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PACE refuses to label Soviet-era Great Famine genocide against Ukrainians
Published: 28 April, 2010, 23:46
Edited: 19 July, 2010, 02:54
TAGS: Conflict, EU, Russia, Ukraine, Politics, History, Yanukovich
The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe has refused to recognize the Great Famine that struck the Soviet Union in the 1930s as genocide of the Ukrainian people.
Following debate that lasted for two hours, 21 PACE members voted for recognizing Holodomor (the word used by Ukrainians to label the famine) as a genocide of Ukrainians. Fifty-five voted against the corresponding amendment to the draft resolution on the issue, Interfax news agency reported.
The assembly pointed that the Great Famine took millions of lives in the former Soviet republics of Belarus, Kazakhstan, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine.
It stressed that while the Great Famine may have had particularities in different regions of the Soviet Union, “the results were the same everywhere: millions of human lives were sacrificed to the fulfillment of the policies of the Stalinist regime.”
The assembly called on the countries of Europe not to politicize the Stalin-era famine and urged the historians of the countries affected by the tragedy to carry out joint research to investigate the true circumstances of the Great Famine.
PACE urged the former Soviet republics to ease access to archives about Holodomor in order to provide a more objective picture of events.
The assembly strongly condemned “the cruel policies pursued by the Stalinist regime” which “triggered” the famine and resolutely rejected "any attempts to justify these deadly policies, by whatever purposes.”
PACE’s decision comes just a day after the Ukrainian president said that Holodomor cannot be called genocide against any particular nation, since mass famine was a tragedy for all countries in the Soviet Union.
His announcement marked a U-turn in Kiev's position on the issue, as the previous administration had actively tried to label the famine as Moscow's genocide of Ukrainians.
However, according to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Victor Yanukovich’s words should not be taken as sensation.
“From the horrible famine of the 1930s, connected to decisions the Soviet leadership took, suffered Russians, Ukrainians, Kazakhs, Belarusians and many other nations that lived on the territory of the Soviet Union,” Lavrov said. “This is just an objective historical fact.”
“And the fact that the Ukrainian president confirmed it should not be taken as sensation,” he declared. “It may be considered a sensation only in regard to the anomalous stance of the previous Ukrainian leader.”
“I think that it is just a restoration of an absolutely normal, objective approach to history,” Lavrov concluded.
28.04.2010, 19:13
20 comments
Russian state archive reveals Katyn documentsRussia's archive agency has published on its website copies of previously top-secret documents that show the massacre of Poles in Katyn was approved at the highest level in the Soviet Union. |
29.04.2010, 16:35
ROAR: PACE resolution on famine seen as success for Russian delegationPoliticians and analysts in Russia welcome the decision of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe not to recognize Holodomor as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people. |
Yes, definitions are needed. Genocide: an intentional eradication of a people. So, a question could be: Did Stalin's policies cause millions of people in all former republics to die of starvation? The Great Famine, and other famines, together with other conditions imposed on Soviet citizens throughout the country in governing policies in cities and in villages, and by sending people to gulags, or of attempting to eliminate disention wherever it occurred: thinkers, leaders in education, in leadership of all areas of the Soviet Union. The prime purpose was to wipe out individuality of thinking and of ethnic affiliation, so that there could be a "Soviet Man" created - all these methods were part of Stalin's Plan to create the "Soviet Man." All was allowed in order to achieve the ideal end goal of a unified and powerful Soviet Union. Industrialization by force. Cooperation for all his agenda or death. And even adherence and devotion did not guarantee safety in Soviet society. Fear dominated life in Soviet Union. Without the various ethnic diasporas of the various ethnic groups from around the world continuing to be the voice of the people in the Soviet Union, Stalin might have succeeded in creating genocide of all the ethnic groups of the Soviet Union. Whether we can prove that Stalin intentionally committed genocide is not what's most important here. Rather it was his policies, beliefs and values, and those of all who also believed in a totalitarian Socialist State without regard to the human sufferings and carried out or went along with his policie. They and the System of government did threaten genocide.