烏克蘭饑荒
第1部分：消除了“敵人”類，通過集體化
第2部分：倖存者回憶一下1933年的恐怖
第3部分：七十年後的世界在很大程度上仍然不知道悲劇


通過Askold Krushelnycky


第1部分 - 通過集體化消除了'敵人'類


烏克蘭人紀念70周年的斯大林政權強迫農業集體化程序 - 一個過程，最終在一個人為的饑荒在世界上最肥沃的地區之一。據估計，有14萬人死於飢餓，主要集中在烏克蘭，而且在北高加索，哈薩克斯坦和俄羅斯。由三部分組成的系列，甚至RFE / RL記者Askold的Krushelnycky報告背後的動機，約瑟夫·斯大林的臭名昭著的計劃，那些倖存下來的饑荒的記憶，為什麼今天這麼少，是的悲劇。


布拉格5月8日2003（RFE / RL） - 今年是70周年的集體化節目策劃由前蘇聯領導人約瑟夫·斯大林聲稱以百萬計的人，大多是烏克蘭農民的生活。


人造饑荒的毀滅性的比例是一個野蠻的人體工程學設計，消除經濟類，共產黨視為其激烈的對手的高潮。它的目的還在於打破意志的烏克蘭 - 共產黨員和非共產黨員 - 都緊緊抓住他們的國家認同。


沙皇時代的掃地塊的業主已經死亡或1917年共產主義革命趕了出來。但是，蘇聯領導層還藐視了數以百萬計的農民了自己的位置，保持小農場和不斷增長的大部分糧食。共產黨，這些農民的自力更生和資本主義的例子是一個威脅。


斯大林，特別是看到了烏克蘭的農民，他恨之入骨的烏克蘭民族主義運動形成的前線。他怨恨莫斯科與烏克蘭共產黨人被迫作出的妥協 - 妥協，給了他們一定程度的自治權，並且看到了復興的烏克蘭文化和語言。


蘇聯劃分為不同的類別的農民。主要的階級敵人富農，相對富裕的農民能買得起自己的幾頭牲畜，偶爾會雇用幫助耕作或收穫。共產黨人要消滅富農，希望獲得較貧窮的農民的支持，擊鼓類的怨恨。


在1929年底，斯大林發起的“dekulakization”計劃集中在烏克蘭，但涵蓋了北高加索 - ，像庫班哥薩克 - 和哈薩克斯坦各國人民之間的民族烏克蘭有較高的比例。


一個惡毒的宣傳戰煽動仇恨，對富農和他們的家庭，描繪他們等於外國軍隊的入侵的威脅。共產黨人和旅所謂的“積極分子”支持的蘇聯秘密警察粗暴地剝奪了他們的家園和財產，富農，拍攝那些抵制和驅逐數以百萬計的西伯利亞和遠東。


1931年，，特奧多拉，索羅卡是一個11歲的女孩在烏克蘭的Poltavschyna地區的一個村莊，什麼品牌作為一個富農家庭。


“我的祖父，收穫和耕作必要時，僱工，在秋天，當他們收穫的小麥，他雇了人，”她說。 “正因為如此，蘇聯當局迫害他的人非常的不只是他，但整個家庭，因為他們稱他為剝削者，他們在一個完全不人道的方式毀了我的家庭。”


大約有7.5萬人，其中包括100萬在哈薩克斯坦，估計已經死亡期間“dekulakization。”許多富農宰殺他們的牲畜，並燒毀他們的家園，而不是看到他們沒收。數以千計的人被槍殺反對大隊發送給剝奪了他們的財產。周運輸期間的許多人死於勞教所，在沒有暖氣的火車很少的食物來維持他們。所占比例最大，將其遞解出境後的最初幾年中喪生。


索羅卡的祖父和父親都在被驅逐者。她從來沒有見過他們了。她，與她的母親，姐姐，姑姑，和七個堂兄弟一起，留在Poltavschyna，不知道等待他們的仍然更可怕的饑荒。幾乎所有她的家人在1933年死於飢餓。


再加上“dekulakization，”集體化的過程正在進行中。共產黨施加沉重的糧食需求上，使其無利可圖，以維持他們的小塊土地，並迫使他們加入集體農莊的農民。


莫斯科發送了25,000信任俄羅斯共產黨組織的集體農莊和國營農場。秘密警察和軍隊經常被用來恐嚇農民加入。共產黨遺憾的是，即使在惡性宣傳活動，大多數農民的同情與富農，而不是與共產黨。
許多這些貧困的農民最終被重新分類為富農自己。大多數加入了集體農莊勉強。許多人試圖賣掉或者宰殺他們的牲畜，而不是捐贈給集體農莊執行。


當局積極提取的虛高糧食產量所要求的莫斯科，少得可憐的農民可以養活自己和家人。


集體農莊是眾所周知的低效。即便如此 - 對斯大林的高級烏克蘭共產黨領導人的請求 - 在1932年，北高加索，烏克蘭和俄羅斯的伏爾加河地區的糧食配額增加。的需求，饑荒不可避免的。


忠誠的共產主義在蘇聯時代 - 有的甚至今天 - 於1932年歉收造成的饑荒。但即使是蘇聯的記錄顯示，今年的收成令人滿意。索羅卡記得農民們高興。


“集體化的小麥已經開始於1932年，1932年有一個很大的收穫。人們說，糧食已經變得如此之高，人走在田野的負責人是看不到的。的莖是如此沉重，糧食，搶購。沒有人預見到這樣的好收成在1932年，當蘇聯當局說[歉收饑荒的過錯，他們在說謊，“她說。


由於飢餓開始採取更堅定的對農民人口的抓地力，中共當局使用武力和恐怖履行留給農民和集體農場的糧食配額，很少或根本沒有來維持自己的。成千上萬的農民試圖掩蓋穀物或其他食品來養活自己的家庭被處決，許多當地的共產黨官員，反對飢餓的政策，使許多地區在1932年接近結束。


這本書被認為是“收穫長恨歌”由英國歷史學家羅伯特徵服期間的最全面的研究。在書中，他說，斯大林意識到，過度的糧食購單將導致饑荒，但堅持以破壞他所看到的農民反共產主義和烏克蘭民族主義的雙重威脅。


索羅卡說，她這是毫無疑問的情況下。


“他們想出的最簡單的方式，打破烏克蘭的脖子上，很少向他們收取費用，並採取控制烏克蘭的人為的饑荒。”飢餓是在1933年肆虐，奪走至少700萬人的生命。


在烏克蘭的大饑荒這一系列的第2部分的重點，其中包括人吃人的事件目擊者的帳戶。


第2部分 - 倖存者回憶恐怖的1933年
今年5月份70周年，由蘇聯領導人約瑟夫斯大林在北高加索和其他地區，造成至少500萬人的生命，在烏克蘭和大約200萬毀滅性的饑荒故意設計的高度。 RFE / RL的記者Askold Krushelnycky說他們的記憶是毀滅性的時間倖存者。


布拉格5月8日2003（RFE / RL） - 70年前，5月份看到一個可怕的人造饑荒，減少以百萬計的人生活在一些世界上最肥沃的農田骨架的高潮，而糧食儲備和其他食物腐爛噸，通常的視線內死於飢餓的家庭。


Oleksa Sonipul 10於1933年，住在烏克蘭北部的一個村莊。她說，那年開始，饑荒是如此普遍，人們已經減少吃草，樹皮，根，漿果，青蛙，鳥類，甚至蚯蚓。


絕望的飢餓感促使人們拋售他們的財產，他們能找到的任何食物。到了晚上，有一種可怕的寂靜下跌逾村，所有的牲畜和雞，長久以來被殺害的食品和疲憊的村民們早早地上床睡覺。


但是，共產黨的徵地旅，以滿足高不可及的糧食配額繼續尋找即使是那些村莊裡，居民們已經死於飢餓。他們用金屬棒探測地面和潛在的藏身之地，在那裡他們可以隱藏涉嫌糧食。


對農民，行動毫不手軟的大隊委員，得益於蘇聯的仇恨運動，帶走了最後屑的食物，飢餓的家庭知道他們譴責即使是很小的孩子死亡。任何農民抵制被槍殺。也發生了強姦和搶劫。


Sonipul描述官兵到達她家時，發生了什麼事。


“在1933年，就在聖誕節前，旅來到我們的村子搜尋麵包。他們採取了一切他們可以找到吃的。那一天，他們發現土豆，我們已經種植在我們的爺爺的花園，並正因為如此，他們採取了一切從祖父和所有的種子，播種秋天到了第二天，聖誕節的第一天，奶奶已經聚集，他們向我們走來，撕毀了我們的窗戶和門，並採取一切集體農莊。“


由於食品匱乏的村莊，數千名絕望的人長途跋涉去乞求食物在城鎮和城市。食品是在城市，雖然嚴格控制，通過配給券。但居民被禁止幫助飢餓的農民和醫生，以幫助骨骼的村民，誰是死在街頭。


Fedir Burtianski是一名年輕男子，在1933年時，他在烏克蘭的頓巴斯礦區的火車尋找工作。他說，成千上萬飢餓的農民，痛苦地薄，肚子腫腫的，兩旁的軌道，乞討食物。火車停在第聶伯羅彼得羅夫斯克市和Burtianski說，他被嚇壞了，他所看到的。


“在第聶伯羅彼得羅夫斯克，我們離開了車廂。我下了馬車，我看到很多人腫半死。有的趴在地上，只是晃動。他們可能會死在幾分鐘之內。的鐵路NKVD秘密警察迅速趕到我們回到了車。“


繼續在烏克蘭收穫穀物和土豆，斯大林的配額的需求驅動。但蘇聯的運輸系統效率低下的意思從字面上腐爛萬噸的糧食吃剩的 - 有時是在公開，並在那些餓死的觀點。


Burtianski描述重複的場景中所有對烏克蘭的城鎮和城市。在農村地區，整個村莊被摧毀了。飢餓使許多人絕望和瘋狂。很多人吃人的情況下被記錄下來，與人們生活的其他飢餓的受害者的遺體，或在某些情況下訴諸謀殺。大多數農民家庭有五六個孩子，有些准媽媽會殺了他們的最弱的兒童，為了養活的人。


Burtianski說，在一個點上，他避免從供應商處購買肉類，因為他懷疑這是人肉。當聽說過這件事情，他被迫參加試驗的一名男子和他的兩個兒子被懷疑謀殺了人們對食品的。 Burtianski說，在審訊過程中承認在令人心寒吃的肉，他自己的母親，死於飢餓的兒子之一。


“他說，”謝謝你父親斯大林剝奪了我們的食物，我們的母親死於飢餓和我們吃了她，我們自己死去的母親。後，我們的母親，我們沒有採取任何人的憐憫，我們不會倖免斯大林自己“。”


Mykhaylo瑙緬科，11歲，於1933年。拒絕加入集體農莊附近，他的父親被處決。 Mykhaylo留下了他的母親和兄弟姐妹，沒有一個供應商面對的饑荒。他說，人被槍殺試圖竊取穀物或馬鈴薯從當地集體農莊，周圍是鐵絲網和武裝人員守衛。他說，人們甚至試圖拿起幾個鬆散的種子掉在了地上。


“的悲劇。人們變得浮腫，他們也因此喪命由成千上萬的每一天。的集體農莊當局任命了六名男子收集和埋葬死者。從我們村的75家，5月24號的房子是空的，所有的居民已經死了“。


瑙緬科也見證了人吃人的實例。他說，他第一次發現，他的鄰居們吃人的肉後，其中的一個，稱為塔琪雅娜，儘管他剛剛幫助埋葬了她的父親拒絕與他分享她的肉。


“我看到塔琪雅娜吃雞肉，看到它有很多。我走近她，並問她一些，但她拒絕給我任何，因為它是人肉。”


數百名被處決或殺害其他村民的食人。蘇聯的記錄顯示，約1000人仍在服刑的同類相食在戰俘營白海在1930年代末。


，奧萊娜Mukniak是在1933年10住在與她的母親，姐姐，弟弟，在Poltavschyna地區的一個村莊。她的父親離開了頓巴斯地區尋找食物。在村里，Mukniak說，通過馬糞挑選的人找到糧食，燉皮靴，和烤的樹葉和樹皮。


“你做什麼，如果有沒有吃的？我們收集的白樺樹葉和烤，然後吃了。我們還能做什麼？”


她的妹妹在集體農場工作，並收到一小片麵包，每天他們四。但它是不夠的，讓他們都還活着。


“我的哥哥死於飢餓。他又小又沒有什麼吃什麼，我們的母親給我們吃的時候有什麼？我妹妹給我們帶來了一小片麵包每天一次，我們一飲而盡，等待，直到第二天，但你沒有食物的時間。我的弟弟比我小，他死了，因為他需要吃什麼可以給我們的母親。“


許多人見了他們的死亡與安靜的辭職，祈禱和安慰他們的飢餓兒童的童話故事。


並非所有部門都紋絲未動的悲劇。一些共產黨積極分子和官員監督糧食徵收感到非常震驚，他們所看到的和他們的上級提出抗議，或試圖提供食物給飢餓的村民。對於他們的努力，他們被處決。


高級烏克蘭共產黨的分數，饑荒和斯大林的攻擊對烏克蘭文化的復興是他們最後的幻滅的思想，他們曾的原因。他們中的許多人自殺，而不是面對酷刑和公開審判。


直到共產主義的秋天，大部分的饑荒中倖存下來的村民目擊者講述他們的故事持謹慎態度。即使是現在，很多人都不願意談論這期間，因為他們看到許多前蘇聯時代遺留下來仍然在權力的位置。


，似乎困擾着他們的記憶，是那些看着自己的親人死了。特奧多拉索羅卡，誰失去了幾乎每一個到“和饑荒dekulakization”的成員，她的家人說，這樣的記憶永遠無法抹去。她也沒有忘記他們。


“我的妹妹死於飢餓在我的懷裡，她乞討一塊麵包，因為有一塊麵包，意味着生活在家裡，她懇求我給她一小塊麵包，我也哭了，並告訴她說，我們沒有任何她告訴我，我想她死。相信我，這是痛苦的，即使是現在，我小的時候，我自己然後，我哭了，但我的心沒有撕成了碎片，因為我無法理解為什麼這一切都發生，但到了今天，自從我長大後，我並沒有在我的生活中時，我沒有哭花了一天時間，我從來沒有想到發生了什麼事，我的家人進入了夢鄉。“


這個系列的最後一部分看起來世界為什麼仍然知道一些關於1933年災難性的人為的饑荒，造成數百萬人死亡。


第3部分 - 七十年後，世界在很大程度上仍然沒有意識到悲劇
約瑟夫·斯大林政權的故意設計的，70年前的饑荒奪去了數百萬人的生命，主要是在烏克蘭，而且在其他一些地方的蘇聯。這是今天的蘇維埃政權和恐怖的種族滅絕行為的最嚴重的暴行之一。即便如此，1933年的大饑荒是比較陌生的。 RFE / RL的記者Askold Krushelnycky檢查和報告提請注意的暴行運動背後的原因。


布拉格，2003年5月8日（RFE / RL） - 估計有多少人死於1933年不同在斯大林的工程的饑荒。但他們驚人的規模 - 11萬人之間。


但是，儘管可怕的人誰死了，這可怕的一章在蘇聯歷史上人員傷亡同等規模的大屠殺是比較陌生的世界。其中一個主要的原因是，德國人最終打敗了，數千名目擊者告訴他們關於集中營和大屠殺的故事。的經驗還抓獲了難忘的照片，電影和書面記錄，許多被抓獲，並把那些對種族滅絕負責的試用。


Lyubomyr Luciuk是在烏克蘭的加拿大公民自由協會研究部主任。他解釋了為什麼沒有這樣的機會，探討在蘇聯饑荒。


“納粹是如此完全徹底地打敗並沒有辯護者在第二次世界戰爭以外的其他一些堅果，蘇聯，相反，內爆，”Luciuk說。 “有沒有軍事上的征服。在意識形態上，也許，它被擊敗了，但在一定意義上，這個政權及其工作人員，管理員和官僚 - 昔日的 - 只是改變了他們的襯衫和，成為民族主義者和愛國者隔夜。存檔記錄仍然是不完全的。目前還沒有紐倫堡審判，如果你喜歡的話，帶來的諸多成千上萬，如果不是數以十萬計的人誰擔任蘇維埃政權司法“。


英國歷史學家羅伯特占領期間，他1986年的饑荒研究專家，“悲傷逆流成收穫，”帶來的悲劇多的信息對西方觀眾的第一次。征服的饑荒和大屠殺的另一個對比是，而阿道夫希特勒寫了下來，他打算做什麼，斯大林並沒有去紀錄關於饑荒。


“[德國]第一，被抓，所以它結束了，他們有自己鑽進的操作，他們說他們在做什麼。斯大林從來沒有說過他是想餓死人死亡。他只是拿走了他們的食物，他從來沒有記錄，這是所有做的主持下，以人為本的談話，社會主義的談話 - 否則完全拒絕。的操作是不同的，而在其他方面，他們是不同的，太。希特勒做了很多可怕的事情，但他不“T折磨他的朋友說假話。的操作是不同的。”
征服表示，雖然現在大多數歷史學家接受，一場毀滅性的饑荒發生，一些持懷疑態度的仍然試圖找到一個理由斯大林的行為。


“我不認為大家還接受[饑荒]。我已經看到了最近的採訪中說，這是一次饑荒，我也讀過一天的東西，說的人被逮捕和槍殺等在8月法令1932年，因為，畢竟，他們偷的，“征服說。 “我說，”是的，他們偷自己的東西已經從他們的狀態。“他們沒有想到的是，你看這仍然是寫了，現在偶爾。“


但征服多的證據出現了自蘇聯解體使更多的訪問蘇聯檔案。他說，他自己也發現記錄在案的證據表明斯大林知道，幾十萬農民試圖進入俄羅斯在尋找食物。


“俄羅斯驅逐的烏克蘭和庫班農民的 - 只要他們試圖進入俄羅斯，他們被送回 - 我只得到了約8個或10個私人的報告，通過了一項法令，斯大林，實際上是確認簽署，這應該做了一份報告[Genrikh] Yagoda，秘密警察的頭，說已經做了“幾十萬愚蠢的農民”。你看，秘密來源，確認後完成。“


征服是毫無疑問的饑荒主要目的是在烏克蘭和斯大林討厭不僅是全國的農民，而且甚至是所謂的高級共產黨領導人，像尼古拉Skrypnyk，最終以自殺的人。


“斯大林試圖打破烏克蘭，如你所知，與領先的烏克蘭布爾什維克Skrypnyk的自殺，把他們時，他們試圖捍衛只是普通的字母烏克蘭的壓力下。這裡斯大林]嘗試去改變它，這樣的事情，我想他也證明了他永遠信賴的烏克蘭共產黨在1937年，即使是那些支持他的人被完全清除。整個烏克蘭中央委員會。他這個了不起的每個人的不信任，但特別是烏克蘭。 “


Luciuk為什麼大饑荒的消息從來沒有達到西方的烏克蘭加拿大公民自由協會有不同的理論。他指責一些總部設在莫斯科的西方記者的時候，誰知道強迫飢餓，而是選擇了不寫或故意遮蓋。


蓋的是“紐約時報”記者沃爾特·Duranty發揮的記者，他說，最有影響力的角色。的藥物成癮者與陰涼的聲譽，，Duranty也是一個狂熱的風扇斯大林的，他形容為“世界上活着的最偉大的政治家。”他被授予了美國第一個面試的秘密政權與蘇聯領導人和特權信息。


Duranty一名英國外交官私下的時候，他認為消滅了10萬人的饑荒。但是，當其他記者曾前往烏克蘭開始寫的可怕的饑荒肆虐有，Duranty品牌的信息作為反蘇的謊言。征服認為，Duranty被蘇聯秘密警察勒索他的性活動，據報道，雙性戀和戀屍癖。


前一年饑荒，在1932年，，Duranty贏得了普利策獎，美國最令人垂涎的新聞獎，對蘇聯經濟進行了一系列的文章。 Luciuk說的烏克蘭僑民，以及烏克蘭政界人士和學者，在本月初推出了一項活動，有Duranty的獲獎追授撤銷。他說，他希望這項運動，讓更多的人知道在世界的饑荒。


“因此，這是一個可怕的種族滅絕的災難降臨烏克蘭，烏克蘭人，和紀念今年70周年 - 這樣做是試圖普利策獎委員會做正確的事，並吊銷Duranty獎追授 - 為什麼我們從事這項運動。“


希德，Gissler，普利策委員會的一位發言人說，董事會已考慮撤回Duranty的獎金在以往的場合，但已決定不這樣做，因為它沒有被授予相關的饑荒。他說，他同情與烏克蘭的活動，董事會將重新考慮的問題再次在今年晚些時候。


“我理解他們的關注，但正如我所說，該獎項去為一個離散集的故事和它的不是設計，說任何一個人，一個人的工作主體，或他們的一生 - 它是不是終身成就獎。 “


Duranty在1957年去世的貧困醉。 Luciuk說，關於饑荒的詳細信息時，終於公開化，Duranty被記入與鑄造著名無情的短語，“你不能讓不打破雞蛋的煎蛋卷。”


Luciuk說，他希望，同時，烏克蘭將做更多的教育自己的關於饑荒的人口。自獲得獨立以來，連續烏克蘭政府已做了一點宣傳鼓動爭議的國家依然強大的共產黨，繼續否認蓄意組織的饑荒的恐懼情節。此外，許多參加了處決，驅逐出境，並沒收食品仍然活着，接收狀態養老金。


在2月，烏克蘭議會進行了一次特別聽證會的饑荒。對人道主義問題的副總理，德米特羅Tabachnuk，說是蓄意的恐怖行為，奪去了10萬人的饑荒。他說，政府正計劃建立一個全國性的饑荒紀念大樓。


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Ukraine Famine[/font]
Part 1: Eliminating An 'Enemy' Class Through Collectivization
Part 2: Survivors Recall The Horrors Of 1933
Part 3: Seventy Years Later World Still Largely Unaware Of Tragedy
By Askold Krushelnycky
Part 1 - Eliminating An 'Enemy' Class Through Collectivization
Ukrainians are commemorating the 70th anniversary of the Stalin regime's forced farm-collectivization program -- a process that culminated in a man-made famine in one of the world's most fertile regions. An estimated 14 million people died of starvation, mostly in Ukraine but also in the North Caucasus, Kazakhstan and Russia. In a three-part series, RFE/RL correspondent Askold Krushelnycky reports on the motivation behind Josef Stalin's notorious plan, the memories of those who survived the famine, and why even today so little is known about the tragedy.
Prague, 8 May 2003 (RFE/RL) -- This year marks the 70th anniversary of a collectivization program masterminded by former Soviet leader Josef Stalin that claimed the lives of millions of people, mostly Ukrainian peasant farmers.
An artificial famine of devastating proportions was the culmination of a savage piece of human engineering designed to eliminate an economic class that the Communists viewed as their fierce opponents. It was also intended to break the will of Ukrainians -- Communists and non-Communists alike -- who clung to their national identity. 
The tsarist-era owners of sweeping plots of land had already been killed or driven out by the 1917 Communist revolution. But the Soviet leadership also despised the millions of peasant farmers who took their place, maintaining small farms and growing mostly grain. To the Communists, such farmers were a threatening example of self-reliance and capitalism.
Stalin, in particular, saw Ukrainian peasants as forming the front line of the Ukrainian nationalist movement he so intensely disliked. He resented the compromises Moscow had been forced to make with Ukrainian Communists -- compromises that gave them a degree of autonomy and that saw a revival of Ukrainian culture and language.
The Soviets divided the peasants into different categories. The primary class enemy was the kulak, relatively well-off farmers who could afford to own several heads of livestock and occasionally hire help with plowing or harvesting. To eliminate the kulaks, the Communists hoped to gain the support from poorer peasant farmers by drumming up class resentment.
In late 1929, Stalin launched a "dekulakization" program centered on Ukraine but encompassing the North Caucuses -- which had high proportions of ethnic Ukrainians among peoples like the Kuban Cossacks -- and Kazakhstan.
A venomous propaganda war fomented hatred against kulaks and their families, portraying them as a threat equal to an invading foreign army. Communists and brigades of so-called "activists" backed by Soviet secret police brutally stripped the kulaks of their homes and possessions, shooting those who resisted and deporting millions to Siberia and the Far North.
In 1931, Teodora Soroka was an 11-year-old girl in what was branded as a kulak family in a village in Ukraine's Poltavschyna region. 
"My grandfather hired laborers for harvesting and plowing when necessary and, in the fall, when they harvested wheat, he hired people," she says. "And because of that, the Soviet authorities persecuted him terribly. Not just him, but the entire family because they called him an exploiter. They destroyed my family in a completely inhumane way."
Around 7.5 million people, including one million in Kazakhstan, are estimated to have died during the period of "dekulakization." Many kulaks resorted to slaughtering their livestock and burning down their homes rather than seeing them confiscated. Thousands were shot for opposing the brigades sent to strip them of their property. Many died during the weeks of transport in unheated trains to labor camps, with little food to sustain them. The largest percentage perished in the first years after their deportation.
Soroka's grandfather and father were among those deported. She never saw them again. She, together with her mother, sister, aunt, and seven cousins, remained in Poltavschyna, not knowing that the still-greater horror of famine awaited them. Nearly all of her family died of starvation in 1933.
Together with "dekulakization," a process of collectivization was under way. The Communists imposed crippling grain demands on peasant farmers to make it unprofitable to sustain their small holdings and pressure them into joining collective farms.
Moscow sent 25,000 trusted Communists from Russia to organize collective and state farms. The secret police and often the army were used to terrorize peasants into joining. The Communists were dismayed that even after the vicious propaganda campaign most peasants sympathized more with kulaks than with the Communist Party. 
Many of these poorer peasants were ultimately reclassified as kulaks themselves. Most joined the collective farms reluctantly. Many were executed for trying to sell off or slaughter their livestock rather than donating them to the collective farms.
The authorities worked vigorously to extract the unrealistically high grain yields demanded by Moscow, leaving pitifully little with which the farmers could feed themselves and their families.
The collective farms were notoriously inefficient. Even so -- and against the pleas of even senior Ukrainian Communist leaders -- Stalin in 1932 increased grain quotas in Ukraine, the North Caucasus, and Russia's Volga region. The demand made famine inevitable.
Communist loyalists during the Soviet era -- and some even today -- have blamed the famine on a poor harvest in 1932. But even Soviet records show the year's harvest as satisfactory. Soroka remembers the peasants were pleased.
"The collectivization of wheat had begun in 1932. In 1932 there was a big harvest. People said the grain had grown so high that the heads of people walking in the fields couldn't be seen. The stalks were so heavy with grain that they snapped. Nobody foresaw such a good harvest in 1932. When the Soviet authorities said [the famine] was the fault of a poor harvest, they were lying," she says.
As hunger begun to take a firmer grip on the peasant population, the communist authorities used force and terror to fulfill the grain quotas which left peasants and collective farms with little or nothing to sustain themselves with. Thousands of peasants who tried to hide grain or other food to feed their families were executed, as were many local Communist officials who objected to a policy that brought starvation to many areas as 1932 approached its end.
The book "Harvest of Sorrow" by British historian Robert Conquest is considered the most comprehensive study of the period. In it, he says Stalin was aware that the excessive grain requisitions would lead to famine, but persisted in order to destroy what he saw as the double threat of peasant anti-Communism and Ukrainian nationalism. 
Soroka says she has no doubt this was the case.
"They thought up the idea of an artificial famine as the easiest way to break Ukraine's neck and to take control of Ukraine at little cost to themselves." Starvation was rampant in 1933, claiming at least seven million lives.
Part two of this series on Ukraine's famine focuses on eyewitness accounts of the events, including instances of cannibalism. 

Part 2 - Survivors Recall The Horrors Of 1933The month of May this year marks the 70th anniversary of the height of a devastating famine deliberately engineered by Soviet leader Josef Stalin that claimed at least five million lives in Ukraine and around two million in the North Caucasus and elsewhere. RFE/RL correspondent Askold Krushelnycky speaks to survivors about their memories of that devastating time.
Prague, 8 May 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Seventy years ago, the month of May saw the climax of a horrific artificial famine that reduced millions of people to living skeletons in some of the world's most fertile farm land, while stocks of grain and other foods rotted by the ton, often within the sight of families dying from starvation.
Oleksa Sonipul was 10 in 1933 and lived in a village in northern Ukraine. She said by the beginning of that year, famine was so widespread people had been reduced to eating grass, tree bark, roots, berries, frogs, birds, and even earthworms.
Desperate hunger drove people to sell off all of their possessions for any food they could find. At night, an eerie silence fell over the village, where all the livestock and chickens had long since been killed for food and exhausted villagers went to bed early. 
But Communist requisition brigades looking to fulfill the impossibly high grain quotas continued to search even those villages where inhabitants were already dying from starvation. They used metal poles to probe the ground and potential hiding places where they suspected grain could be hidden.
Some of the brigade members, fueled by Soviet hate campaigns against the peasants, acted without mercy, taking away the last crumbs of food from starving families knowing they were condemning even small children to death. Any peasant who resisted was shot. Rape and robbery also took place.
Sonipul described what happened when a brigade arrived at her home. 
"In 1933, just before Christmas, brigades came to our village to search for bread. They took everything they could find to eat. That day they found potatoes that we had planted in our grandfather's garden, and because of that they took everything from grandfather and all the seeds that grandmother had gathered for sowing the following autumn. And the next day, the first day of Christmas, they came to us, tore out our windows and doors and took everything to the collective farm." 
As food ran out in the villages, thousands of desperate people trekked to beg for food in towns and cities. Food was available in cities, although strictly controlled through ration coupons. But residents were forbidden to help the starving peasants and doctors were not allowed to aid the skeletal villagers, who were left to die on the streets. 
Fedir Burtianski was a young man in 1933 when he set out by train to Ukraine's Donbas mining area in search of work. He says thousands of starving peasants, painfully thin with swollen bellies, lined the rail track begging for food. The train stopped in the city of Dnipropetrovsk and Burtianski says he was horrified by what he saw there. 
"At Dnipropetrovsk we got out of the carriages. I got off the wagon and I saw very many people swollen and half-dead. And some who were lying on the ground and just shaking. Probably they were going to die within a few minutes. Then the railway NKVD [secret police] quickly herded us back into the wagons."
Grain and potatoes continued to be harvested in Ukraine, driven by the demand of Stalin's quotas. But the inefficiency of the Soviet transportation system meant that tons of food literally rotted uneaten -- sometimes in the open and within the view of those dying of starvation.
The scene Burtianski described was repeated in towns and cities all over Ukraine. In the countryside, entire villages were being wiped out. The hunger drove many people to desperation and madness. Many instances of cannibalism were recorded, with people living off the remains of other starvation victims or in some instances resorting to murder. Most peasant families had five or six children, and some mothers killed their weakest children in order to feed the others.
Burtianski said at one point, he avoided buying meat from a vendor because he suspected it was human flesh. When the authorities heard about the incident, he was forced to attend the trial of a man and his two sons who were suspected of murdering people for food. Burtianski says during the trial one of the sons admitted in chilling terms to eating the flesh of his own mother, who had died of starvation. 
"He said, 'Thank you to Father Stalin for depriving us of food. Our mother died of hunger and we ate her, our own dead mother. And after our mother we did not take pity on anyone. We would not have spared Stalin himself.'"
Mykhaylo Naumenko was 11 years old in 1933. His father was executed for refusing to join a nearby collective farm. Mykhaylo was left with his mother and siblings to face the famine without a provider. He said people were shot for trying to steal grain or potatoes from the local collective farm, which was surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by armed men. He said people were executed even for trying to pick up a few loose seeds dropped on the ground.
"A tragedy developed. People became swollen, they died by the tens each day. The collective farm authorities appointed six men to collect and bury the dead. From our village of 75 homes, by May 24 houses were empty where all the inhabitants had died."
Naumenko also witnessed instances of cannibalism. He said he first discovered that his neighbors were eating human flesh after one of them, called Tetyana, refused to share her meat with him despite the fact he had just helped bury her father.
"I saw Tetyana eating chicken meat and saw there was a lot of it. I approached her and asked her for some, but she refused to give me any. Because it was human flesh."
Hundreds were executed or killed by other villagers for cannibalism. Soviet records show that around 1,000 people were still serving sentences for cannibalism in prison camps on the White Sea at the end of the 1930s.
Olena Mukniak was 10 in 1933 and lived in a village in the Poltavschyna region with her mother, older sister, and younger brother. Her father had left for the Donbas area in search of food. In the village, Mukniak said people picked through horse manure to find grain, stewed leather boots, and toasted leaves and tree bark.
"What do you do if there's nothing to eat? We collected birch leaves and toasted them and ate them. What else could we do?"
Her sister worked at the collective farm and received a small piece of bread every day for all four of them. But it was not enough to keep them all alive.
"My brother died from starvation. He was small and there was nothing to eat. What could our mother give us to eat when there was nothing? My sister brought us a little piece of bread once a day and we gulped it down and waited until the next day. But you wanted food all the time. My brother was younger than I and he died because he needed to eat. And our mother could give nothing."
Many people met their deaths with quiet resignation, praying and comforting their starving children with fairy tales.
Not all authorities were untouched by the tragedy. Some of the Communist activists and officials supervising the grain expropriation were horrified at what they saw and protested to their superiors or tried to provide food for the starving villagers. For their efforts, they were executed.
For scores of senior Ukrainian Communists, the famine and Stalin's attack on the Ukrainian cultural revival were cause for their final disillusionment with the ideology they had served. Many of them committed suicide rather than face torture and show trials. 
Until the fall of communism, most of the villager eyewitnesses who survived the famine were wary of telling their stories. Even now, many are reluctant to talk about that period because they see many Soviet-era holdovers still in positions of power.
The memories that seem to haunt them most are those of watching their loved ones die. Teodora Soroka, who lost nearly every member of her family to "dekulakization" and famine, says such memories can never be erased. Nor does she want to forget them.
"My little sister died of hunger in my arms. She was begging for a piece of bread, because to have a piece of bread in the house meant life. She pleaded for me to give her a bit of bread. I was crying and told her that we didn't have any. She told me that I wanted her to die. Believe me, it's painful even now. I was little myself then. I cried, but my heart was not torn to shreds because I couldn't understand why this was all happening. But today, and ever since I became an adult, I haven't spent a day in my life when I haven't cried. I have never gone to sleep without thinking about what happened to my family." 
The last part of this series looks at why the world still knows so little about the calamitous man-made famine of 1933 that killed millions of people.

Part 3 - Seventy Years Later, World Still Largely Unaware Of TragedyA famine deliberately engineered by the regime of Josef Stalin 70 years ago claimed millions of lives, mostly in Ukraine but also in some other parts of the Soviet Union. It is today considered one of the worst atrocities of the Soviet regime and a terrifying act of genocide. Even so, the famine of 1933 is relatively unknown. RFE/RL correspondent Askold Krushelnycky examines the reasons behind this and reports on a campaign to draw attention to the atrocity.
Prague, 8 May 2003 (RFE/RL) -- Estimates of how many people died in Stalin's engineered famine of 1933 vary. But they are staggering in their scale -- between seven and 11 million people.
But despite the horrific number of people who died, the world is relatively unfamiliar with this grisly chapter in Soviet history which claimed lives on the same scale as the holocaust. One of the main reasons is that the Germans were eventually defeated, and thousands of eyewitnesses told their stories about concentration camps and massacres. The experience was also captured unforgettably in photographs, film, and written accounts, and many of those responsible for the genocide were captured and put on trial.
Lyubomyr Luciuk is the director of research at the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association. He explained why there was no such opportunity to investigate the famine in the Soviet Union. 
"The Nazis were so completely and utterly defeated and had no apologists other than a few nuts after the second world war. The Soviet Union, in contrast, imploded," Luciuk said. "There was no military conquest. Ideologically, perhaps, it was defeated. But in a sense, the regime of yesteryear -- many of its functionaries, administrators, and bureaucrats -- simply changed their shirts and became nationalists or patriots overnight. The archival record is still not entirely available. There has been no Nuremberg trial, if you like, to bring the many thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of people who served the Soviet regime to justice."
British historian Robert Conquest is an expert on the period and his 1986 study of the famine, "Harvest of Sorrow," brought much information about the tragedy to Western audiences for the first time. Conquest said another contrast between the famine and the holocaust is that while Adolf Hitler had written down much of what he intended to do, Stalin did not go on record about the famine.
"In the first place, [the Germans] were caught, so it ended and they had themselves got into an operation where they said what they were doing. Stalin never said he was trying to starve anyone to death. He just took away their food. He never went on record. It was all done under the auspices of humanist talk, socialist talk -- or else denied altogether. The operations were different. And in other ways they were different, too. Hitler did many horrible things but he didn't torture his friends to tell lies. The operation was a different one." 
Conquest said that while most historians now accept that a devastating famine took place, some skeptics remain that try to find a justification for Stalin's behavior.
"I don't think everybody still accepts [the famine]. I've seen recent interviews saying it was a famine and also I've read the other day something saying that people were arrested and shot and so forth under the August decree in 1932 because, after all, they were stealing," Conquest said. "I said, 'Yes, they were stealing their own stuff which had been taken from them by the state.' They hadn't thought of that. You see this is still being written now occasionally."
But Conquest said more evidence has emerged since the disintegration of the USSR allowed greater access to Soviet archives. He says he himself has uncovered documented evidence that shows Stalin knew that hundreds of thousands of peasants were trying to enter Russia in search of food. 
"The expulsion of Ukrainian and Kuban peasants from Russia -- as soon as they tried getting into Russia they were sent back -- which I only got from about eight or 10 private reports, that is actually confirmed by a decree Stalin signed that this should be done and a report was put in by [Genrikh] Yagoda, head of the secret police, saying it has been done to 'several hundred thousand stupid peasants.' See, that confirmation within secret sources was complete."
Conquest is in no doubt that the famine was primarily aimed at Ukrainians and that Stalin hated not only the country peasants but even senior Communist leaders, like Mykola Skrypnyk, who eventually killed himself.
"[Stalin] was trying to break the Ukrainians, as you know, with the leading Ukrainian Bolshevik Skrypnyk committing suicide under the pressures that were put on them when they tried to defend just the ordinary alphabet of the Ukrainians. Here [Stalin] was trying to alter it, things like that. I think he also proved he never trusted Ukrainian Communists. The whole Ukrainian Central Committee was totally purged in 1937, even the ones who supported him. He had this terrific distrust of everybody, but particularly of Ukraine."
Luciuk of the Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association has a different theory for why news of the famine never reached the West. He blamed a number of Western journalists based in Moscow at the time who knew of the forced starvation but chose not to write about it or deliberately covered it up.
The journalist he says played the most influential role in the cover-up was "The New York Times" correspondent Walter Duranty. A drug addict with a shady reputation, Duranty was also an avid fan of Stalin's, whom he described as "the world's greatest living statesman." He was granted the first American interview with the Soviet leader and received privileged information from the secretive regime.
Duranty confided to a British diplomat at the time that he thought 10 million people had perished in the famine. But when other journalists who had traveled to Ukraine began writing about the horrific famine raging there, Duranty branded their information as anti-Soviet lies. Conquest believes that Duranty was being blackmailed by the Soviet secret police over his sexual activities, which reportedly included bisexuality and necrophilia.
The year before the famine, in 1932, Duranty won the Pulitzer Prize, America's most coveted journalism award, for a series of articles on the Soviet economy. Luciuk says members of the Ukrainian diaspora, as well as Ukrainian politicians and academics, earlier this month launched a campaign to have Duranty's award posthumously revoked. He said he hopes the campaign will make more people in the world aware of the famine.
"So this was a horrific genocidal catastrophe that befell Ukraine, the people of Ukraine, and commemorating it this year on the 70th anniversary -- and doing so by trying to have the Pulitzer Prize committee do the right thing and revoke Duranty's prize posthumously -- is why we've engaged in this campaign."
A spokesman for the Pulitzer board, Sid Gissler, said the board has considered withdrawing Duranty's prize on previous occasions but had decided against doing so because it had not been awarded for articles related to the famine. He said he sympathized with the Ukrainian campaign, and added the board would reconsider the question again later this year.
"I understand their concern, but as I said, the award goes for a discrete set of stories and it's not designed to say anything about a person, the body of a person's work, or their lifetime -- it's not a lifetime achievement award."
Duranty died in 1957 an impoverished drunk. Luciuk said that when details about the famine finally came into the open, Duranty was credited with coining the famously callous phrase, "You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs."
Luciuk said he hopes Ukraine, meanwhile, will do more to educate its own population about the famine. Since gaining independence, successive Ukrainian governments have done little to publicize the episode for fear of instigating a controversy with the country's still-powerful Communist Party, which continues to deny the famine was deliberately organized. Moreover, many of those who took part in the executions, deportations, and confiscation of food are still alive and receiving state pensions.
In February, the Ukrainian parliament conducted a special hearing about the famine. The deputy prime minister for humanitarian issues, Dmytro Tabachnuk, said the famine was a deliberate terrorist act that claimed the lives of up to 10 million people. He said the government is planning to build a National Famine Memorial Complex.

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