In the Midst of History: The Holodomor was denied once, but never again
A 1933 article in the New York Times mitigated the realities of the Holodomor
On March 31, 1933, the New York Times published an article by journalist Walter Duranty titled, “Russians Hungry, But Not Starving.” It was a brazen denial of the Holodomor, a 1932–33 famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic that caused the deaths of 3.5 to 5 million people. Duranty actually won the Pulitzer Prize for Correspondence in 1932 for a series of reports he wrote about the Soviet Union in 1931. This credibility gave Duranty’s words real impact when he wrote, “Any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda.” In fact, according to historian Sally J. Taylor, Duranty’s reporting “was a key factor in U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1933 decision to grant official recognition to the Soviet Union.”
The Holodomor was in fact real, and it was tragic and appalling. Spurred by collectivization, a Soviet-led effort to consolidate individual land and labor into collective farms, the Holodomor resulted in death by hunger for millions of Soviets. Because Ukraine is a major grain producing region, it was particularly hard hit by collectivization and related policies. These policies included the requisition of grain, punishments for gleaning leftover grain from the fields, a blacklisting system that called-in debts leading to the confiscation of land, a passport system to prevent the exodus of peasants from the countryside, and relentless searches for alleged hidden grain resulting the confiscation of all food stuffs from certain households.
Farmers in the Ukrainian region were essentially terrorized—forced to meet impossible quotas while being punished for made-up infractions. Today, it has been argued that the Holodomor was a man-made famine that was planned and instituted by Joseph Stalin to eliminate a Ukrainian independence movement. If this is true, the Holodomor was a genocide carried out by the Soviet Regime, a view now agreed upon by sixteen countries. However, there are others who believe that the Holodomor while tragic, was not a genocide because it was the unintentional result of Soviet industrialization and collectivization.
Soviet agents take food from peasants in Novo-Krasne, Ukraine, in November 1932. (Photo credit: Public domain.)
With the benefit of hindsight, false reporting like Duranty’s looks truly shocking. But in the midst of any tragedy there exists a lack of knowledge and perspective that allows false narratives to take hold and spread. It is in this world—in the midst of and aftermath of the Holodomor—that we find the characters of Alina Adam’s My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region. In the novel, Felix Luria, head of the village Soviet, denies claims that the Holodomor was a man-made event deliberately carried out by Joseph Stalin, instead blaming it on capitalist individualism and resource hoarding. He even refers to Duranty’s article stating, “Why, even Americans, in their New York Times, confirmed there was no such famine. So if they said the Holodomor never happened—and won a Pulitzer for that—you know it’s the truth!”
Although fictionalized, it is characters like these, living out their daily lives, that show us just how dangerous false narratives can be and how easily they can spread. Regina, the main character of My Mother’s Secret, struggles to know the truth from fiction and becomes conflicted over whose side to take—Felix’s, who denies the Holodomor, or Aaron’s, who acknowledges the error in Soviet policies that led to so much suffering. Regina was in the midst of it, just as we are today. Not everything that is reported is true. And not everything is revealed until we have the time and perspective to look back.
“My Mother’s Secret: A Novel of the Jewish Autonomous Region by Alina Adams is a wonderful book that doesn’t only teach the reader about Soviet Jewish history, but also takes us on a fascinating journey through Regina’s life and how her experiences have shaped her.” –Review by Judaica in the Spotlight.
Article Source:
Wikipedia contributors, "Holodomor," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Holodomor&oldid=1122817703 (accessed November 21, 2022).
