FEATURE ( ‘Man-made famine’ documentary rests on fixed photos and suspicious ‘experts’ By JOHN HAZLITT Twice this year Canadian courts have found it necessary to declare that the deliberate spreading of false information is a crime. In both cases the specious defence argument of ‘‘freedom of speech”’ was rejected; in both cases pub- lic opinion demanded that the propaga~ tion of racial and religious hatred be punished. Zundel and Keegstra denied the fact of the holocaust, in particular that of the 6,000,000 Jews who died in Nazi death camps. Neither they nor the media showed interest in the millions of Gyp- sies, Slavs, Soviet prisoners of war, communists and other opponents of Hi- tler who were also murdered. This softness on Naziism might exp- lain the success of a hoax received with approval by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Globe and Mail and a host of less reputable media outlets. The hoax is Zundelism in reverse: the creation of a ‘“‘holocaust’” even worse than the real one. : According to the ‘documentary’ film, Harvest of Despair, aired recently by CBC-TV, at least 7,000,000 Ukrainians were deliberately starved to death in a Six-month period beginning in the fall of 1932. The thesis is that Ukrainians op- posed the ‘Russian’? state and so **Moscow”’ removed all their food in an attempt .to genocide. There is no evi- dence of this ‘“‘event’’, yet it is widely believed. Parasitical Privileges What actually happened? Why is the ‘famine’ thesis accepted by so many? The immediate conte xt was the collec- tivization of agriculture, initiated by the Soviet Government in 1929. At the time of the 1917 revolution, 90 per cent of the people of tsarist Russia lived on the land, Often farming tiny feudal-style strips, under the merciless control of landlords. These latter were deprived of their tion, does not bother to hide its hatred for Russians and Jews.) The nationalists, even with foreign support, were defeated. The peasant problem, however, remained. Richer peasants (kulaks) took over many hold- ings of former landlords, while the poorer peasants either had insufficient land to make a living or wandered the countryside as labor for hire. In the cities, buffeted by years of war and Western trade embargoes, millions were unemployed. Increased Industrialization Collectivization was the only viable option. It would combine farms into eco- nomic units large enough to introduce ‘machinery, and provide equality and security for peasants. This would create urban jobs — especially the manufacture of tractors and transportation systems. Collectivization increased the indus- trialization of the Soviet Union, the suc- cess of which is evident now, 50 years later. During the 1930s, unemployment, (8,000,000 just in the towns a few years earlier) was permanently eliminated. In two generations agricultural output has increased 600 per cent. For the nationalists, collectivization offered a second chance. What had not succeeded in 1917-1920 might now work, even without foreign troops or landlords. The kulaks, between one and four per cent of the rural population, were the natural allies. Though small in numbers, they were powerful, their lands produc- ing 70 per cent of Ukraine’s marketable grain. Even today’s propagandists admit that they responded by destroying their crops, slaughtering their livestock and withholding their grain from the market, trying to starve the country into submis- sion and the government into defeat. In one telling admission, the ‘‘documentary”’ complains that soldiers enforced the planting of the next year’s crop! : The earliest ‘famine pictures’ did not appear until 1935,, and then only in Nazi German papers and those of the Hearst chain in the USA. Louis Fischer exposed the ‘photographer’ as a fraud, a petty criminal named Thomas Walker. who had never been to the Ukraine. Parasitical privileges by the new state, but they did not give up easily. Encour- aged by the combined attack of all the Major capitalist armies, the tsarists fought hard. In Ukraine, the ultra right-wing Nationalists fought for the privileges of landlords, usually Russian, German or Polish, or the church. They terrorized Poor peasants and unleashed a pogrom Which claimed 60,000 Jewish lives. The nationalists claimed to speak for the peasants, whom they openly de- Spised, and whom their own propaganda Claimed did not support them. In the east Specially, among workers and the middle Classes in the cities, the masses were Considered hopeless: they were either Ussians or ‘*Russified’’ Ukrainians or Jews. (Even the latest “documentary”, 'ntended for general Canadian consump- Nowhere does the film mention the drought. That would spoil the purity of its argument that the problem was en- tirely man-made. As for the extent of the ‘‘famine’’, there is confusion among the pro- pagandists. Some, who play up the Ukrainian angle, say it stopped at the border, across which Russians lived in luxury. Others, less obsessive, but want- ing to increase the kill count, point out that hunger existed in neighboring areas like Kazakhstan, which also suffered from kulak sabotage. The depression in the West com- pounded the problems. To import, the Soviet Union would have to export more grain to receive the same total payments. Exports were cut by at least as much as the crop was reduced. Another fact is that pre-war grain exports had tradi- tionally been higher than those of the early 30s. The claim that everything was being sold abroad is just not true. While there was hunger and death, three points must be emphasized: it was not limited to Ukraine, it was nothing like as extensive as claimed, and it was not caused deliberately — at least not by the government. Photos of Other Times In October 1941, the Nazi occupiers of Ukraine rounded up 513 Soviet Jews, marched them to an anti-tank ditch and shot them. This particular atrocity might be the origin of an appalling photo from the ‘“‘documentary”’, which shows just such a scene. The commentator tells us a different story. His version is that the Nazis wandered into a field, dug a neat trench and just happened to come across victims of Soviet “‘genocide’’. Although apparently freely. So too did many other journalists. Because the film claims that no anti-Soviet material could get into Western papers, reporters who did not agree with Muggeridge are brushed aside. The New York Times correspon- dent, who contradicted Muggeridge, is said to be a mystery, aman who privately admitted that he had been lying all the time! Despite the wild conspiracies this suggests, the truth is the opposite: Hearst's regular correspondent was filing reports of a sufficient amount of food which were never published. It is significant that this distortion of history has appeared now. Although the nationalists claim that Stalin — with the connivance of the West — kept the “*famine”* quiet until it was re-discovered in Toronto in the 1980s, there have been two previous famine booms. His version is that the Nazis wandered into a field, dug a neat trench and just happened to come across victims of Soviet ‘genocide’ . Although eight years had elapsed between the ‘famine’ and the occupation, the victims’ clothes and flesh had not deteriorated at all. eight years had elapsed between the ‘‘famine’’ and the occupation, the. vic- tims’ clothes and flesh had not deterior- ated at all. This is just one piece of ‘‘evidence”’. There are numerous photographs of starvation with no proof of their authen- ticity. The earliest ‘‘famine pictures” did not appear until 1935, and then only in Nazi German papers and those of the Hearst chain in the USA. Louis Fischer exposed the **photographer”’ as a fraud, a petty criminal named Thomas Walker who had never been to Ukraine. The scenes were of other times and places, mostly of the Volga area in 1921. The uniforms shown in the *“‘documentary”™ were not in use in 1933. Their only attempt at orthodox histori- cal research is the nationalists’ claim that the Ukrainian population, as revealed by census, decreased slightly between 1926 and 1939. We do not know about birth rates, migration patterns, or even the identification of nationality, especially as some mixed marriages were producing the dreaded ‘*‘Russians*’. We certainly can’t deduce seven or ten million mur- ders. Why don’t they claim 20,000,000? To fill out the film, numerous witnes- ses are called up. Malcolm Muggeridge tells of starving people, as do two Nazi diplomats — one of whom, in an un- guarded moment, puts the deaths at only ‘*hundreds of thousands’. No fewer than seven of the ‘‘experts’’ have close ties to U.S. anti-Soviet or pro-Nazi Ger- ‘man propaganda forces. One “expert” says grain was being hoarded throughout Ukraine, even though the film’s thesis is that it was all being given to Russians or sold abroad. Are we to suppose that the government was trying to starve everybody in the union? Travelled Freely The opening of the film shows Ukraine being *‘sealed’’. from the rest of the coun- try. Despite this, Muggeridge travelled PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 25, 1985 e 5 The first was around 1935, when Ger- many and its fifth columns in the liberal democracies **broke”’ the story. It didn’t » go down well with democratic opinion. The second occurred in the U.S. at the height of the McCarthy period, but even then -it didn’t do well enough to be accepted by Western historians. Now, it seems, it’s to be third time lucky. The reasons are not hard to deduce. Ukrainian nationalist propagandists are on record as having several times called for a first-strike destruction of the Soviet Union, making suggestions such as ‘the threat of athird world war . . . (is) our last chance. Even if one half of man- kind were to perish in this war, we wouldn't consider it too exorbitant a price in order to gain our freedom”. § There have been many such comments, coinciding with the drive of the right in the U.S. to destroy the USSR by a final solution’. The nationalists are growing desper- ate. After 1941. a small minority of traitors (one an “expert” cited by the film) welcomed the Nazi invaders and proclaimed the “‘liberation”’ of Ukraine. Some of these are now living in Canada, having been routed by, Ukrainians who, given guns, aimed them not at their ‘*Russian masters’ but at the traitors to their own great republic. Maybe the creation of a Ukrainian ““holocaust”’ is a diversionary tactic to — create sympathy for the many war crim- inals known to be living in Canada. That is one thing. It is quite another to present as true a litany of lies from faked photographs and embittered cold war- riors. The campaign's clear purpose is to further wreck detente, to rally opinion behind Star Wars and against the Soviet Union and all progressive forces. If suc- cessful, the neo-fascists could pluge us all into a real and final holocaust and no one would be around to lie about it later. Shouldn't someone tell the CBC?