Another view of Stalin (21 page)

 .

New York Times, quoted in Tottle,  op. cit. , p. 50.

Next, Frederick Birchall  spoke of more than four million dead in a 1933 article. At that moment, he was, in Berlin, one of the first U.S. journalists to publicly support the Hitler  rйgime.

Sources six through eight are William H. Chamberlin,  twice, and Eugene Lyons,  both anti-Communist journalists. After the war both were prominent members of the American Committee for the Liberation from Bolshevism (AMCOMLIB), better known as Radio Liberty. AMCOMLIB funds were raised by `Crusade for Freedom', which received 90 per cent of its funds from the CIA. Chamberlin  gave a first estimate of four million and a second one of 7,500,000 dead, the latter number based on an `estimate of foreign residents in Ukraine'. Lyons'  five million dead were also the result of noise and rumors, based on `estimates made by foreigners and Russians in Moscow'.

The highest figure (ten million) was provided, with no details, by Richard Stallet  of Hearst's  pro-Nazi press. In 1932, the Ukrainian population was 25 million inhabitants.

 .

Tottle,  op. cit. , p. 51.

Among the twenty sources in Dalrymple's  `academic' work, three come from anti-Soviet articles in Hearst's  pro-Nazi press and five come from far-right publications from the McCarthy  era (1949--1953). Dalrymple  used two German fascist authors, a former Ukrainian collaborator, a right-wing Russian йmigrй, two CIA collaborators, and a journalist who liked Hitler.  A great number of the figures come from unidentified `foreign residents in the Soviet Union'.

The two lowest estimates, dated 1933, came from U.S. journalists in Moscow, known for their professionalism, Ralph Barnes  of the New York Herald Tribune and Walter Duranty  of the New York Times. The first spoke of one million and the second of two million dead of famine.

Two professors to the rescue of Ukrainian Nazis

To help the new anti-Communist crusade and to justify their insane military buildup, U.S. right-wingers promoted in 1983 a great commemoration campaign of the `50th anniversary of famine-genocide in Ukraine'. To ensure that the terrifying menace to the West was properly understood, proof was needed that Communism meant genocide. This proof was provided by the Nazis and collaborators. Two U.S. professors covered them up with their academic credentials: James E. Mace,  co-author of Famine in the Soviet Ukraine, and Walter Dushnyck,  who wrote 50 Years Ago: The Famine Holocaust in Ukraine --- Terror and Misery as Instruments of Soviet Russian Imperialism, prefaced by Dana Dalrymple.  The Harvard work contains 44 alleged 1932--1933 famine photos. Twenty-four come from two Nazi texts written by Laubenheimer,  who credited most of the photos to Ditloff  and began his presentation with a citation from Hitler's  Mein Kampf:

`If, with the help of his Marxist  creed, the Jew is victorious over the other peoples of the world, his crown will be the funeral wreath of humanity and this planet will, as it did millions of years ago, move through the ether devoid of men.'

 .

Ibid. , p. 61.

The majority of the Ditloff--Laubenheimer   pictures are utter fakes coming from the immediate World War I era and the 1921--1922 famine, or else portray misrepresented and undocumented scenes which do not describe conditions of famine-holocaust.

 .

Ibid.

The second professor, Dushnyck,  participated as a cadre in the fascist Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, which became active at the end of the thirties.

`Scientific' calculations

Dushnyck  invented a `scientific' method to calculate the dead during the `famine-genocide'; Mace  followed his method:

`(T)aking the data according to the 1926 census ... and the January 17, 1939 census ... and the average increase before the collectivization ... (2.36 per cent per year), it can be calculated that Ukraine ... lost 7,500,000 people between the two censuses.'

 .

Ibid. , pp. 69--71.

These calculations are meaningless.

The world war, the civil wars and the great famine of 1920--1922 all provoked a drop in the birth rate. The new generation born in that period reached physical maturity, 16 years of age, around 1930. The structure of the population would necessarily lead to a drop in the birthrate in the thirties.

Free abortion had also dramatically reduced the birthrate during the thirties, to the point where the government banned it in 1936 to increase the population.

The years 1929--1933 were characterized by great, violent struggles in the countryside, accompanied by times of famine. Economic and social conditions of this kind reduce the birthrate.

The number of people registered as Ukrainians changed through inter-ethnic marriages, changes in the declared nationality and by migrations.

The borders of the Ukraine were not even the same in 1926 and 1939. The Kuban Cossaks, between 2 and 3 million people, were registered as Ukrainian in 1926, but were reclassified as Russian at the end of the twenties. This new classification explains by itself 25 to 40 per cent of the `victims of the famine-genocide' calculated by   Dushnyck--Mace. 

 .

Ibid. , p. 71.

Let us add that, according to the official figures, the population of Ukraine increased by 3,339,000 persons between 1926 and 1939. Compare those figures with the increase of the Jewish population under real genocidal conditions, organized by the Nazis.

 .

Ibid. , p. 74.

To test the validity of the `Dushnyck  method', Douglas Tottle  tried out an exercise with figures for the province of Saskatchewan in Canada, where the thirties saw great farmers' struggles. The repression was often violent. Tottle  tried to `calculate' the number of statistical `victims' of the `depression-genocide', caused by the 1930's Great Depression and Western Canadian drought, complicated by the right-wing Canadian governments' policies and use of force:

This `scientific method', which any respectable person would call a grotesque farce for Canada, is widely accepted in right-wing publications as `proof' of the `Stalinist terror'.

B-movies

The `famine-genocide' campaign that the Nazis started in 1933 reached its apogee half a century later, in 1983, with the film Harvest of Despair, for the masses, and in 1986, with the book Harvest of Sorrow, by Robert Conquest,  for the intelligentsia.

The films Harvest of Despair, about the Ukrainian `genocide', and The Killing Fields, about the Kampuchean `genocide', were the two most important works created by Reagan's  entourage to instill in people's minds that Communism is synonymous with genocide.

Harvest of Despair won a Gold Medal and the Grand Trophy Award Bowl at the 28th International Film and TV Festival in New York in 1985.

The most important eyewitness accounts about the `genocide' appearing in the film are made by German Nazis and their fomer collaborators.

Stepan Skrypnyk  was the editor-in-chief of the Nazi journal Volyn during the German occupation. In three weeks, with the blessing of the Hitlerite  authorities, he was promoted from simple layman to bishop in the Ukrainian Orthodox Church, and in the name of `Christian morality', put forward vicious propaganda for Die Neue Ordnung, the Hitlerite  New Order. Fleeing the Red Army, he sought refuge in the U.S.

The German Hans von Herwath,  another eyewitness, worked in the Soviet Union in the service that recruited, among the Soviet prisoners, mercenaries for General Vlasov's  Russian Nazi army.

His compatriot Andor Henke,  also appearing in the film, was a Nazi diplomat.

To illustrate the `famine-genocide' of 1932--1933, the authors used sequences from pre-1917 news films, bits of the films Czar Hunger (1921--1922) and Arsenal (1929), then sequences from Siege of Leningrad, filmed during the Second World War.

When the film's producers were publicly attacked by Tottle  in 1986, Marco Carinnik,  who was behind the film and had done most of the research, made a public declaration, quoted in the Toronto Star:

`Carynnik  said that none of the archival footage is of the Ukrainian famine and that very few photos from `32-33' appear that can be traced as authentic. A dramatic shot at the film's end of an emaciated girl, which has also been used in the film's promotional material, is not from the 1932--1933 famine, Carynnik  said.

` ``I made the point that this sort of inaccuracy cannot be allowed,'' he said in an interview. ``I was ignored.'' '

 .

Ibid. , p. 79.

Harvest of Sorrow: Conquest and the reconversion of Ukrainian Nazi collaborators

In January 1978, David Leigh  published an article in the London Guardian, in which he revealed that Robert Conquest  had worked for the disinformation services, officially called the Information Research Department (IRD), of the British secret service. In British embassies, the IRD head is responsible for providing `doctored' information to journalists and public figures. The two most important targets were the Third World and the Soviet Union. Leigh  claimed:

`Robert Conquest  ... frequently critical of the Soviet Union was one of those who worked for IRD. He was in the FO [Foreign Office] until 1956.'

 .

Ibid. , p. 86.

At the suggestion of the IRD, Conquest  wrote a book about the Soviet Union; one third of the edition was bought by Praeger, which regularly publishes and distributes books at the request of the CIA.

In 1986, Conquest  contributed significantly to Reagan's  propaganda campaign for ordinary U.S. citizens about a possible occupation of the U.S. by the Red Army! Conquest's  book, co-authored by Manchip White, was entitled, What To Do When the Russians Come: A Survivalist's Handbook.

In his book The Great Terror (1968, revised 1973), Conquest  estimated the number of dead during the 1932-1933 collectivization at five to six million, half in Ukraine. During the Reagan  years, anti-Communist hysteria needed figures exceeding those of the six million Jews exterminated by the Nazis. In 1983, Conquest  thought it opportune to extend the famine conditions to 1937 and to revise his `estimates' to 14 million dead.

His 1986 book Harvest of Sorrow is a pseudo-academic version of history, as presented by the Ukrainian far-right and Cold warriors.

Conquest  claims that the Ukrainian far-right led an `anti-German and anti-Soviet' struggle, repeating the lie that these criminal gangs invented after their defeat as they sought to emigrate to the U.S.

Conquest,  dealing with Ukrainian history, mentions the Nazi occupation in one sentence, as a period between two waves of Red terror!

 .

Conquest,  The Harvest of Sorrow, op. cit. , p. 334.

He completely erased from his history the bestial terror that the Ukrainian fascists undertook during the German occupation, since they are the best sources for the `famine-genocide'.

Roman Shukhevych  was the commander of the Nachtigall Batallion, composed of Ukrainian nationalists wearing the German uniform. This battallion occupied Lvov on June 30, 1941 and took part in the three-day massacre of Jews in the region. In 1943 Shukhevyvh  was named commander of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (the Banderivtsy, or UPA), armed henchmen of the OUN fascist Stepan Bandera,  who after the war pretended that they had fought Germans and Reds.

 .

Tottle,  op. cit. , pp. 111-112.

All their `tales' of battles that they had fought against the Germans turned out to be false. They claimed to have executed Victor Lutze,  the Chief of Staff of the German SA. But, in fact, he was killed in an automobile accident near Berlin.

 .

Ibid. , p. 112.

They claimed to have done battle against 10,000 German soldiers in Volnia and Polyssa, during the summer of 1943. Historian Reuben Ainsztein  proved that during the course of this battle, 5000 Ukrainian nationalists had participated at the sides of 10,000 German soldiers, in the great campaign of encirclement and attempted annihilation of the partisan army led by the famous Bolshevik Alexei Fyodorov !

 .

Ibid. , p. 113.

Ainsztein noted:

`(T)he UPA gangs, which became known as the Banderovtsy, proved themselves under the command of Shukhevych,  now known as Taras Chuprynka,  the most dangerous and cruel enemies of surviving Jews, Polish peasants and settlers, and all anti-German partisans.'

 .

Ibid.

The Ukrainian, 14th Waffen SS Galizien Division (also known as the Halychyna Division), was created in May 1943. In his call to Ukrainians to join it, Kubijovych,  the head of the Nazi-authorized Ukrainian Central Committee, declared:

`The long-awaited moment has arrived when the Ukrainian people again have the opportunity to come out with guns to give battle with its most grievous foe --- Muscovite--Jewish Bolshevism. The Fuehrer of the Great German Reich has agreed to the formation of a separate Ukrainian volunteer military unit.'

 .

Ibid. , p. 115.