-party menials”, the Central Committee and Sovnarkom among other things, issued orders to: “immediately switch Soviet bodies, cooperative societies, and all newspapers and magazines in the Ukrainized raions of the Northern Caucasus from Ukrainian to Russian, as being more understandable to Kuban residents, and to prepare and change the language of instruction in schools to Russian by the autumn. The Central Committee and Sovnarkom oblige the Territory Party and Executive Committees to urgently examine and improve the composition of school teachers in the Ukrainized raions”[85].
[14] James Mace. Political causes of Holodomor in Ukraine (1932-1933). Ukrainian Historical Journal, No. 1, 1995 Posted in Ukrainian at: http://maidan.org.ua/n/lib/1044901106
[15] S.V. Kulchytsky. Destruction for rescue // Krytyka, No. 3, 2008 – pp. 15-17
[16] Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (Bosnia and Herzegovina v. Serbia and Montenegro); Summary of the Judgment of 26 February 2007, p. 9.
[17] Andrea Graziosi: Soviet famine and Ukrainian Holodomor. Available in Russian at: http://www.strana-oz.ru/?numid=34&article=1406
[18] Y. Shapoval and V. Zolotahyov: Vsevolod Balytsky: the person, his time and surroundings – K. 2002, p. 189.
[19] “Memory declassified”, pp. 511-512.
[20] “The peasantry represent the main army of the national movement … without a peasant army there isn’t and cannot be a powerful national movement. It is precisely this that they mean when they say that the national issue is essentially a peasant question.” 30 March 1925 (J. Stalin: Issues of Leninism, M.-L., 1930 (?) – p. 129).
[21] “It would be unwise if the communists, working on the premise that the kolkozes are a socialist form of management, did not respond to the blow inflicted by these particular kolkhoz workers or kolkhozes with a devastating blow” (Stalin, 27 December 1932).
[22] These two arguments come from PACE Deputy Paul Rowen (United Kingdom). See PACE Document 12181 from 9 March 2010 “Commemorating the victims of the Great Famine (Holodomor) in the former USSR, Item 10 http://assembly.coe.int/Mainf.asp?link=/Documents/AdoptedText/ta10/eRES1723.htm
[23] Serhiy Makhun. War on the “literary front”. // Dzerkalo tyzhnya [“Weekly Mirror”] No. 45, 24-30 November 2007
[24] Cited in the work by Andriy Portnov. The concepts of genocide and ethnic cleansing: western scholarly discussions // Ukraina moderna, part 2 (13), 2008 – p. 99
[26] Eichmann was abducted by the Israeli Security Service in Argentina and convicted under Israeli law of a crime against the Jewish people during the Second World War. Eichmann’s defence registered protest based on the assertion that the exercising of justice by an Israeli court with regard to a crime committed outside Israel and before the creation of this state was a violation of international law. The Supreme Court rejected the appeal and upheld the ruling of the Israeli court.
[27] http://www.mannrettindi.is/the-human-rights-rpoject/humanrightscasesandmaterials/cases/internationalcases/internationalcourt/nr/1924
[28] In our opinion this discussion is equivalent to the old argument over whether natural or positive law takes priority.
[29] N.V. Noshenskaya: Problems in retroactive application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment for the Crime of Genocide of 9 December 1948 http://www.genocide.ru/lib/moshenskaya/2-3.htm
[30] The report by the PACE Political Committee was prepared by Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu (Turkey, current president of PACE (see: http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc10/EDOC12173.htm), From the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee – Paul Rowen (United Kingdom):
http://assembly.coe.int/Main.asp?link=/Documents/WorkingDocs/Doc10/EDOC12181.htm. On 28.04.2010 PACE adopted Resolution 1723 (2010): http://assembly.coe.int/main.asp?Link=/documents/adoptedtext/ta10/eres1723.htm
[31] Cited in the work by Andriy Portnov. The theory of genocide before the challenge of Holodomor” // Krytyka, No. 5, 2008 – pp. 11-13.
[32] Raphael Lemkins Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation - Analysis of Government - Proposals for Redress, (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944), p. 79 - 95. http://www.preventgenocide.org/lemkin/AxisRule1944-1.htm
[33] The Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine: causes and consequences – p. 394.
[34] S.V. Kulchytsky. Holodomor 1932-1933 as genocide: difficulties in understanding – Kyiv: Nash chas 2008 – p. 186.
[35] The Tragedy of the Soviet Village – v. 3, p. 227.
[36] The Tragedy of the Soviet Village – v. 3, pp. 239-240.
[37] S.V. Kulchytsky. Holodomor 1932-1933 as genocide... – p. 195.
[38] The Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine: causes and consequences – p. 503
[39] The Tragedy of the Soviet Village... – v. 3 – p. 420.
[40] S.V. Kulchytsky. Holodomor 1932-1933 as genocide.. – p. 200.
[41] The Tragedy of the Soviet Village... – v. 3 – pp. 362-363, 365.
[42] The Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. Documents and Materials. – p. 206.
[43] Ibid. – p. 213.
[44] Ibid. – p. 205.
[45] Ibid. – p. 206.
[46] “Pravda”, 14 July 1932
[47] Stalin and Kaganovich. Correspondence, 1931-1936. – p. 205.
[48] S.V. Kulchytsky. The Price of the “Great Turn”. – p. 212.
[49] Stalin and Kaganovich. Correspondence, 1931-1936. – pp.. 241-242.
[50] S.V. Kulchytsky. Holodomor 1932-1933 as genocide.. – p.. 399..
[51] S.V. Kulchytsky. 1933: The Tragedy of the Famine – K.: 1989. – p. 32.
[52] The Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. Documents and Materials. – p. 356.
[53] The Tragedy of the Soviet Village... – v. 3 – pp.528-529.
[54]The Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. Documents and Materials. – pp.371-372.
[55] Collectivization and famine in Ukraine. 1929-1933. – pp.548-549.
[56] The Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. Documents and Materials. – p. 400.
[57] Ibid . – p.391.
[58] The Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. Documents and Materials. – p. 393.
[59] Ibid. – pp.393-393.
[60] The Tragedy of the Soviet Village... – v. 3 – p.548.
[61] The Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. Documents and Materials. – p. 443.
[62] Ibid. – p.472.
[63] The Commander of the Great Famine. – p.260.
[64] The Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine: through the eyes of historians, in the language of the documents – p.282.
[65] The Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine: through the eyes of historians, in the language of the documents. – pp. 284, 286.
[66] The Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. Documents and Materials. – p. 476.
[67] Ibid. – p. 477.
[68] The Commander of the Great Famine. – p.316.
[69] Ibid. – p.317.
[70] Ibid. – p.316.
[71] The Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. Documents and Materials. – p. 569.
[72] The Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. Documents and Materials. – p. 617.
[73] S.V. Kulchytsky. Holodomor 1932-1933 as genocide... – p. 310.
[74] Ibid. – p. 299.
[76] S.V. Kulchytsky. 1933: the tragedy of the Famine, p. 41.
[78] The Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. Documents and Materials. – p. 802.
[79] S.V. Kulchytsky. Holodomor 1932-1933 as genocide... – p. 340.
[80] S.V. Kulchytsky. Why did he destroy us? – p. 154.
[81] James Mace. Political causes of Holodomor in Ukraine (1932-1933). Ukrainian Historical Journal, No. 1, 1995 Posted in Ukrainian at: http://maidan.org.ua/n/lib/1044901106
[82] The Commander of the Great Famine. – p. 250.
[83] S.V. Kulchytsky. Holodomor 1932-1933 as genocide... – p. 293.
[84]The Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine. Documents and Materials. – p. 476.
[85] Ibid – p. 477.