No. 25
November 2023
Duty of Memory
• Canada's Shameful Opposition to Clear-Cut UN Resolution Against Glorification of Nazism
• Demand Grows
Canada-Wide for Removal of
Monuments Glorifying Nazi Collaborators
Official Conciliation With Nazism Behind
Parliament's Standing
Ovations for Nazi Collaborator
• University "Research" Centres and Falsification of History
• Research
Report for Deschênes Commission Underscores
Steep
Price of Anti-Communism
November 25 Promotion of Holodomor Myth
•
Trudeau
Government's Continued Anti-Communist
Falsification of History
For Your Information
• Ukrainian Famine-Genocide Myth
• Articles by
Professor Mark Tauger
Duty of Memory
Canada's Shameful Opposition to Clear-Cut UN Resolution Against Glorification of Nazism
The following presentation was made by Youth for Democratic Renewal at the zoom meeting organized by the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) on November 11 under the theme: Canada's Duty of Memory.
***
On November 3, for the 18th consecutive year, the UN voted on a resolution entitled "Combating glorification of Nazism, neo-Nazism and other practices that contribute to fueling contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance."The resolution was co-sponsored by the Russian Federation and the Peoples' Republic of China.
Once again
Canada, along with Ukraine, the United States, the United
Kingdom,
Germany and other EU countries were among those that voted
against.
Despite their opposition, the United Nations once again adopted
the
resolution by a vote of 112 in favour, with 50 against and 14
abstaining. The resolution was thus adopted by the Third
Committee of
the UN General Assembly which deals with social, humanitarian
and human
rights issues.
Once again, Canada did its utmost to derail the resolution on the basis of its anti-communist mentality which has imbued its domestic and foreign policy since Soviet communists had the temerity to overthrow the rule of private property in Russia in 1917 and establish Soviet Power. Canada's delegate declared that the resolution was "problematic" because "it did not reflect contemporary forms of racism and address issues around freedom of expression." Even as the entire world rises up to oppose the most egregious example of racism taking place in the genocidal Israeli attacks against the people of Palestine which Canada supports, Canada continues to declare that its definition of racism is the correct one. This is a convoluted attempt to say that any opposition to Israel, Zionism or the occupation of Palestine is racism, anti-Semitism, promotion of hatred and terrorism and against Canadian values.
Even as Canada suppresses and persecutes those who do not repeat the official line of the Canadian state in support of Israel's crimes, Canada continues to declare that it is the champion of freedom of expression. It is both arrogant and irrational at one and the same time. It is beyond pathetic that Canada sees some merit in standing against the tide of our humanity which is calling a spade a spade and from the depth of its very soul is declaring Never Again!, abiding by its duty of memory which means the crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing and crimes of humanity witnessed in World War II must never be repeated.
Canada's shameful claim to fame worldwide is to parade the white man's colonial superiority which emerged in 19th century Victorian England to proclaim the allegedly civilized values of the master race as represented by the British Empire and duty to King and Country. In Canada, the euphoria about the supremacy of the British Empire died with the carnage of World War I but still Canada sees fit to promote its values in the 21st century. Prior to World War I, the promotion of the values of Empire assumed legendary proportions in Canada. It was considered a positive force which set the standards for citizenship and immigration, women's suffrage and success, temperance, industry and, of course, duty. The values of Empire were to unify the Empire and provide the King's dominions with order. All perspectives were limited to that and no other was to be entertained. On the contrary, other perspectives were silenced, denigrated and persecuted.
For Canada to be trying to achieve the same thing on the basis of the same values in the 21st century is a lost cause which is what the current outpouring of support for Palestine is showing. It is a veritable turning point in history and we are all part of making sure it favours the peoples of the world. In that sense, all of us are making history and this is really important to remember as we get up to face every day with courage and conviction.
At the UN, Canada's delegate went on to join the U.S. in objecting to the text of the resolution put forward by the Russian Federation alleging Russia's use of "neo-Nazism" was a pretext to justify its illegal territorial aggression in Ukraine. Calling it a "false narrative," the argument was that it undermines genuine attempts to combat it.
In his remarks in support of the resolution at the UN, Russian diplomat Grigory Lukyantsev noted that marches of neo-Nazis and torchlight processions in honour of those who actively worked with the Nazis and were accomplices in their crimes are taking place on the streets of cities in the centre of Europe. Is this the "freedom of expression" Canada claims to uphold? he asked.
Canada's delegate should explain how the elimination of neo-Nazis, which is a stated objective of Russia's Special Operation in Ukraine is a "false narrative," while Canada's military training of open neo-Nazi organizations like Azov and others in Ukraine, who proclaim themselves the inheritors of the fascist mantel of the likes of Stepan Bandera, is for the higher ideal of guaranteeing their "freedom of expression"!
What Canada's
antics at the UN show is that the standing ovations recently
given a
Waffen-SS veteran by the Canadian Parliament, was no "mistake."
The General Assembly has been adopting this resolution since 2005. Russia introduced the motion saying the world is witnessing, inter alia, the rise in Islamophobia, Christianphobia and anti-Semitism. Some countries have started waging a war on memorials that were established to glorify those who fought Nazism adding that "the approval of this document is not only our duty to those who created the UN, it is our duty to future generations."
As
adopted, the resolution calls on the Assembly to express alarm
at the
spread in many parts of the world of various extremist political
parties, ideologies and groups of a racist or xenophobic
character,
including neo-Nazis and skinhead groups.
Furthermore, the Assembly would firmly condemn incidents that glorify and promote Nazism, such as acts involving pro-Nazi graffiti and paintings, including on monuments dedicated to victims of the Second World War. (Canada with its monument in Ottawa to victims of communism would certainly have a problem in that regard.)
The resolution also reaffirms the Assembly's condemnation of any denial of the Holocaust, as well as any manifestation of religious intolerance or violence against persons or communities on the basis of ethnic origin or religious belief.
Earlier in the day, an unfriendly amendment was proposed by Albania, Australia, Japan, Guatemala, Liberia, the Marshall Islands and North Macedonia. The amendment gave expression to the "false narrative" argument previously made by the U.S. and Canada. It accused Russia of "justifying" its "aggression against Ukraine" on "the purported basis of eliminating neo-Nazism" and states that it "seriously undermines genuine attempts to combat neo-Nazism." The amendment was adopted in a 66-26 vote, with 67 abstaining.
It is noteworthy that even after succeeding in having the original motion amended this way, to condemn Russia, those who voted for the amendment still opposed adoption of the resolution as a whole. Cuba in particular called these countries out saying that none of those who voted in favour of the amendment voted in favour of the text as amended. Cuba's representative said his delegation does not agree with the included operative paragraph amendment.
Malaysia called out the farce of those who endorsed the amendment, including Israel, as the most egregious perpetrators of racism and xenophobia, saying: "There is a country abusing a term associated with a specific dark period of history to indiscriminately attack an entire population, causing the deaths of mostly women and children." Malaysia's delegate stressed his delegation disassociated from the amended operative paragraph 4 because it shifted the focus from a thematic resolution to one targeting specific countries.
China's
representative
emphasized that the resolution was thematic in nature. China
regretted the imposition of country-specific content into the
resolution. Referring to Japan, it added that it is ironic that
among the sponsors of the amendment was a country that falsified
the history of the Second World War by refusing to admit to its
war crimes, including massive crimes of sexual violence. China,
while voting in favour of the resolution, also disassociated
from the amendment.
Many other countries besides Cuba did the same, including the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Algeria, Egypt, Syria, Senegal, Nigeria and others. They voted to adopt the motion condemning the Glorification of Nazism, even as amended, while disassociating from the hostile provocative amendment.
In conclusion, while on the world scale matters appear more complicated than ever, they are in fact getting simpler. This is because the peoples of the world are speaking in their own names, debunking the positions which conciliate with the arguments originally put forward by the Hitlerites during World War II. The peoples of the world already rendered their verdict on the crimes of the Nazis at that time and they have no tolerance for their repetition today.
Demand Grows Canada-Wide for Removal of
Monuments Glorifying Nazi Collaborators
Monument to the 14th Waffen-SS
Division in St. Michael's cemetery in Edmonton was spray-painted
in
2021. Demands are growing to remove such monuments.
Over six years ago, in October 2017, the Russian Embassy tweeted: "There are monuments to Nazi collaborators in Canada and nobody is doing anything about it." Immediately, various newspapers suggested the tweet was an example of "Russian disinformation" to interfere in Canada's political affairs. For instance, an October 25, 2017 National Post article about the Russian Embassy's tweet said, "Some experts are accusing the Russian embassy of intentionally sowing discord and divisiveness, part of a broader strategy to disrupt the political process in Western democracies."
One "expert" quoted was Lubomyr Luciuk, a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada who told the National Post, "We have a foreign country whose official diplomats are interfering in the kind of life of Canada by trying to provoke ethnic divisiveness." "It's all based on fake news or misinformation, disinformation that's intended to cause problems. It's locker-room banter, it's sotto voce murmuring, it's not credible and yet it obviously has currency."
But facts are stubborn things. Canadians have never supported
these monuments glorifying Nazis and their collaborators. As the
federal government persisted in funding a monument in Ottawa
glorifying such people in the name of honouring Canada as a
refuge for victims of communism, they drew their own
conclusions. Demands for the removal of the Nazi monuments soon
started to grow. By
November 2019, for example, Alberta Jewish News
quoted Edmonton film-maker and journalist Paula Kirman about her
views
on the monument to Roman Shukhevych at the Ukrainian Youth
Centre in
her city. "I only learned about the statue a couple years ago,"
Kirman
said. "As a Jewish Edmontonian, it is very disconcerting," ...
[and]
ideally, I think it should be removed." She said, "At the very
least [the
Ukrainian Youth Centre should] publicly acknowledge that
Shukhevych was
a Nazi collaborator who took part in genocide, and put a plaque
of some
kind explaining his role in the Holocaust ... so that anyone who
sees it
will learn the truth," she said.
In
June-July 2020, the Nazi collaborator monument in Oakville,
Ontario
made the news when the words "Nazi war memorial" were painted on
it.
The monument, located at the St. Volodomyr Cemetery pays tribute
to the
Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, in the 14th Volunteer
Waffen-SS
Grenadier Division (the Galicia Division), the same division to
which
Yaroslov Hunka belonged.
Left:
The memorial to Nazi collaborators from
the 1st Ukrainian Division of the Ukrainian National Army in St.
Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery in Oakville, Ontario is
spray-painted,
October 13, 2023. Right: The memorial was previously painted
with the
words "Nazi war monument" in July 2020.
In a particularly controversial move, the Halton Regional Police reported the incident as a "hate crime." They eventually had to retract their statement due to public outcry. In a July 17, 2020 statement, the police said: "The initial information collected by investigators indicated that the graffiti may have been hate-motivated, targeting the identifiable group of Ukrainians in general, or Ukrainian members at this cultural centre. At no time did [we] consider that the identifiable group targeted by the graffiti was Nazis. We regret any hurt caused by misinformation that suggests the Service in any way supports Nazism." Later the police felt compelled to reiterate that Nazis are not an "identifiable group," protected by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
On August 10,
2020, Insidehalton.com carried
an article entitled: "'Disgusted': Oakville cemetery facing
calls to
remove what's being called a Nazi monument." Noting that the
monument
pays tribute to a group that "fought with the Germans against
the
Soviet Union during the Second World War, and was made up
predominantly
of volunteers from Ukraine," the article reports that "the
incident
[painting on the monument] led to a social media explosion, with
many
questioning why Oakville is home to a memorial honouring those
who
fought with the Nazis."
A letter of protest from one Oakville resident to various politicians is quoted: "I am absolutely appalled, disappointed and quite frankly disgusted that not only this monument was allowed to be erected but is still allowed to stand. This goes against everything Canada, Ontario, and Oakville embodies. I plead for you to address this wrong and make it right. By allowing this memorial in our community, you are saying that fascism and anti-Semitism is a-okay."
Politicians went on
the record to oppose the monument. "Oakville Mayor and Halton
Police
Board Chair Rob Burton issued a statement about the monument,
saying he
would remove it if he could. Burton told Insidehalton.com,
"Unfortunately, municipalities have no role in regulating the
contents
of private cemeteries."
Liberal Oakville North-Burlington MP Pam Damoff reportedly believes that "the monument pays tribute to those who fought for the Nazis and has no place in the community or in this country." "While it is my understanding that the federal government has no legal mechanism that it can use to remove this monument, I am following up to see if we have any recourse," she posted on social media. "I strongly encourage the private cemetery to review its policies and remove this monument."
Oakville North-Burlington MPP Effie Triantafilopoulos also spoke against the monument. She pointed out, however, that "the Funeral, Burial and Cremation Services Act governs cemeteries in Ontario and does not give the Province the power to direct the removal of monuments from private cemeteries."
Ukrainian Canada Congress CEO Ihor Michalchyshyn told Insidehalton.com that "the Ukrainians of the 14th SS Division were not fighting so much for the Nazis as they were against the Soviet Union."
Insidehalton.com also interviewed a member of the St. Volodymyr Ukrainian Cemetery Board who said that while the memorial is on cemetery property, the Board has "no connection to it beyond that. They said the cemetery does not own the monument, noting it was purchased by veterans of the division and erected in 1988. These veterans have all since passed away," the publication reported.
Yaroslov Hunka, one of the veterans, is in fact still alive as the whole world discovered through the September 22 parliamentary standing ovation for him. Once again, demands for the removal of the Nazi collaborator monuments across the country have been revived.
Official Conciliation With Nazism Behind
Parliament's
Standing Ovations for Nazi Collaborator
University "Research" Centres and
Falsification of History
In 1845 in his important work, The German Ideology, Karl Marx stated: "The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e., the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force." Clearly, in capitalist society a key source and repository of the ideas of the ruling class is the university. Supposedly, the university under liberal democracy is a place where ideas contend and differences of perspective are worked out based on reasons and evidence as various scholars wend their way inexorably toward the truth. Then that truth gets disseminated among the masses.
With that in mind it is important
to note that, as the thorough-going research of the Communist
Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) shows, Ukrainian
reactionaries such as former University of Alberta Chancellor
and former 14th Waffen-SS Galicia member Peter Savaryn, have
created so-called research
centres within universities such as the University of Alberta
that appear to participate in the falsification of history.
Their aim seems not to be to uncover history, as they claim, but
to create it. And to create it in such a way that it favours
their cause, promotes their version of history, suppresses
opposition to their attempts to be part of the ruling
intellectual force, and grooms the next generation to take up
their reactionary ideas and causes. This obviously has nothing
to do with uncovering the truth.
Are there any historical precedents for this? Certainly. During the run up to the Second World War, Germany used universities in countries such as the United States as centres from which to proselytize in support of the Third Reich. Particularly involved were German language departments. Universities of the day were influential in shaping public opinion and at the time many prominent academics such as Harvard University President James Conant (later U.S. High Commissioner to Germany) refused to take a principled stand against the Hitler regime but instead commended it. Many academics visited Germany and came back singing its praises. Students and professors who challenged and protested the rosy picture of Nazi Germany conveyed by its agents were harshly treated up to and including expulsions and firings.
University centres such as the Canadian Institute of Ukraine Studies (CIUS) appear to be serving the same propaganda purpose as their Nazi Germany-promoting predecessors. Two of the key falsifications they relentlessly promote are, first, the repeatedly refuted myth that the so-called Holodomor of the early 1930s was a deliberate program on the part of the Soviet Union to commit genocide against the Ukrainian people by deliberately depriving them of food,[1] and, second, the myth that Second World War Ukrainian fighting groups such as the Waffen-SS were not murderous gangs of Nazi collaborators under Himmler's command, but actually freedom fighters trying to achieve the independence of Ukraine. The fact that along the way these freedom-fighters committed atrocities against numerous groups of people, including Russians, Jews, Poles, Roma, Ukrainians and others, is just a matter of collateral damage. One example is the admitted massacre of 500-1,500 Polish women and children in the village of Huta Pieniacka on February 28, 1944.
Reasoned debate does not infect the mindset of the Ukrainian propagandists. A November 7 article in the Ottawa Citizen, "Event to Discuss Waffen-SS Cancelled After U of A Professors Complain About Nazi Whitewashing,"[2] states that "University of Alberta has held several online discussions since Yaroslav Hunka was given two standing ovations in the House of Commons. Pro-Ukrainian speakers at those events have claimed that Hunka's unit, the 14th Waffen-SS Galicia, wasn't involved in any war crimes and that such claims are Russian disinformation. But when another online discussion was planned for the Jewish Sabbath on October 14, once again organized by the university's Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, some professors filed complaints to the university's administration alleging the CIUS was engaged in whitewashing Nazi collaborators and war crimes."
The Ottawa Citizen article quotes Dr. Karyn Ball, a University of Alberta professor and Holocaust scholar, who commented. "I don't understand this upside-down universe where people here admire the Waffen-SS and somehow that's okay. It doesn't embarrass the people at my university very much that they have a [group] that has been laundering Waffen-SS reputations and funds for years now." Strangely, the Edmonton Journal, part of the same U.S.-owned PostMedia chain of newspapers as the Ottawa Citizen, did not carry the same article; this also bears looking into. Alberta-based online Athabasca University, however, did its due diligence by twice providing a link to the article on its recurring "media scan" which is emailed to all employees.
A recent article in TML Monthly Supplement No. 19 lists the names of a number of the type of funds referenced by Dr. Ball. Calls are growing louder that all such funds should be shut down, a measure already taken on September 27 regarding the Hunka fund. At minimum an official apology would obviously be in order regarding the hiring of Peter Savaryn as Chancellor. As a former doctoral student posted on social media: "Yuck. It was this man who draped my PhD hood over my head." In addition, more and more people advocate shutting down "research centres" such as Savaryn's CIUS, as well as thoroughly examining what role their published research may have played in spreading false history. Certainly, their refusal to question their core beliefs even when they are disconfirmed by irrefutable evidence openly contradicts all genuine science as well as drags through the mud the long-standing motto of the University of Alberta, Quaecumque vera -- "whatsoever things are true."[3]
Notes
1. The Holodomor myth has been exposed by eyewitness testimony of prominent individuals such as NY Times reporter Walter Duranty, playwright George Bernard Shaw, French President Edward Herriot, and UK official Sir John Maynard; by the exhaustive investigation published in Douglas Tottle's 1986 book Fraud, Famine and Fascism; by the lack of any supporting documentation for the claim of a "Soviet plot"; and by the proposal of a viable alternative natural explanation by U.S. historian Professor Mark Tauger.
2. "Event to discuss the Waffen SS cancelled after U of A professors complain about Nazi whitewashing," David Pugliese, Ottawa Citizen, November 7, 2023.
3. Philippians 4:8: "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things."
Research Report for Deschênes Commission Underscores Steep Price of Anti-Communism
Demonstration in 1997
against the presence of Nazi war criminals in Canada. In 1997
the
Canadian government acknowledged admitting 2,000 members of the
Ukrainian Waffen-SS division.
The September 22 standing ovation for Ukrainian Nazi collaborator Yaroslav Hunka in Parliament was the product of more than a century of persistent, inbred and now ingrained anti-communism among Canada's ruling elite. This outlook was spearheaded by the Anglo-American imperialists from the time of the Great October Socialist Revolution and the rise of the communist and workers movement in Canada itself. In part, it was based on an alleged biblical claim that opposition to private property is a sin and thus it not only defends Canada's constitutional order politically but also in terms of Canadian values.
This outlook is deliberately passed on from one Parliament to the next to the point where it has now become an internally unquestioned official policy of all institutions of the state. This imbues all those who take office with a profound ignorance because they are taught to never question the outlook they swear allegiance to uphold. It also exerts pressure on the entire society at this time when the takeover of political affairs by police powers is posing ever-greater dangers to the rights of the people.
This is why ruling elites make excuses for themselves when they are caught making standing ovations to the likes of Hunka in Parliament. It is difficult to see how any of those who applauded him with two standing ovations are going to talk their way out of this when the entire outlook is anti-communist. Their refusal to modernize Canada's political system is such that they are fully engaged in providing pretexts to justify the expansion of government of police powers and carrying on with their history of suppression and persecution of those fighting for the affirmation of the rights of the people, for an end to war and aggression, for their political empowerment and so on. In recent times, since at least 2016, with all-cartel party support, the government has set the stage to attack every just cause of the people as a subversion by foreign influence in Canada's political affairs.
Despite this, the standing ovation for Hunka brought out renewed demands for the elimination of memorials in Canada glorifying Nazi collaborators and war criminals. As well, various organizations have demanded that the government report on the full extent of the Nazi collaborators given safe haven by the Canadian government after World War II, including revealing the full report of the 1986 Deschênes Commission (officially known as the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada). Minister of Immigration Marc Miller tried to preempt this by calling for a "less redacted" report. On September 27, Miller said officials are looking into declassifying parts of the Deschênes Commission report to make it public in a "less redacted" format. He said "Canada has a really dark history with Nazis in Canada ... There was a point in our history where it was easier to get in as a Nazi than it was as a Jewish person. I think that's a history we have to reconcile." He claimed that he had read the 240-page public report of the Deschênes Commission twice since the standing ovation, adding that because he doesn't know what is contained in the classified documents of the report, he can't yet say if he backs their full release but the government "could possibly examine again [the release of the records]."
The Commission was established in February 1985 "to inquire into the matter of alleged war criminals in Canada." It was comprised of two parts, Part I for publication and Part II "which is destined to remain confidential," Deschênes said in his submission to the government in December 1986.
One of the related documents that has been made public under an Access to Information Act request is a research document produced by Alti Rodal in September 1986. It is a 617-page heavily redacted report entitled Nazi War Criminals in Canada: The Historical and Policy Setting from the 1940's to the Present. It is an instructive read to gauge the anti-communist outlook and intent which informed the government of Canada's inquiry and why the results it reached were to let the vast majority of Nazis and Nazi collaborators who sought refuge in Canada off scot-free.
Rodal writes that the aim of her study was "to provide an
accurate and relatively detailed account from the archival
record, of the polices of the government with regard to
immigration, displaced persons/refugees, and war criminals, and
the setting and evolution of these policies from World War II to
permit a better understanding of how the present situation with
regard to the war criminals came about." She states, "The
historical record is critical to understanding and, to a certain
extent, to catharsis." The Deschênes Commission's creation, she
says, "offered an opportunity, unlikely to be repeated, to come
to grips with some of the important questions of a formative
period of Canada's history, a period just past but one which
continues to cast a shadow on the present and succeeding
generations."
More than 35 years later, many Canadians would add that the shadow Rodal referred to "on the present and succeeding generations" far from becoming lighter is becoming darker and more ominous than ever.
At first perusal, a particularly damning aspect of the Rodal research is how it debunks the attempts of Prime Minister Trudeau, Deputy-Minister Freeland and a host of others to suggest that all of this history is a Russian concoction. This is the case even though various personalities who were calling for the admission of Nazi collaborators suggested at the time that the Soviet Union was unjustly characterizing these collaborators as potential war criminals.
In this vein, Rodal's report underscores the integration of Nazi apologists and collaborators into the Canadian institutions and organizations set up to deal with immigration into Canada from amongst the post-WWII displaced persons (DPs) and the primary role that anti-communism played in the manoeuvres to get Nazi-collaborators into Canada.
One example is the role played by Alfred Valdmanis. Before coming to Canada in 1949, Valdmanis served as special assistant to Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schact and became Latvian Minister of Finance under the pro-Nazi Ulmanis government where he helped deport Jews to concentration camps and form the Nazi-commanded Latvian Waffen-SS to fight the Soviet Union. Valdmanis moved to Canada in 1949 and became an advisor to the Canadian Department of Immigration, where he called for 20,000 Waffen-SS members to be admitted to Canada. In 1950 he became Newfoundland's Director-General for Economic Development where he negotiated a number of economic projects with German monopolies that had backed the Nazis such as Krupp and Hoechst. In 1951 he was accused of being a war criminal but denied the charges and was never arrested or tried for war crimes.
The Rodal report includes a section entitled "The Valdmanis Story" that speaks of how "In a lengthy presentation to the Senate Standing Committee [on immigration] in April 1949, Valdmanis ... pleaded on behalf of immigration to Canada of anti-communist Balts, and in particular on behalf of Baltic Waffen-SS members, who were rehabilitated and released in December 1945 and January 1946, because, he explained, they had nothing to do with the SS."
These are excerpts from the April 27, 1949 Senate hearings where Valdmanis made his appeals for admission of Nazi collaborators. He begins with a brief biography: "I am a Latvian, and am still a citizen of that country [...] My former position in Latvia was a member of the government of that country. I held my government post until Soviet Russia took over the Baltic countries, and I was among the Russian prisoners. Of course the, first thing that country did after it crushed the Baltic countries was to imprison the former government." He continues by stating, "The younger people of the government were held for a special trial. As you will recall, when the Russian-German war broke out, the Germans conquered the Baltic countries. The population of Latvia and Lithuania rose in eight or nine days to meet the situation and then the Germans took over. The Germans liberated Russian political prisoners, of which I happened to be one."
Senator Turgeon asks: "You were liberated by the Germans in their occupation?"
Valdmanis responds: "Yes. It was July 1941 when I was liberated by the Germans when they took over Latvia and all the Baltic countries. We thought that liberation meant real restoration of independence and freedom. As a matter of fact when Field Marshal Von Kuechler, the German commander on the eastern front, made the proclamation we understood he was acting in the name of Hitler. He announced the German army was coming as liberators. Because of this announcement the population of the Baltic countries rose against the Russians. It is a fact that some Baltic refugee groups are wrongfully labelled 'Baltic SS men.' To my mind these people would be the best immigrants to come to a country like Canada."
He goes on to say to the Senators that he needs to explain the "conditions in the Baltic countries." "You will excuse me for using this expression, but 97 to 99 out of 100 [per cent] of the population said that if the devil himself should come back from hell to drive out the Russians he would be welcome. So in June 1941 a man stood up and ordered his army to invade Soviet Russia -- this man was Hitler. His armies were welcome in the Baltic countries "as liberators, particularly after Field Marshall Von Kuechler made the announcement that they were a liberating army."
Valdmanis tells the Senators that the people soon realized "that the Germans had not in fact liberated them and restored to them their freedom. [...] We were between the Russians and the Germans."
Rodal says in her report that "Interest in [the Valdmanis] story in this report relates to the prominent role he played in the resettlement of refugees/DPs both with the IRO in Europe and later in Ottawa, as well as in the impact he would have had on Canadian public perceptions of the Displaced Persons/refugees."
In this regard, Valdmanis told the Senators that "In 1945, after the collapse of Germany, I joined for a short while the staff of [British] Field Marshal Montgomery, and worked on matters affecting prisoners-of-war. I had a particular interest in this work, because among these prisoners-of-war in the hands of the English there happened to be some 20,000 Baltic young people, the so-called Baltic Waffen-SS.
"When this question was solved, the Chief of Staff of Field Marshal Montgomery recognized that these men had not been SS men and had nothing to do with the SS, and in January, 1946, they were released from German prisoner-of-war camps and became bona fide refugees and displaced persons. I then joined the staff of General Eisenhower, later that of General McNarny, and finally, General Clay. Through Field Marshal Alexander [...] Later I went over to the American headquarters and was attached to the Civil Affairs Division of the Headquarters of the European Command, United States Forces, as an adviser on refugee and displaced person matters. In September 1947, at the instigation of the American army, I went over to Geneva to become a senior staff member of the International Refugee Organization."
Speaking of the Canadian regulations regarding admission of the Waffen-SS as it then stood, Valmanis was asked by Senator Wood: "We do not admit them here?"
Valdmanis: "No, you do not."
Senator Wood: "You are trying to sell us on the idea that we should admit them; is that your idea?"
Valdmanis: "Yes. It is my belief that these people are the ones you want from the standpoint of the Canadian immigration policy. They are almost all single; they are young and physically strong. They are strongly anti-communist, additionally so for the reason that they cannot go back because they have fought the Russians and know how the Russians would deal with them. [...] Honourable senators, if I may speak for these refugees and displaced persons I wish to say that there are a great number of them who would make extremely fine citizens in your country."
Rodal writes that Valdmanis was "a cause célèbre" and his profile "kept Eastern European immigrants in the public eye." Her report speaks of the opposition to Valdmanis at the time: "The pro-Communist Polish ethnic press responded to Valdmanis' presentation to the Senate Committee with an article claiming that as a former advisor to the wartime President of the Bank of Germany, Valdmanis 'was infected with Nazism.'"
She writes that "The Senate Committee heard two sets of opposing voices with regard to Ukrainian DPs. The pro-Soviet Ukrainian and Polish spokesmen reiterated the Soviet line that the DPs in Germany were either war criminals or collaborators, or persons free to return to their homeland. They criticized Canada's policy of ethnic preference, which substituted immigration of people of a particular religious or political background for a policy of broad immigration based on Canada's needs and perspectives. 'We submit that this type of "selective immigration" is contrary to Canada's democratic traditions and insofar as it serves as a mask to cover the bringing over to Canada of the pro-Nazi remnants in Europe it is subversive and fraught with dangers to Canadian democracy and security."
These are some of the conclusions drawn by Rodal in the summary of her research:
"Cold War considerations had conditioned the approach of the Western Allies in the years immediately following the war with regard to Nazi collaborators from Eastern European countries. As a result, many were able to evade screening and/or apprehension, either because of the absence of documentation and information in their regard, or because, as anti-Communists, they elicited sympathy in the West."
"As in the United States and Britain, a determining consideration shaping policy and attitudes particularly in the 1950s, with regard to Nazi collaborators from countries which after the war were ruled by Communist regimes was the passion with which these persons professed anti-Communist sentiment.
"The former Nazi collaborators who have established in Canada the veterans' organizations or branches ... appear to have retained a toned-down version of the fascist and racist elements which characterized their ideologies and actions during the war years. Occasionally, these elements are manifest in the foreign-language publications put out by these organizations. In the Canadian atmosphere, however, their presentation is generally one of single-minded anti-Communism."
The work done has exposed the extent to which the post-WWII dregs of Nazism were brought into Canada and how they were used as a bulwark in the integration of Canada into the NATO war apparatus and in this regard, the connections that are being brought out that this fight against anti-communism is at the heart of many dangers facing Canadians. The Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada invites anyone interested to join in the work for this project.
November 25 Promotion of Holodomor Myth
Trudeau Government's Continued Anti-Communist Falsification of History
This year the government of Canada can be expected to once again promote the Holodomor myth about a Ukrainian famine man-made by Joseph Stalin to kill Ukrainians because they oppose the communist regime. Today this is used for purposes of warmongering against Russia. It is usually an occasion to spread all kinds of stale anti-communist lies which originated with the Nazis during World War II. It will be interesting to see what is said by official as well as academics and media this year as they cover up their support for making Canada a refuge for the Nazis and their collaborators who repeat the Holodomor myth.
As of June 2023, only 34 countries out of 193 United Nations member states, recognize what is called the Holodomor, the last being the Senate of Italy on July 26, 2023. Of course, Canada is one of them.
The term Holodomor, in Ukrainian translates as death by hunger. It refers to the alleged starvation of millions of Ukrainians in 1932-33 as a result of Soviet policies. It is portrayed as the culmination of an assault by the Communist Party and Soviet state on the Ukrainian peasantry who, they claim, resisted Soviet policies. When they speak of Ukrainian peasantry they also always confuse the kulaks, the rich peasants and small landlords who generally played a reactionary role, and the mass of poor peasants many still in serfdom who benefited from and joined Soviet Russia in building a new society.
In 2008, the Harper government declared an official day of remembrance for the Ukrainian victims of what it called the Holodomor In Alberta, "Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day," was declared by the Conservative government, also in 2008, through Bill 37. The bill proclaimed the fourth Saturday of November each year as Alberta's Day of Holodomor Remembrance. Other provinces including Quebec have passed similar bills and now hold similar annual events.
The Harper government created a special day of remembrance for the alleged genocide in spite of the fact that of the world's 193 countries at that time a mere 15 of them officially agreed with the characterization of the Holodomor as a genocide, i.e., as a deliberate policy to exterminate a particular nation or ethnic group. Ukraine, Canada, and the U.S. are three of those countries which today number 34 including several countries in Latin America which the United States and Canada have cajoled to join in. No African, Asian, or Arab countries agree with the characterization of the Holodomor as genocide. The Holodomor museum in Ukraine calls this "Worldwide Recognition of the Holodomor as Genocide." Significantly Israel, which of course commemorates the Holocaust, does not agree that what occurred in Ukraine was genocide. This is not because Israel is in any way progressive. On the contrary, we are informed it is because of prejudices against any use of the term genocide which they think belittles the European Holocaust in which so many people identified as Jews perished in the most brutal ways.
Further, no official documents have ever been produced that would verify the claim that the Soviet government carried out a deliberate policy of starving people living in the Ukraine. In fact, in 1934 the British Foreign Office in the House of Lords stated that there was no evidence to support the allegations against the Soviet government regarding the food shortages, based on the testimony of Sir John Maynard, a renowned famine expert who actually visited Ukraine in the summer of 1933. Other well-known personalities of the day who took the same view included U.S. journalist Walter Duranty, author H. G. Welles, playwright George Bernard Shaw, and French president Eduard Herriot.
The following notes extracted from Wikipedia are interesting because they reveal the profound anti-communism which pervades all Holodomor propaganda. It says:
"With the concurrence of the Canadian Senate, the House of Commons passed An act to establish a Ukrainian Famine and Genocide ('Holodomor') Memorial Day and to recognize the Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33 as an act of genocide, in part stating:
"Whereas the Ukrainian Famine and Genocide of 1932-33 known as the Holodomor was deliberately planned and executed by the Soviet regime under Joseph Stalin to systematically destroy the Ukrainian people's aspirations for a free and independent Ukraine, and subsequently caused the death of millions of Ukrainians in 1932 and 1933. ... Her Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada, enacts as follows: 1. This Act may be cited as the Ukrainian Famine and Genocide ("Holodomor") Memorial Day Act. 2. Throughout Canada, in each and every year, the fourth Saturday in November shall be known as 'Ukrainian Famine and Genocide ("Holodomor") Memorial Day.'"
Since it first formed the federal government in 2015, the Trudeau government has continued with Harper's policy, issuing annual statements claiming that the 1932-33 famine was a systemic man-made genocide committed by the Soviet government which killed millions through forced starvation, that it was an attempt to destroy the Ukrainian people, and that it is just one more example of suffering under communism. Also emphasized is that Ukrainians have contributed to Canada and that Canada supports the people of Ukraine and their government. Those who deny that the conditions in Ukraine in 1932-33 were a man-made famine are summarily dismissed by Holodomor proponents as "Holodomor deniers," on par with "Holocaust deniers."
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The idea of a famine deliberately created by the Soviet government was concocted by the Hitlerite Nazis to discredit the Soviet Union and undermine the great prestige it had amongst the world's peoples. The facts show that while there were food shortages in Ukraine, mainly due to the long imperialist invasion of Soviet Russia from 1918 to 1922, which included Canadian troops and attempts by the remnants of the Czarist regime to mobilize the rich peasants called kulaks against the collectivization of agriculture, no "man-made famine" was ever created. Professor Mark Tauger, associate professor of history at West Virginia University, has done exhaustive research and concluded that hardships in Ukraine were caused mainly by natural factors that waxed and waned, causing severe reductions in agricultural production, including periodic drought and persistence of crop pests and diseases when the means to combat them were still being developed.
But today the genocide myth is deliberately revived and promoted to spread disinformation to cover up the crimes which the U.S. imperialists are committing in their striving to dominate the world, along with the Israeli Zionists and their backers in Europe and North America, which includes the government of Canada.
The Hitlerite Nazis created the genocide myth in 1933 to discredit the Soviet Union, the enemy they most feared. They wrote front page stories in German newspapers, which were then taken up by the reactionary British press, including by Lord Rothermere, owner of the London Daily Mail monopoly press. He was anti-Soviet, anti-communist, anti-Semitic and anti-labour to the core. A friend of Hitler and Mussolini and sympathetic to Oswald Mosley's British fascist party, Rothermere sent congratulatory telegrams to Hitler before the invasion of Poland.
In September 1934, multi-millionaire William Randolph Hearst, leading U.S. publisher of the "yellow press" and an open supporter of Nazism, met with Hitler and Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels in Berlin and signed a cash deal to promote a positive image of the Nazis in the U.S. The Hearst papers soon carried columns paid for by Adolf Hitler, Herman Goering and Benito Mussolini, and Hearst attended the huge 1934 Nazi Party Nuremberg rally, featured in Leni Riefenstahl's notorious Nazi propaganda film, Triumph of the Will. Egged on by the Hitlerites, Hearst's papers became the biggest propagandists for the genocide myth, using fake photographs and printing lies that have been refuted by solid evidence over and over again.
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Hearst's fraudulent campaign began on February 8, 1935 with a fabricated front-page headline in his Chicago American: "6 million people die of hunger in the Soviet Union." But what actually took place in the Soviet Union at the beginning of the 1930s was a further advancement of the revolution. It was a time of major internal class struggle during which poor landless peasants rose up against the minority of rich landowners, the kulaks, and began a struggle for the collectivization of agriculture. Collectivization was undertaken in conjunction with the campaign to rapidly industrialize the Soviet Union so as to meet the needs of the Soviet people and to defend the Soviet Union against foreign aggression.
The Hearst press articles were the origin of the larger myth alleging millions died in the Soviet Union. These myths were taken up by the CIA and Britain's MI5 and, in the post-war period, by the McCarthyite witch hunters, and by paid propagandists such as Stanford Professor Robert Conquest, a former MI5 agent. For decades, such slanders have spread a negative view of socialism in the Soviet Union. Combatting these fabrications, in 1987, Canadian trade unionist Douglas Tottle published a well-researched book called Fraud Famine and Fascism, which systematically exposed the Holodomor myths. The book has been reproduced online and is accessible to any reader who has an interest in investigating the facts of the matter.
Canada has also signed all four of the joint declarations by delegations at the United Nations General Assembly recognizing and condemning the Holodomor. In 2019, an official statement about the genocide was issued from the prime minister Justin Trudeau on Holodomor Memorial Day, in part reading:
"Today, we remember the millions of innocent people in Ukraine who suffered and died during the Holodomor. From 1932 to 1933, the totalitarian Soviet regime launched a campaign of starvation across Ukraine. Millions died, and countless others were arrested, deported, or executed in a genocide designed to break their will. In the face of these horrors, the people of Ukraine endured, protecting their language, their culture, and their identity. In 1991, after decades of Soviet rule and oppression, they gained their independence. For too many years, the perpetrators of the Holodomor denied its existence and hid the full extent of the unspeakable suffering from the international community. It falls to each one of us to ensure their stories are never erased."
Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Alberta, Ontario, and Quebec have also passed legislation recognizing the Holodomor similar to those on the national level. The Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan recognized the Holodomor as genocide in 2008 with the passage of the Ukrainian Famine and Genocide (Holodomor) Memorial Day Act. In 2019, the Saskatchewan legislature lit a memorial candle for the duration of Holodomor Memorial Week to commemorate and remember the victims of the famine genocide. A statue titled "Bitter Memories of Childhood" was installed in the park grounds surrounding the Saskatchewan Legislative Building in 2015 to remember the victims of the Holodomor. After attending the candle lighting ceremony in the legislature, Canadian minister Greg Ottenbreit laid a wreath at the statue."
The following information about Saskatchewan underscores just how nefarious the project is. In 2011, Ottenbreit argued against resource revenue-sharing with First Nations, suggesting that First Nations people who get "handouts" would spend it on drugs and alcohol. The comment drew calls for Ottenbreit's resignation from the Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations, who called the remarks "very hurtful and very inappropriate."
In October 2020, Ottenbreit shared a Thanksgiving message from Texas Pastor Ed Newton, an American preacher who has shared anti-LGBT views and whose church labels homosexuality as an addiction. Ottenbreit has shared messages from pastor John Hagee as well, another preacher who had referred to the Roman Catholic Church as "the great whore" and claimed that Adolf Hitler was fulfilling God's will, promoted conspiratorial views about Jewish people, and claimed Hurricane Katrina was God's punishment for gay rights. Ottenbreit said he was interested in Hagee's theory of "Blood Moons," which claims that lunar eclipses coinciding with Jewish holidays would trigger a war in Israel and usher in the return of Jesus Christ.
The fact is that state policy should not be based on false ideological beliefs (FIBs).
For Your Information
Ukrainian Famine-Genocide Myth
In 1922 the Soviet Union experienced severe famine conditions in some areas following on from the wars of intervention when imperialist powers had sought to crush the new Soviet state. Famine conditions recurred again in 1933, particularly, but not exclusively, in the Ukraine. There are two versions to this second famine that are radically different. An objective analysis indicates the famine to have resulted from a combination of poor climatic conditions and sabotage on the part of the rich peasants or kulaks in the face of the collectivization of agriculture. Ukrainian Nationalists however argue that the famine was deliberately contrived by Stalin in order to break the spirit of the Ukrainian people, and resulted in millions of needless deaths, in fact death and destruction on such a scale that it dwarfs the Nazi holocaust.
Documentary evidence produced to support this claim is often endorsed by academics such as Robert Conquest, or James Mace of Harvard University. Such evidence is shaky in the extreme and often relies on discredited accounts from the 1930s pro-fascist press in America, or even Nazi documents. Despite this it continues to resurface, most notably in the 1980s as part of an attempt by Ukrainian Nationalists to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the famine, and at the same time to fuel the cold war rhetoric of the Reagan era.
The same old grainy photographic images appear time and time again, purporting to show victims of the Ukraine famine, but these are almost always undocumented, or if traced back actually come from famine relief documents from the 1922 famine or even earlier. Cobbled together in the film Harvest of Despair such pictures were shown on UK television despite having been rejected by some public service networks in the U.S. because of a blatant lack of objectivity.
Falsified photos to promote the Holodomor,
from a public
exhibit in Sevastopol, Ukraine in March 2009, organized by the
Security
Service of Ukraine. The photos were captioned to say they were
from the
alleged famine in 1932-33 but the three on the left were proven
to be
depression-era photos
from the U.S. and the one at the right from Russia in 1921. (www.nr2.ru)
Ukrainian nationalist organizations in Canada and elsewhere continue to propagate the notion of deliberate famine genocide, while carefully glossing over their own anti-Semitic, pro-Nazi and collaborationist origins. A search on the web for "Ukrainian Famine Genocide" resulted in 845 references to this "man made" famine, as usual graphically illustrated with pictures for an earlier era. In this talk I will explore some of the background to these various claims and counter claims, with reference to the excellent book on the subject by Douglas Tottle.[1]
Journalistic Fraud in the 1930s
In the autumn of 1934, an American using the name of Thomas Walker entered the Soviet Union. After less than a week in Moscow, the remainder of his 13-day stay was spent in transit to the Manchurian border, at which point he left the USSR never to return. Four months later a series of articles began in the Hearst press in America, by Thomas Walker, "noted journalist, traveller and student of Russian affairs who has spent several years touring the Union of Soviet Russia." The articles described a famine in the Ukraine that had claimed six million lives, and was illustrated with photographs of corpses and starving children. Walker was said to have smuggled in a camera under "the most difficult and dangerous circumstances."
Louis Fischer, an American writer living in Moscow at the time was suspicious. Why had the Hearst press sat on these sensational stories for ten months before publication? He established that Walker's short visit to the Soviet Union could not possibly have allowed him to even visit the areas he described and photographed. He also pointed out that Walker's photographic evidence was distinctly odd: not only were the pictures suggestive of an earlier decade (Fischer thought probably of the 1921 Volga famine) but contained a mixture of scenes taken in both summer and winter. Fischer also noted that the 1933 harvest in the Ukraine had been good.
Some of the pictures were subsequently identified as showing scenes from the Austro-Hungarian empire and World War 1, and it was known that Hearst newspapers were digging up old pictures and retouching them for use as propaganda. Pictures sometimes appeared labelled as having been taken in Russia, and at other times the same picture is relocated to the Ukraine for obviously political reasons. Not only were the photographs a fraud, and the trip to the Ukraine a fraud, but Thomas Walker himself was a fraud, turning out to be an escaped convict by the name of Robert Green who had served time for forgery. At his subsequent trial following recapture he admitted that his series of pictures used in the Hearst newspaper articles were fakes and were not taken in the Ukraine as stated. Despite these facts, the same photos are still those used in commemoration posters, on web sites and in the film Harvest of Despair.
The Hearst Press
The Hearst Press needless to say continued with its famine genocide campaign despite the Walker fiasco. This is not surprising when we consider that Hearst himself was known to millions of Americans as "America's number one fascist." (One of Mussolini's chief sources of personal income during the early 1930s was from being a paid correspondent for the Hearst Press.)
In 1934 Hearst visited Nazi Germany and met Hitler. Following this visit, the Hearst Press began to promote famine genocide articles on the Ukraine. French Premier Edward Herriot, who had recently returned from travelling in the Ukraine, publicized the fact that he had seen no evidence of any famine. Following the Walker articles, Hearst went on to try and convince Americans that the Soviet Union was a land of utter starvation, genocide and cannibalism. At the time this was often recognized as politically motivated sensationalism, but over the passage of years these fabrications have become transformed into "primary evidence."
By noting those features of the 1930s campaign and the selective memories of those who helped the Hearst Press in propagating the famine-genocide thesis, light can be cast on the character of today's famine-genocide campaign.
Simultaneously with the launch of Hearst's 1935 outpourings, the Nazi press in Germany and sympathetic papers elsewhere in Europe began publishing similar stories. At this time a book by Dr Ewald Ammende was published entitled Human Life in Russia. This has had a lasting influence on those who propagate the famine-genocide myth, and was republished in 1984. The book makes little pretence of objectivity crediting Hearst correspondents, accounts from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and reproducing allegations by unnamed "travellers" and "experts."
Most photographic evidence of the famine-genocide theorists can be traced back either to Ammende's book or to Thomas Walker. The origins of the photographs are not documented, although it should be noted that Ammende was involved with famine relief work in 1921-2. The pictures are said to have been taken in the streets and squares of Kharkov in the summer of 1933, although only 10 of 26 appear to show urban scenes. There are no signs or landmarks to help set them in context. "Human Life in Russia" contains additional pictures that did not appear in the German edition. These are claimed to have been taken by Dr Ditloff, director of the German Government Agricultural concession in the north Caucuses. One might wonder how a Nazi functionary came to be wandering freely around the Ukraine taking photographs, but in any case in later publications the same photographs are either unattributed or attributed to a completely different source. In fact, some pictures have been identified as coming from the 1922 famine, and some show winter scenes despite apparently having been taken in summer. Other publications use the same pictures either with no accreditation or accredited to Thomas Walker, despite the fact that they were used to portray events in 1932/3 and Walker claimed to have taken them in the spring of 1934.
It is clear that the photographic evidence is fraudulent, and was used primarily as part of a campaign to undermine and discredit the Soviet Union. Despite this, they continue to be used to this day.
Cold War
The famine genocide campaign of the 1930s leaned heavily on dubious right wing sources and was not accepted by mainstream historians at the time, leading some Ukrainian Nationalists to speak of a pro-Soviet, left wing or even Jewish conspiracy to suppress the truth. In the 1950s the Nationalists published books such as The Black Deeds of the Kremlin to propagate their interpretation of history. A section is devoted to Nationalist allegations of Soviet mass executions during the 1930s in Vynnitsa. Unearthed during Nazi occupation in 1943, the graves were examined by a Nazi commission and used in propaganda films. Post-war testimony by German soldiers revealed however, that this was a Nazi propaganda deception, the bodies being those of Jews executed by the SS and Ukrainian militia.
The gruesome allegations of cannibalism in volume 2 of Black Deeds has lead to it being referred to as the "Ukrainian Nationalist cookbook"!
The Numbers Game
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Nazis carry out mass
killings in Vynnitsa,
The famine genocide theorists are keen to establish that millions of people died in the Ukraine. Their methodology, as usual, is highly suspect. A "landmark study" by Dana Dalrymple published in Soviet Studies, 1964 comes up with a figure of 5.5 million based on averaging the guesses of 20 Western journalists. One of them is our fictional friend Thomas Walker. Dalrymple states that Walker made his survey by breaking away from a guided tour, and had previously spent several years touring Russia. A similar figure by the Archbishop of Canterbury is also quoted; this enthusiastic supporter of Hitler had attempted to raise the famine issue in the House of Lords in 1934 when in fact the Foreign Office stated that there was no evidence to support the allegations against the Soviet government. Needless to say, the testimony of Sir John Maynard, a renowned famine expert who visited the Ukraine in the summer of 1933 and rejected tales of famine-genocide is dismissed by the Nationalists.
The Cold War campaign resurfaced in the 1980s with considerable publicity and scholarly backing from the Ukrainian Research Institute of Harvard University, long a centre of anti-communist research. In 1983, the book The Ninth Circle, first published by Ukrainian Nationalists in 1953 was republished, edited and introduced by Harvard's Dr James Mace. A critical review of this book described it as being "a polemic, devoid of any documentation, and lacking in any scholarship." The author, it was pointed out, fails to give any details about his activity during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, and makes not a single derogatory comment about the Nazis. Once again the Thomas Walker fakes are used as illustrations, despite the author claiming to have been an eyewitness to the famine. The "academic" Mace writing of Walker's material states, "American newspapermen like Thomas Walker wrote plainspoken and graphic accounts of the Famine based on what they had witnessed in the Ukraine in 1933." Note the convenient backdating of Walker's trip to 1933 and not 1934.
Another contribution to the famine genocide literature is Walter Dushnyk's 50 Years Ago: The Famine Holocaust in Ukraine. The foreword to this book is by none other than Dalrymple. Dushnyk's roots can be traced to Europe's pre-war fascist movement when he was active in the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists. Again a critical reviewer comments that this book, "rather than being a scholarly analysis, the material consists of a highly emotionally charged vitriolic polemic. Indeed it has little to do with scholarship and unquestionably is lacking in objectivity." Once again the same faked or undocumented photographs are used as illustrations. Dushnyk calculates the number of famine deaths by projecting an anticipated population growth, based on the 1926 census, onto the listed population census for the Ukraine in 1939. The difference is 7.5 million and this therefore becomes the number of famine victims. The nonsense of this methodology can be demonstrated by transposing to Canada in the 1930s and showing that 25 per cent of Saskatchewan's population disappeared during the great depression. In fact, the population of the Ukraine increased in real terms from 1926-1939 by almost 3.4 million. Whilst it is not possible to give an accurate figure for the numbers of famine victims, the claims of people like Dalrymple, Mace and Dushnyk have been shown up as extreme exaggerations fabricated to strengthen their political allegations of genocide.
Harvest of Deception
The famine-genocide campaign reached a climax in 1986 with the publication of Robert Conquest's book Harvest of Sorrow, and the film produced by the famine research committee of the St Vladimir Institute, Harvest of Despair. The film is full of the old undocumented pictures, and relies heavily on interviews with former Nazis and Ukrainian collaborators, as well as defectors from the Soviet Union; even [English journalist and satirist] Malcolm Muggeridge pops up for a short appearance. The film's producers apparently viewed more than a million feet of stock footage of film, before selecting a mere 720 feet for use. Instead of any documented evidence of the famine being presented, a montage of undocumented stills are shown including the Walker/Ditlofff pictures, 1921/2 famine pictures, and others from Nazi propaganda publications. With breathtaking disregard for the truth, some scenes borrow from film of the civil war, and Soviet films of the 1920s. In essence, it seems that the film makers scrounged through the archives looking for bits and pieces of old "war-and-starvation" shots that were then spliced into the film to great subliminal effect, bound together by a narrative and interspersed with partisan interviews. So much has even been admitted by some of those involved, yet the film has been widely shown and praised, including on British television. The makers even received grants and logistical support from the National Film Board of Canada and another publicly funded body, Multiculturalism Canada. Harvest of Despair was clearly no objective documentary as is claimed, but rather a crude cold war propaganda exercise.
Conquest's book Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivisation and the Terror Famine has emerged as the best attempt of the famine-genocidists at legitimacy. Conquest's right-wing affiliations and his holocaust denials are now well known. At one time he was employed by the British Secret Service's disinformation project, the Information Research Department, key targets being "the third world" and the "Russians." Conquest's earlier work The Great Terror had alleged that only 5-6 million perished in the 1932/3 period and only half of them in the Ukraine. By 1983 Conquest, however, had upped his estimates to 14 million and extended famine conditions to 1937! Such revisions coincided handily with the 50th anniversary commemorations of the famine.
Conquest presents the various nationalist cliques who held parts of the Ukraine during the Russian civil war and foreign intervention as bona fide governments. The mass slaughter of Ukrainian Jews carried out under nationalist "independence" in 1918-19 is dismissed in three words. The Nazi occupation of the Ukraine is presented implicitly as a breakdown between periods of Soviet "terror" and the liberation from the Nazis as Soviet "reoccupation." There are many examples in the book of Conquest's lack of scholarship. One example is him quoting from accounts by a foreign correspondent who turns out to be none other than Thomas Walker, the man who never was. In his reference note for the quote he even moves the date of the Hearst article from 1935 to February 1933. It is worth repeating the observations of American historian J. Arch Getty on the quality of this kind of historical research:
"Grand analytical generalizations have come from second hand bits of overheard corridor gossip. Prison camp stories ('my friend met Bukharin's wife in a camp and she said...') have become primary sources on Soviet central political decision making .... the need to generalize from isolated and unverified particulars has transformed rumours into sources and has equated repetition of stories with confirmation."
Whereas serious historians do not accept hearsay and rumour as historical fact, contrast this with Conquest's stated position that "Truth can only percolate in the form of hearsay" and "on political matters basically the best, though not infallible source is rumour."
The Famine
Coming now to the famine itself and its causes, the factors of drought and sabotage during the process of collectivization are generally given little attention by right-wing historians. Interestingly, in A History of the Ukraine by Mikhail Hrushevsky -- described by the Nationalists themselves as "Ukraine's leading historian" -- we read that "Again a year of drought coincided with chaotic agricultural conditions; and during the winter of 1932-3 a great famine, like that of 1921-2 swept across Soviet Ukraine." Nowhere does this history suggest that the famine was deliberate and aimed against Ukrainians, and in fact more space is devoted to the famine of 1921-22. There are many references to drought conditions in the Ukraine in 1931 and 1932. Even Ewald Ammende in his Human Life in Russia refers to climatic and natural causes of the famine.
While drought was a contributing factor, the main cause of the famine was the struggle around collectivization of the countryside in this period. In 1928 there were millions of small scale peasant farms, three quarters of the land was sown by hand, one-third of the crop areas was harvested by sickle and scythe, 40 per cent of the crop was threshed by flail. Over one quarter of peasant households possessed no draught animals or farming implements, and 47 per cent had only ploughs. The drive to collectivization was a key feature of the first five year plan launched in 1929. The small minority of rich peasants, the kulaks, opposed socialization of agriculture and fought against collectivization with an organized campaign of large-scale destruction. The struggle in some areas including the Ukraine approached civil war scale. Visiting foreign observers at the time noted that kulak opposition took the form of slaughtering their cattle and horses rather than having them collectivized. From 1928-33 the number of horses in the Soviet Union fell from 30 to 15 million, cattle from 70 to 38 million, sheep and goats from 147 to 50 million. Some kulaks burned down the property of collectives and even burned their own crops and seed grain. Many famine-genocide theorists discount kulak sabotage, but others offer enthusiastic descriptions celebrating the opposition to Soviet planning. In addition the famine was compounded by typhus epidemics which undoubtedly claimed many lives. By 1933 there was a successful harvest, enormous efforts were put into improving collective farms and providing mechanized equipment.
Subsequent huge increases in agricultural and industrial output in the Ukraine leading up to the Second World War give the lie to allegations of 7 to 15 million starvation deaths only seven years earlier. In addition, the record of Ukrainian resistance to the Nazis and their Ukrainian nationalist auxiliaries was exemplary. In the largest eastern portion of the Ukraine loyalty was overwhelming and active. There were over half a million organized Soviet guerrillas, and four and a half million ethnic Ukrainians fought in the Soviet army. The Ukrainian nationalist histories acknowledge this, and one can only wonder at the ability of a nation to mobilize such numbers of military aged males in the light of Nationalist claims about famine victims. The reality was that for the bulk of the Ukrainian peasants, workers and the professionals newly emerged from those classes, the Soviet system had demonstrated overwhelming economic and cultural advantages.
The only place where the Nationalists found any kind of base during the Nazi occupation was in what had been up to 1939 Polish Galicia; this is where the Nazis did their bulk of recruiting for the fascist police and SS units. An examination of what happened during the Nazi occupation is revealing not only in terms of the popular support for the Soviets demonstrated by the people of the Ukraine, but also for the role played by the Ukrainian Nationalists.
Collaboration and Collusion
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Founding of the SS Galicia Division In June 1941 the Nazi army entered Lviv, capital of the Western Ukraine. In its vanguard came the German-uniformed Nachtigall Battalion of Ukrainian Nationalists. During the first three days of July the Nachtigall Battalion slaughtered 7,000 Jews in the vicinity of Lviv. Non-Jewish writers, intellectuals and professionals known to be hostile to Nazism were also killed. In the first eight months of Nazi occupation 15 per cent of Galician Jews -- 100,000 people -- were slaughtered by the joint actions of the Germans and Ukrainian Nationalists. Many thousands of Nationalists who fled to Germany and elsewhere in the wake of the retreating Nazi armies had to cover up their personal and collective guilt in the holocaust and betrayal of their country. Anti-Semitic and fascist themes run deep through the history of the Ukrainian Nationalist movement. Leaders of the Ukrainian Nationalists were on the payroll of the Nazi Party before Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. Ukrainian Nationalist battalions were trained in Germany before the war and some were used in the invasion of Poland.
The Nachtigall and Roland Ukrainian volunteer detachments fought with the German army and in late 1941 were reorganized into a Police Battalion and employed in Byelorussia. Despite this being well known, the famine genociders portray the Nationalists as having fought against both Hitler and Stalin and somehow on a par with the French resistance. Similarly distorted is the role of the 14th Waffen-SS Galizien Division (also known as the Halychyna Division). Formed in 1943 its main function was brutal anti-partisan work. Even after German withdrawal from the Ukraine, Nationalists stayed behind and continued to harass Soviet supply lines. Nationalist troops served Hitler in Ukraine, Poland, Byelorussia, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Yugoslavia. Ukrainian collaborators assisted in the murder of hundreds of thousands in death camps like Treblinka, Sobibor, Yanowska and Trawniki. Such were the "anti-Nazi" credentials of those who Nationalists today would present as "national liberation fighters," "heroes of the Ukrainian people" and "patriots who struggled for a free Ukraine."
After the War
After the allied victory over Nazi Germany many collaborators sought to escape justice and retribution, looking for new lives in North America and elsewhere. Western intelligence agencies helped sanitize Nazi collaborators for emigration to new homelands in return for a new collaboration against Russia. The International Refugee Organization as well as the U.S. Displaced Persons Commission initially regarded the Ukrainian Nazis as ineligible for visas. This did not stop American intelligence agencies from presenting the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists as having been engaged in anti-Nazi combat. This was a complete fabrication, but persuaded the immigration authorities to change their stance. Laundered East European collaborators were put to work at Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, the Voice of America and schools training U.S. intelligence officers in East European languages. Some were trained for sabotage operations within the Soviet Union and others employed as living witnesses of "communist terror" in the psychological conditioning of the American people for war against the USSR. The Ukrainian "famine-genocide" was but one of many themes. Ultimately it became more important to the immigration authorities in the U.S. and Canada whether one might be considered a communist rather than to have been a Nazi collaborator.
Conclusion
Over 65 years ago the fakery and political motivation of the pro-fascist publisher William Hearst were exposed by the American journalist Louis Fischer. In examining the record of those propagating the famine genocide campaign today, one is drawn to Fischer's conclusion:
"The attempt is too transparent, and the hands are too unclean to succeed."
Dr. John Puntis is a physician at Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Department of Children´s Gastroenterology.
Note
1. Fraud, Famine and Fascism. The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard. Progress Books, Toronto, 1987. ISBN 0-919396-51-8
Articles by Professor Mark Tauger
Prof. Mark Tauger is one of the world's leading scholars on the development of agriculture in the Soviet Union during its early years. He is an associate professor of history at West Virginia University. He is the author of the 2010 book Agriculture in World History. His writings on Soviet agriculture – articles, book chapters, and reviews – are listed on his website at West Virginia University. Three of these are provided below:
"Stalin, Soviet Agriculture and Collectivization," Chapter Six in Food and Conflict in Europe in the Age of the Two World Wars, edited by Frank Trentmann and Flemming Just, Palgrave Macmillan, 2006
"Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 1931-33," (2001, 65 pages), Carl Beck Papers No. 1506, Center for Russian and East European Studies (University of Pittsburgh). This is the only study documenting the underlying environmental causes of the famine of those years.
"The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933," Slavic Review 1991.
(To access articles individually click on the black headline.)
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