Two Debates on the Holodomor of 1932–33 (02.03.2023)
Two street debates between Vitaliy Dribnytsya and his opponents on the Holodomor of 1932–33 and the Soviet falsification of history. The historian explains the man-made nature of the famine, the practice of the “black boards,” the scale of collectivization in Ukraine, and cites Robert Conquest’s classic work, along with examples of Soviet historiographical falsification: the denial of the secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, the lie about Katyn, and the silencing of the postwar famine of 1946–47. A source for the articles on the man-made famine and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
Key moments
- 02:11 Chronology of the Holodomor: late 1932 — spring 1933
- 03:17 Causes: collectivization 1928–30, revolts, "Dizzy with Success" 1930
- 04:20 The decree on collectivization tempo; terror by famine to pre-empt revolts
- 04:44 The "black board": blockading a village and stripping all its food
- 05:35 Up to 4 million dead; up to 70% of Ukrainians in collective farms by spring 1933
- 05:54 Kazakhstan: the Asharshylyk, up to 50% of the population
- 06:42 Robert Conquest's The Harvest of Sorrow; the contemporary Hennadii Yefimenko
- 08:37 Soviet historiography denied the secret protocol of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact until 1991
- 09:15 Katyn: blame pinned on the Germans, then Beria's note surfaced after the USSR fell
- 09:55 Silencing of the famine; the concealed postwar famine of 1946–47