The original photo is from 1922 and was used in the“Exhibition of American humanitarian aid to Russia during the Soviet Famine of 1921-1923”.
The following article was written by Kaan Kangal, a Turkish Communist in response to David Myrple’s Op-ed in the Kiev post. The Ukrainian famine, a tragic event as it is, has been hijacked by the anti-communist right as a calculated act of disinformation.
Despite the lack of evidence for the “man-made” causes of the famine, anti-communist forces still hold on to the image of deliberately starved people. The author who for a long while had trumpeted the anti-communist horn on this issue has recently recanted his original claims of the famine being a man-made catastrophe, this author is Robert Conquest; R.W. Davies and Stephen G. Wheatcroft have interacted with Conquest and note that he no longer considers the famine “deliberate”. (“Debate: Stalin and the Soviet Famine of 1932-33: A Reply to Ellman”, in Europe-Asia Studies, vol. 58, No. 4, June 2006, pp.625-633. [note on conquest (p. 629]). Yet despite the fact that the author of The Harvest of Sorrow, the creator of the infamous term “terror-famine” has now recanted his original work due to the mountains of evidence portraying it otherwise; the anti-communist right cannot let up on its claims.
Lies and Confessions of David Marple about Holodomor
By Kaan Kangal
Kiev Post published an article by anticommunist Prof. David Marples about “Ukrainian genocide” in 26.12.2008. [1]
The article by Marples is full of anticommunist lies and it does NOT reflect the reality of history in Ukraine in the Stalin time period. Here is the review of this falsifying article:
Lie no.1: “Genocide or not, Stalin starved millions to death (…)”: Marple seems not to understood the question of genocide, because his statement defines Stalin´s kulak and collectivization policy as “genocide”. This is the typical anticommunist false interpretation of Ukrainian famine and falsification of the reality. There is no evidence that Stalin starved millions to death.
Lie no.2: “ (…) and Soviet regime concealed for 54 years.”: There is no evidence for genocide and there are only contra-evidences for it. If the Soviet regime covered something up in this story, then it was the famine. But we get no evidence on cover-up-story of Soviets from Marple.
Lie no.3: “Highly politicized Holodomor doesn’t hide the fact that ethnic Ukrainian dimension was present.”: The so called “holodomor” does not reflect anything in reality. There is NO single evidence for an ethnic liquidation of Ukrainian nation in any sense in Stalin time period in Ukraine.
Lie no.4: “Ukrainian president Victor Yushchenko has issued a bill that would make it a criminal offense to deny that the famine was genocide.” Pro-fascist anticommunist politicians like Yushchenko has problems with genocide deniers because they have NO evidence for genocide, they did and do NOT study the real history, but they are making political propaganda using the falsified story of Ukrainian famine. Why should denying genocide be a criminal offense? It is not real. The real criminal offense is falsifying the famine reality and using this fake for political interests.
Lie no.5: “After 75 years, we know much about this tragedy,”: you now NOTHING about the famine reality.
Lie no.6: “maintains that he targeted the Soviet peasantry as a whole.” It was not the case. Stalin leadership wanted to collectivize the agrarian economy and it did NOT took Soviet peasantry as “a whole” liquidation target. Stalin leadership did NOT killed and did NOT plan to kill any peasant as person, but they wanted to liquidate the kulak as CLASS.
Lie no. 7: “Thus they deny an ethnic dimension.” They do not deny ethnic dimension, they deny pro-fascist falsification propaganda of Ukrainian nationalists. There was NOT ethnic dimension of kulak policy, there was only a class dimension of it. You do NOT want to see another fact: Most of real Ukrainians in Ukraine were peasants. That´s why you think you can use Ukraine peasant question to slander Soviets.
Lie no. 8: “When the grain ran out, Molotov demanded that the commissions take all food from the villages, which were stripped bare as though a plague of locusts had descended on them.”: Molotov did not order to take “all” food from villages. The harvest was collected in state reserves and collective farm workers were paid for that and they got extra food from warehouses.
Lie no.9: “Whether or not this catastrophe was premeditated”: Which catastrophe? Famine was NOT premeditated and you already confessed that there is no evidence for genocide.
Lie no.10: “Stalin, Molotov and other Soviet leaders deliberately starved their own people.” The Stalin leadership was maybe the only people who really wanted to prevent and who cared about the mass starvation in Ukraine. There is a LOT of evidence that they acted against it and fought against anticommunist sabotage, but there is NO evidence, that they just ignored the famine.
Lie no.11: “concealed this atrocity from the outside world.”: You falsify the reality and conclude it wrong.
Confession no.1: “Highly politicized Holodomor doesn’t hide the fact that ethnic Ukrainian dimension was present.”: It is true that the so called “holodomor” is highly politicized, because the neoliberal, nationalist and anticommunist Ukrainian policy lies on “genocide” fakes and falsifications. Anticommunist and pro-fascist Ukrainian immigrants in Canada and USA and other anti-Soviet pro-CIA historians lied and still lie about Ukrainian famine. There is NOT any single evidence for genocide.
Confession no.2: “A majority of Western scholars — at least judging from published articles and books — denies that Stalin’s intention was to kill Ukrainians (…)”: This is truth. The target of Stalin leadership was NOT killing and liquidation of Ukrainian people (real Ukrainians in Ukraine were MOSTLY peasants in 1930s.) Robert Conquest, Douglas Tottle, Grover Furr, Arch Getty and Marc Tauger denies this falsification propaganda of genocide. Even anticommunist James Mice confessed that lots of visual materials on famine in 1930s are FAKE.
Confession no.3: “We may never know how many died of starvation in 1932-33.”, but you make the propaganda of genocide.
Confession no. 4: “Added to these volatile elements, the Soviet regime began rapidly to collectivize farms starting in 1929.”: This information let us to see that there is no connection between genocide and collectivization. There had been famines before, like at the beginning and in the middle of 1920s although there had been no collectivization in that time.
Confession no.5: “Stalin’s goal was “to liquidate the kulaks (rich peasants) as a class.” And this means liquidating NOT the Soviet peasants as a “whole”.
Confession no.6: “and we may never find a “smoking gun’’”, because there is no evidence.
Notice no.1: “Many governments, including those of Canada and the United States, have recognized the famine as an act of genocide by Stalin’s regime against Ukrainians.”: These are nationalist, neo-liberalist and anticommunist states. They slander the reality to get power in politics against socialist movement of workers. It is for us -for the critical reader- not relevant WHO recognized the famine as genocide, but WHY they recognized.
Notice no.2: “However, Yushchenko has made the Holodomor the central event in the history of modern Ukraine.”: Because he has to convince people that he is no connection to mafia and that the works for “people”. He knows nothing about communism and history and he is also not interested in it.
Notice no.3: “Many so designated destroyed their livestock rather than give it up to the new collective farms. The countryside became a war zone in which millions were dispossessed, with many deported to Siberia or the Far North.” Stalin was in error in gaining the support of peasants and he knew very well that peasants would react to forced collectivization with resistance.
Notice no.4: “Peasants could not travel to towns or cross borders to obtain food after 1932”: Because they were making anticommunist and anti-collectivization propaganda. Many of them were nationalists, fascists, and from other right-wing views. Many of them were against Bolsheviks, fundamentally. And many of them did not believe in future success of Soviet power. Stalin leadership was in error to gain the support of peasants.
Notice no.5: “Many prominent figures – including George Bernard Shaw, and Sidney and Beatrice Webb – reported that this ravaged land was in fact a Communist utopia.”: We do not need any anticommunist slander, but evidence and facts.
Notice no.6: “The link between the Ukrainian famine and external events is clear.” It is very clear for us, but not for you.
Notice no.7: “Ukrainian nationalists, Poles, Hitler and Stalin’s chief enemy, Leon Trotsky, all feature in Stalin’s correspondence and party documents as threats to Soviet security.” Which “documents” and which “correspondence” are you talking about? Maybe about this: There are a lot of evidence for connections and correspondences between German, Polish, Ukrainian fascists and Trotsky.
The Espresso Stalinist 
1. Famine took place in Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan AND Ukraine. It was a tragedy, but it had no specific anti-national aim.
2. Stalin and the Politburo were a multi-ethnic / multi-national group animated by Communist ideology and industrialization drive. It is impossible to attribute any single nationality or any anti-national intent to them. Some of the key leaders included Ukrainian communists.
3. Many parts of Ukraine were inhabited – are still inhabited – by Russians and Russophone Ukrainians. Many of the peasants descended from the 19th-century Russian peasants transferred by noble serfowners from central Russia into a more fertile region, a noted development in 19th century imperial Russian economic and social history.
4. National consciousness resides first and foremost among the educated urban classes. If Stalin and co. wanted to attack Ukrainian nationalism, they would not be attacking semi-literate and illiterate peasants, but urban educated classes. Instead we see Ukrainian language newspapers and a Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic during 1930s, as Ukrainian language is taught in schools and statues to Taras Shevchenko appear all across the Soviet Union. If Stalin;’s goal was “anti-Ukrainian” this would seem very counter-productive, wouldn’t it?
5. I suspect that the “holodomor” myth is intended to mask the crimes of Ukrainian nationalists during W.W. II when thousands and thousands of Jews, Ukrainians, Russians, and Poles were murdered by the avid Nazi collaborators in UPA, SS Galicia, and other formations. Many of these war criminals found refuge in USA and Canada during the Cold War and that is when the “holodmor” myth was created and funded. This still happens today, unfortunately, as casualties of the famine are just pawns in the Western exploitation of history.