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The death toll rapidly increased as the famine wore on and disposing of bodies became a significant problem. Freight trains arrived in big cities every morning at dawn to collect dead corpses, which were either burned or thrown into quarries (Altman 46). In small towns, wagons made rounds collecting bodies. People who did not work on collectives were left to rot in the street. Small children were left to bury their parents with leaves or dirt. Parents left dead or dying babies by the roadside (Altman 46). Many children suddenly found themselves orphaned. For these youngsters, the “sympathetic” Soviet government set up orphanages. Most of the unfortunate children who were forced to reside in these orphanages only lived for a short time. Most died of freezing temperatures, starvation, or illness. The older children spent their days digging graves and laying the dead to rest (Procyk 32). Not even the young were spared from this inhumane Soviet scheme.

News of the famine spread slowly throughout the world. Many Russians ignored what was going on around them. Petro Grigorenko, a former general in the Soviet army, said, “We were deceived because we wanted to be deceived. We believed so strongly in the Communist system that we [would] accept any crime if it was glossed over with the least little bit of communist phraseology” (Altman 47). Most Western journalists were based in Moscow, far from the starving Ukraine. They feared losing journalistic privileges should they write unfavorably of official Soviet policy (Procyk 38). Walter Duranty, a well-known writer for the New York Times, denied any existence of a famine. He professed that the deaths were due to disease and malnutrition and said “the country is on short rations but nothing worse” (Procyk 39). Articles containing ideas such as these prompted Stalin to reward him with the Order of Lenin, saying, “You have done a good job in your reporting of the USSR” (”Spiking the Ukrainian Famine, Again” 34). It is largely because of journalists like these, who choose to overlook the truth in the interest of advancing their careers, that the horror of the Ukrainian genocide has been hidden for so many years.

To rectify “slanderous fabrications circulated by bourgeois propaganda,” the Soviet government invited foreign correspondents and political figures to visit select Ukrainian cities (Altman 47). It was made certain, however, that the visitors saw only what the government wanted them to see. The cities they visited were cleaned of the dead and starving peasants who were replaced with healthy Russian citizens (Altman 47). False representations such as these also contributed to the diluted conceptions of the tragedy.

The Ukrainian famine of 1932-1933 was designed by the Soviet government with the intention of eradicating the strong-willed, independent people of the Ukraine who posed a threat to Russian domination in the Soviet Union. While the former Soviets still insist that the famine was unanticipated, it is impossible to disguise the systemized murder of millions of innocent

people. “Perhaps the most distressing lesson of Stalin’s Ukrainian famine is that even great crimes against humanity can happen again if the world ignores or denies them” (”Denying the Terror Famine” 5).

Altman, Linda Jacobs. Genocide: The Systematic Killing of a People. N.p.: Linda Jacobs

Altman, 1995.

Beers, Burton F. World History-Patterns of Civilization. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall

Inc., 1990.

Glennon, Lorraine, ed. Our Times: The Illustrated History of the 20th Century. Atlanta: Turner

Publishing, 1995.

Procyk. The Ukrainian Famine of 1932-33. N.p.:n.p., 1981.

Puddington, Arch. “Denying the Terror Famine.” National Review 25 May 1992: 1-7. Magazine

Article Summaries Full Text Elite Ver. 5.0. CD-ROM. Ebsco. Jan. 1984-May 1996.

“Spiking the Ukrainian Famine, Again.” National Review 11 April 1986: 33-36.

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