Moroz, Valentyn. Report from the Beria Preserve: The Writings of Valentyn Moroz. Edited

and translated by John Kolasky.  Chicago: Cataract Press, 1974.  xiii + 162 pp. Map, Black-and-White Photographic Illustrations, Translator’s Note, Bibliographic Outline, Biographic Notes of Key Personalities of Ukrainian history. ISBN: 0914764020.

 

Political prisoner of the 1970’s, Moroz wrote about the long-term effects of Stalinism on the Ukrainian and Soviet populations; de-Ukrainianization; the Stalinist Cult of Personality.  Moroz states that Stalin’s greatest accomplishment was the creation of men who were merely unthinking “cogs.” “Ice cold terror, without which it is impossible to build an empire of cogs, must therefore be constantly maintained” (34).

The self-perpetuation of terror and self-protectiveness of terrorists are analyzed. “Someone will have to answer for those who were executed and those who were starved to death (51) April 15, 1967.

 

Referring to the destruction of traditional religion, folklore, songs, poetry, Moroz wrote:

De-christianization, collectivization, industrialization, mass transfer of

people from villages and towns caused unprecedented erosion of traditional Ukrainian social relationships, which the catastrophic consequences have

not yet become completely apparent (77-79).

 

The writings of Valentyn Moroz were smuggled out of Ukraine by Vyacheslav  Chornovil.

 

 

 

 

Motyl, Alexander J.  The Turn to the Right: The Ideological Origins and Development of

Ukrainian Nationalism 1919-1929.  East European Monographs, No. LXV.  New York: Columbia University Press, 1980.  xii + 212 pp.  Epilogue, Notes, Bibliography, Index, List of Abbreviations.  ISBN: 0-914710-58-3.

           

Motyl’s work clarifies and defines the several Ukrainian political groups, their personalities, interactions, goals and obstacles in the development of the pre-Famine Ukrainian nationalism, and its resulting loyalties.

 

 

 

Muggeridge, Thomas Malcolm. My Life in Pictures.  New York: William Morrow & Co.,

1987.  iii + 144 pp.  Black-and-white photographs, cartoons, illustrations.  ISBN: 0-688-07225-9.

 

Describes his arrival in Moscow 16 September 1932; his guided tour to the power station and dam newly constructed at Dnieper-Stroi, as well as his independent trip to the areas affected by the Famine.  He writes of his expulsion from the USSR as a persona-non-grata (28-30).  He states that the articles about the Famine that were printed by the Manchester Guardian were “quite severely toned down by Crozier” [editor] from what he had originally submitted for publication.

 

 

 

Muggeridge, Thomas Malcolm.  Winter in Moscow. Introduction by Michael D. Aeschliman. 

Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1934 and 1987. vii + 252 pp. ISBN: 0-8028-2063-X.

 

In this book of historical fiction, Muggeridge describes his experiences in the Soviet Union in 1932-1933.  The facts and characters are thinly disguised versions of himself, Duranty, etc.  He describes the trip to the power station, Soviet disinformation, the deceitful pre-determined tour route, the visible and invisible reality of the people’s desperate situation. 

 

Famine is something quite peculiar.  It concentrates all effort and thought and feeling on one thing.  .  .  .  Somehow famine goes beyond hunger, and puts in each face a kind of lewdness; a kind of grey unwholesome longing.  People’s white gums and mouldering flesh suggest rather a consuming disease like leprosy than appetite.  .  .  .  Their eyes are greedy and restless, and linger greedily, it sometimes seems, on each other’s bodies (137).   

 

 

 

Oleskiw, Stephen.  The Agony of a Nation: The Great Man-made Famine in Ukraine, 1932-

33. London: National Committee to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Artificial Famine in Ukraine, 1932-33, 1983.  Foreword by Malcolm Muggeridge. Appendices, Eyewitness Accounts, Map, Black-and-white Photographic Illustrations of Ukrainian Leaders, and Famine Victims. Bibliography.  viii + 72 pp. ISBN: 0-950-8851-0X (pbk.).

 

Chapters include:

           

“Great Man-made Famine in Ukraine, 1932-33” (13-60)

 

“Political, Social, Economic Reasons” (13-31)

 

“Collectivization and Famine” (32-44)

 

“Resistance of the Ukrainian Peasants to Collectivization” (44-47)

 

“Purges of Cities and Intelligentsia” (47-54)

 

“Results of the Famine” (54-57)

 

Malcolm Muggeridge states in the Introduction: “…mankind learned once

more that they cannot make their fellows happy and free through the exercise of power, but only through love. That is what the Crucifixion was about, and what the woes and conundrums of our world today are about.”

 

Moscow’s crimes uninvestigated, not prosecuted.  Ukrainianization viewed as a threat of the loss of a valuable colony brought about by the persistence of an independent attitude of nationalism.  Exploration of late tsarist Russian/early Soviet history, Ukrainian Independence in 1920’s, dekulakization, collectivization, Famine as a separate weapon intertwined with other factors of Soviet domination.

 

Secretary of Dnipropetrovsk Regional Committee Khataevich: “It took a famine to show them who is master here.  It has cost millions of lives, but the collective system is here to stay.  We have won the war” (20).

 

“Law of August 7, 1932, made the stealing of state property punishable by firing squad or deportation” (24). 

August 22, 1932, decree, “labeled the [act of] carrying of loaves of bread as ‘speculation’” (24-25).

 

Shock brigades searched for hidden stores of food and grain (27).

 

Shortage of manpower because of Famine-related illnesses and death, and the concurrent loss of draft animals resulted in 40% crop loss in 1932 (38-39).

 

Resistance efforts, uprisings in Chernihiv Province, “peasant uprisings had the support of the 21st Chernihiv Regiment and were only crushed after mass concentrations of OGPU and regular troops were deployed against them (46).

 

Removal of intelligentsia and church leaders and officials--clergy deported, shot; purge of Communist Party of Ukraine and the government of Ukrainian SSR; Russification policies and practices. 

 

Closing of Ukrainian schools and press.  Teaching of Ukrainian history was forbidden by edict in1930 (54).

 

Table shows student population in schools teaching Ukrainian (53-54). 

 

Census figures showing number of Russian colonists, who repopulated the

Famine-depopulated areas (59).

 

Eyewitness accounts: beatings, executions, deportations, documents the practice of arresting persons caught while attempting to bring food from outside areas to starving family (61-63).  Blacklisting, and its results. 

 

List of names of those arrested, killed.


“The people in Verbky were dying out.  The same thing happened in the neighboring villages.  It was a time when government granaries were bursting with grain” (69).