[aaus-list] Fwd: Russian "reversionism?" Russia'sarchivist disputes Ukraine Famine/Holomodor was genocide ... and more.

[Roman Senkus]

Life is too short to try to disabuse Putin's toadies, Mr. Marshall,  
and other great intellects of their ilk, for they shall never change  
their point of view. Send them Paul Goble's recent excellent blog  
posting and leave it at that:
*************************************************

Thursday, February 26, 2009
http://windowoneurasia.blogspot.com/2009/02/window-on-eurasia-to-counter-ukraine.html

Window on Eurasia: To Counter Ukraine's Charges of Genocide, Moscow
Admits to Mass Murder


Paul Goble

Vienna, February 26 - In order to counter Kyiv's insistence that
Stalin carried out a genocide in Ukraine in the 1930s, an insistence
that is at the core of the definition of the Ukrainian nation, Moscow
has released new documents suggesting that the Soviet dictator engaged
in a criminal campaign of mass murder across the entire Soviet Union.

Yesterday, Vladimir Kozlov, the head of Russia's Federal Archives
Agency, told a Moscow press conference that the famine in Ukraine and
elsewhere in the USSR was "the result of [Stalin's] criminal policy"
but that "of course, no one planned any famine" or singled out any
ethnic group as its victim
(http://rian.ru/society/20090225/163170651.html).

Instead, he said, "the famine was the result of the errors and
miscalculations of the political course of the leadership of the
country in the course of the realization of collectivization." And he
insisted that he and his researchers had not found "a single document"
showing that Stalin planned "a terror famine" in Ukraine.

Instead, Kozlov said, "absolutely all documents testify that the chief
enemy of Soviet power at that time was an enemy defined not on the
basis of ethnicity but on the basis of class," in this case the
peasantry which Stalin wanted to force to join collective farms
throughout whatever means he could.

Kozlov's comments came as he presented a new collective of documents,
entitled "The Famine in the USSR," and a DVD which contained a
selection of those documents and others, which he said will total some
6,000 items, to be published in three volumes that are to be published
this year.

The Russian archivist and others in Moscow said they were convinced of
two things, first, that these documents undercut all Ukrainian claims
to the contrary and, second, that the evidence these documents provide
about the much broader but class rather than ethnic based crimes of
the Soviet regime are not a problem for the contemporary regime.

But despite t his self-confidence, it is almost certainly the case
that they are wrong. On the one hand, the extent of regime violence
that these documents show is likely to energize rather than demobilize
Ukrainian views about the way in which Stalin attacked the core of
their nation nearly 80 years ago.

And on the other, the evidence the Moscow archivists provide is likely
to lead others, including Kazakhs, Belarusians and many ethnic
Russians to see that their communities too were the victims of mass
murder, an act of violence that at least some of these groups are
certain to view as directed against their nationhood and thus to see
as genocidal whatever Moscow says.

Because that seems so likely, the arguments advanced yesterday by
Valery Tishkov, an academician who heads the Institute of Ethnology
and serves in the Russian Social Chamber, that the Ukrainian arguments
will collapse, almost certainly will prove to be without any
sustainable foundation.

And the reason for that conclusion is that Russians, Ukrainians and
indeed the rest of the world are almost certain to be struck by one of
the fundamental weaknesses of the position that Kozlov and Tishkov
advance: Somehow they appear to believe that everyone will accept
their notion that mass murder is somehow not as serious a problem as
genocide.

That such an argument may convince some is beyond question, given the
political use to which deaths in the past are often put, but that it
will convince all is highly improbable. Indeed, when a regime kills as
many people as Stalin's did, most people of good will, including many
Russians, will question Moscow's latest effort to politicize history
in this way.

Indeed, it is virtually certain not only that this latest compilation
by Russian authors will not dissuade Ukrainians from their view that
their nation was a victim of the Soviet system but also will lead many
others, including ethnic Russians, to dismiss Moscow's current efforts
to restore the image of Stalin as a wise and effective manager.

Consequently, this latest Russian effort to downplay the human tragedy
of collectivization will have at least three effects, none of which
Moscow will want. First, it will lead many to see that Ukrainians, as
one Russian put it, "deserve respect" for focusing on this tragedy
(www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article.shtml?2009/02/16/181822)..

Second, it will call attention to the ways in which Moscow is
manipulating history for its own purposes even more than the
Ukrainians are. After all, despite the enormous number of documents
put forward, there will inevitably remain questions about what
documents were NOT published.

And third, this Russian effort will call attention to something that
many would prefer not to confront: Mass murder is wrong whether
conducted in the name of ethnic cleansing, the class struggle or
anything else. The dead and their memory call out for a human response
very different than the political one Moscow offered yesterday.

Posted by Paul Goble at 3:39 PM


Quoting "Sorokowski, Andrew (ENRD)" <Andrew.Sorokowski at usdoj.gov>:

> Re: the "obvious rejoinder," it is answered by researcher Ludmyla
> Hrynevych, who points out that the "relief measures" were much smaller
> in amount of food sent into Ukraine than the amount of food taken out at
> the same time. The post-famine relief measures naturally sought to patch
> up Soviet agriculture once the political and demographic purposes of the
> famine had been achieved.
> Alex Marshall seems to be locked in a Cold War dichotomy himself: of
> Russia and the West. I cannot comment on "Western" historiography, but
> we should pay more attention to current Ukrainian historiography, such
> as the work of Kulchytsky and others on the famine, which can hardly be
> characterized as locked in the Cold War era. I suspect it doesn't
> compare badly with Russian historiography, some of which seems intent on
> supporting the position of the Russian government.
>
> Andrew Sorokowski
>
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: aaus-list-bounces at ukrainianstudies.org
> [mailto:aaus-list-bounces at ukrainianstudies.org] On Behalf Of Roman D.
> Hryciw
> Sent: Friday, March 06, 2009 10:55 AM
> To: Natalia Pylypiuk; aaus
> Subject: Re: [aaus-list] Fwd: Russian "reversionism?" Russia'sarchivist
> disputes Ukraine Famine/Holomodor was genocide ... and more.
>
>
> Trying to be scientific and objective is he? If so, I would love to see
> the source material used to make the claim that "they want to outdo the
> Holocaust".
> Now that's something that Mr. Marshall should be challenged to prove, -
> not the figures themselves (which may never get fully resolved), but the
> claim that reputable historians are slanting numbers in order to
> out-Holocaust the Holocaust.
>
> Roman Hryciw
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> Roman D. Hryciw, PhD
> Professor and Associate Chair
> Dept.of Civil & Environmental Engineering
> University of Michigan
> 2340 GG Brown Building
> 2350 Hayward St.
> Ann Arbor, MI  48109-2125
> USA
>
> (734) 763-5491 (o)
> (734) 764-4292 (f)
> (734) 972-6009 (c)
> romanh at umich.edu
>
>
> At 07:03 AM 3/6/2009, Natalia Pylypiuk wrote:
>
>
> 	Colleagues,
> 	With apologies for double postings, I forward a thread that has
> appeared on H-Russia.
> 	Any comments on this exchange?
> 	Regards,
> 	N. Pylypiuk (U of Alberta)
>
> 	Begin forwarded message:
>
>
>
> 		From: Dave Pretty <prettyd at WINTHROP.EDU>
> 		Date: March 6, 2009 4:39:28 AM MST (CA)
> 		To: H-RUSSIA at H-NET.MSU.EDU
> 		Subject: Re: Russian "reversionism?"  Russia's archivist
> disputes Ukraine Famine/Holomodor was genocide ... and more.
> 		Reply-To: H-Net Russian History list
> <H-RUSSIA at H-NET.MSU.EDU >
>
>
> 		Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2009 09:13:26 +0000 (GMT)
> 		From: ALEX MARSHALL < alex.marshall3 at btopenworld.com
> <mailto:alex.marshall3 at btopenworld.com> >
>
> 		3.5 million dead in the Ukraine is now generally
> recognised to be far closer to the mark than 6-10 million. The higher
> figures usually refer to famine across the Soviet Union as a whole at
> that time (Kazakhstan, North Caucasus). Certain historians go for the
> higher figure in regard to the Ukraine alone because they want to outdo
> the Holocaust. The charge of genocide has been fairly thoroughly
> disproved for a long time now-I refer you to the work of Stephen
> Wheatcroft, Wheatcroft and R W Davies, and the excellent summary by
> Hiroaki Kuromiya in volume 60 issue 4 of Europe-Asia Studies, 2008. The
> most obvious rejoinder is that the Soviet government did eventually
> implement famine relief measures, both at the time and again in 1935-6,
> see-I. E. Zelenin, Stalinskaia 'revoliutsiia sverkhu' posle 'velikogo
> pereloma' Moscow 2006
>
> 		I find the current situation deeply ironic. Russian
> historiography, with certain obvious execptions, is generally moving in
> the right direction-towards an attempt at abstract truth, with many
> contested interpretations. A lot of Western historiography by contrast
> remains locked in the Cold War era, where Ann Applebaum, Abdurrakhman
> Avtorkhanov and Robert Conquest remain the last word on a subject.
>
> 		Alex Marshall
>
>
> 		________________________________
> 		From: Dave Pretty <prettyd at WINTHROP.EDU>
> 		To: H-RUSSIA at H-NET.MSU.EDU
> 		Sent: Wednesday, 4 March, 2009 10:35:11 PM
> 		Subject: Russian "reversionism?" Russia's archivist
> disputes Ukraine Famine/Holomodor was genocide ... and more.
>
> 		  Date:     Wed, 25 Feb 2009 19:30:30 -0800 (PST)
> 		From:     Lou Coatney <cl52 at yahoo.com>
>
>
> 		In the Guardian newspaper's Comment Is Free (CIF)
> section last December
> 		was the article by Vladimir Putin's personal spokesman
> Dmitry Peskov
>
>
> 		"It is ludicrous to compare modern Russia with the old
> Soviet
> 		Union:  We are a fully integrated part of the global
> economy, and
> 		we respect our neighbours' borders, says Dmitry Peskov"
> at
>
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/dec/17/russia-not-soviet-un
> ion-putin
>
> 		(His previous CIF column had decried the London-based
> Russian oligarch
> 		Berezovsky's publicly proclaimed intent to overthrow the
> Russian
> 		government by violent means, if necessary.)
>
>
> 		Note my two (uncensored) responses to Peskov, asking why
> if that is
> 		true was one Aleksandr Sabov in the official Russian
> Gazette newspaper
> 		disputing the authenticity of the NKVD order authorizing
> the execution
> 		of thousands of Polish officers, cadets, intelligentsia
> at Katyn and
> 		elsewhere in early 1940 ... and would Putin and Medvedev
> make a public
> 		statement revalidating the NKVD's guilt for the crime?
>
> 		Now, we have another historical offensive, regarding the
> intent and extent of the Ukraine Famine -- the Holomodor:
>
> 		"Russia:  Famine that killed millions not genocide," by
> Steve Gutterman, Associated Press
>
>
> http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090225/ap_on_re_eu/eu_russia_great_famine/p
> rint
>
> 		Archivist Kozlov is claiming that the mass murder was
> class- -- not
> 		nationality- -- oriented (against kulaks, the
> independent farmers,
> 		throughout the Soviet Union) and that the number of
> deaths is greatly
> 		exaggerated.
>
> 		My research experience with the Katyn Massacre showed
> that, if
> 		anything, the number of the NKVD's victims were
> typically
> 		underestimated -- vastly -- and I'll go with the Library
> of Congress's
> 		information page on the Ukraine Famine, with its
> estimate of 6-7
> 		million dead, at
>
> 		http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/archives/ukra.html
>
> 		I am confident that Librarian of Congress James
> Billington would not have allowed an irresponsible estimate.
>
> 		And as to whether or not the Holomodor qualifies as
> genocide, if the
> 		Ukrainians suffered a disproportionate number of victims
> as opposed to
> 		the rest of the Soviet Union, an empirical conclusion of
> "genocide"
> 		could stand.
>
> 		If this historical "reversionism" -- regarding
> responsibility for Katyn
> 		and the intent and extent of the Holomodor -- is to be a
> growing trend
> 		and inherent part of Russia's resurgence, the West is in
> for trouble
> 		and not just academically ... not that our
> "neoconservative"
> 		governments haven't done everything possible to provoke
> the Russians
> 		the past 10 years.
>
> 		What are other historians' opinions (especially from
> Russia) of these recent historigraphical developments?
>
>
> 		Lou Coatney, Macomb Illinois, http://LCoat.tripod.com
> <http://lcoat.tripod.com/>  (Free mililitary/naval history boardgames,
> etc.)
>
>
>
>



_____________________________________

ROMAN SENKUS / POMAH CEHbKYCb
Director, CIUS Publications Program www.utoronto.ca/cius
Managing Editor, www.encyclopediaofukraine.com

Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, Toronto Office
256 McCaul Street, Room 302
University of Toronto
Toronto, ON
M5T 1W5
Canada

tel. 416-978-8669
fax 416-978-2672