Tag Archives: propaganda

Washington’s Political Propaganda Tool – “Golodomor” (famine) in Ukraine

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In this article I want to cover the topic of the so-called “Golodomor” (death by starvation), the term which was coined by the US Congress in 1988 as a tool targeting USSR, so as to foment discord and chip away the borderlands – Ukraine. The period of starvation in USSR of 1930s did indeed happen, but it was not exclusive to Ukraine and did not have such a scale, as claimed by the followers of the Washington directive.

To put that into personal perspective, my great-grandmother on maternal line died of famine, and he family lived in Southern Siberia (Altai Krai), one of the most fertile regions of Russia.

In 2014 Lada Ray wrote an extensive in-depth article The Real Truth About USSR: Golodomor and Collectivization in Ukraine, which I strongly recommend everyone to read, including the comments, and Lada’s replies to them. Here is a short fragment:

Back to collectivization and golodomor (= death from starvation): it took place in the early 1930s. It happened for several reasons: 1. Peasants sometimes didn’t care for fields and cattle that they felt wasn’t theirs after it was taken into kolkhozes. 2. Sabotage, burning and poisoning of cattle and fields by foreign agents. 3. Mistakes of authorities, both central and local. 4. Several bad years of drought and poor harvest in parts of Russia and Ukraine.

This is very important! Collectivization and golodomor were NOT Ukraine-specific phenomenons. Same exact results from collectivization happened in rich agricultural areas of Russia, such as Povolzhie and Kuban. In fact, the real hunger was in Povolzhie (the Volga region). Golodomor is a Russian word, not Ukrainian. Everyone suffered. So, making this into a Ukraine-specific issue is clearly a disgusting propaganda ploy.

There was never a secret made of golodomor in Russia – as a child I studied it in my Soviet history books. Perhaps, Russians were a little too self-punishing about it. The overall cost of golodomor was probably two hundred thousand lives, and it was a huge tragedy. I doubt more than 20,000 died in Ukraine. Much, much more died in Russia.

3 years have passed since that publication, bust Washington is loath to abandon the propaganda line that brought so many dividends, and so this card is being played in the US, with the latest development of the State of Washington passing a “Golodomor” resolution… Below I am presenting a translation of an article by Ukrainian historian and political analyst in exile Rostislav Ishchenko with the title “Washington’s Genocide: USA speculates on the topic of starvation in Ukraine”.

But before we embark on reading of this article, let us keep in mind the developments in the United States of 1932-1933. During these years – the years of Great Depression – 7,5 million Americans died of hunger, while at the same time Roosevelt’s government destroyed crops and stock so as not to allow further depression of the prices on the foods market. Try to find demographic statistics for USA for 1932 – you will not be able to, as data for that year is mysteriously missing. So here we have another example of projection, so actively used in the American politics, or, simply put, a case of a teapot calling a kettle…

Incidentally, in many Ukrainianophilic publications you will see the Ukrainised term “holodomor”, which sounds stupid to the Slavic ear – “holod” means “cold”, so the derived term becomes “death from freezing”…

The Ukrainian Embassy in the USA can be congratulated with another large necrophiliac “victory.” The Senate of the State of Washington (located on the Pacific coast, not to be confused with the U.S. capital Washington, D.C. located on the Potomac river, near its confluence with the Atlantic ocean) adopted a resolution recognizing the so-called Golodomor (ukr.: Holodomor) as “genocide orchestrated by Joseph Stalin and the Soviet regime against the Ukrainian people”.

Until now a resolution which called Golodomor for a “man-made famines” was passed on 19 August 2016 by the Assembly of the State of California. There are still 48 “unstarved” States remaining and therefore, another 48 potential “victories” of Ukrainian diplomacy.

This, however, cannot change the official U.S. view on this issue. The fact is that in 1984, actively fighting against the USSR, Ronald Reagan created a Commission to study the 1932-1933 famine in Ukraine (Mace Commission, named after its President, James Mace). The Commission predictably concluded that “Stalin and his entourage committed genocide against Ukrainians in 1932-1933”.

US still occasionally refers to the opinion of the Mace Commission, but they are yet to dare to officially legalize its findings at the Federal level. Moreover, the James Mace complained that after the Commission’s findings were made public, the doors of the academic institutions in the United States became closed to him.

This reaction of the American scientific community is natural. In the 80-ies of the last century, politicians in Washington still did not have a monopoly on truth, and scientists valued their reputation. It is therefore not surprising that attempts to confirm the findings of the Mace Commission failed. The International commission created in 1988 by the initiative of the “world Congress of free Ukrainians” with the goal of investigating the famine, upset their customers, finding no evidence neither of the artificial nature of the famine nor of the intention to destroy the Ukrainian nation.

It was actually after this that the theme of famine stalled for several years. It was too difficult, without losing objectivity, to explain why in the course of the famine, ostensibly aimed at the destruction of the Ukrainians, the greatest losses were in the rural population of Kazakhstan (nearly 31% of the total) and the Volga region (23% of the total). While in the Ukraine and the Caucasus (where famine was also raging) the losses amounted to 20.5% and 20.4% respectively of the total rural population.

There is no accurate data on the victims of the Great famine of 1932-1933 in the USSR. The range of researchers’ estimates is extremely large: from 2-2.5 million to 7-8 million people in the whole Soviet Union. the figure of 6-7 million seems to be closest to reality, because, according to the official data, only on the territory of the RSFSR, excluding Ukraine and Kazakhstan, 2.5 million people died of hunger. The number of famine victims in Ukraine is estimated by the conscientious researchers to be 2-3 million (the lower limit being 1.5 million).

As we can see, the numbers are comparable. In addition, Ukraine of the 1930s was a multinational republic. Much more multinational than it is now. It is enough to note that the proportion of the Jewish population of Ukraine in the pre-war years amounted to 5-6% percent, while now it less than 0.5% of the total population. In Ukraine (in addition to the returned Crimean Tatars [translator note: here Ishchenko makes a mistake – in the 1930s of which the article is about, Crimea was not in Ukraine, so the Tatar population should be counted towards RSFSR or USSR total]) there also lived a later expelled (but never returned) large Greek, Armenian and German communities. The famine decimated all without asking nationality and not checking the passport data.

Moreover, hunger was particularly rampant in the Left-bank Ukraine, that is in regions with a high share, and even with the predominance of the Russian population. While the most vocal about the famine Western Ukraine was at that time actually a part of the Polish state, so if anyone organized an artificial famine on its territory, it not the Bolsheviks, but the civilized Europeans.

Nevertheless, after Ukraine gained its independence, starting in the mid 90-ies, the topic of the famine-genocide became more and more actively used by the Kiev authorities as political – especially international – trump card. Moreover, the subject was immediately given a Russophobic nature, even though Kiev initially denied this fact.

It is clear that if there actually was a genocide, it would imply that there was a customer (beneficiary) of this genocide, and the goal was specifically in the destruction of the nation. That is, Ukraine initially stressed that the famine was organized by Moscow and directed against Ukrainians as a nation, though in fact it mowed down peasants of all nationalities. And the reasons for it were known. It was a mix of both the “dizziness from success” in the collective construction, and crop failure, and overestimated grain procurement plans, and the inadequacy of local leadership, which for the sake of implementation of the plan, removed from the peasants even the seeding grain (as a result, the main impact of the famine came in 1933, when in some places the bread could not even be sown).

So as to prove the theory of Golodomor genocide, Kiev began to arbitrarily increase the number of famine victims in Ukraine. This was done in order to make Ukraine seemed the most affected in comparison with other localities of the USSR. Thus first appeared the figure of 6-7 million victims of the famine in Ukraine. The same political “researchers” lowered the figure for the rest of the Soviet Union down to 2.5 million.

And then Yushchenko came to power. This is where it all took off. Viktor Andrrevich Yushchenko was not satisfied with the already existing fraud. He immediately declared that Holodomor is the Ukrainian Holocaust. But by the end of the first year of his reign, Yushchenko claimed that the famine scale was greater than that of the Holocaust, and estimated the number of victims in 10 million people. A year later, Yushchenko already spoke of 10-15 million.

They had to stop at that, because the world ceased to pity Ukraine and began to laugh at her. It is easy to calculate that with 1932-1933 UkSSR’s population of 31-32 million people, every second or third inhabitant of the Republic had to die according to Yushchenko. Since the famine covered the territory unevenly, a significant portion of UkSSR would have to become a desert with abandoned cities and ghost villages. But painting up the atrocities of the Communist regime, Yushchenko did not stop at that and argued that up to ten million Ukrainians were dispossessed, exiled to Siberia where most perished.

That is, the Republic should have actually been losing population. It is unclear who then fought in the Great Patriotic War, which really killed seven or eight million inhabitants of pre-war UkSSR of all nationalities.

Currently Kiev does not operate with any approved (not even speaking of proven) number of famine victims, but voiced figures are never reduced below six or seven million, periodically returning to Yushchenko’s exorbitant eight to ten million.

In general, the history of the Ukrainian genocide is akin to the history of test-tube, which Colin Powers was shaking at the meeting of the UN Security Council, demanding international legalisation of the American invasion of Iraq. But in its extreme manifestations it is even more absurd and cynical. Bringing the number of victims to the point of absurdity in a futile attempt to prove genocide, the Ukrainian politicians and “scientists” relegated the real tragedy of millions of people to the grotesque. While the attempt to present Ukrainians as the sole victims of the famine, denying the millions of Kazakhs, Russians, representatives of the peoples of the Caucasus, who in those same years suffered this painful death, the right to memory and sympathy is beyond the bounds of morality and common sense.

Resolutions akin to that adopted by the Senate of the State of Washington are of short-term political nature. This is evidenced by the fact that of the 18 (including Ukraine) countries that recognized Golodomor as genocide of the Ukrainian people, 9 did so before the Supreme Rada of Ukraine itself enacted it as a law on 28 November 2006. Moreover, Estonia and Australia recognized Golodomor as genocide in October 1993 (13 years before Kiev). They knew better than the Ukrainians themselves.

One can be happy on behalf of the Ukrainian diplomacy, which has a virtually unlimited space for further “victories”. If they actively work with Lesotho, Swaziland, Island States of Polynesia, Melanesia and Micronesia, the number of countries, professionally recognising Golodomor as genocide, can double.

The Upside-down World of the Western Main Stream Media (MSM)

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MSM – only the truthful information

I’ve been meaning to post the above caricature for quite some time, but as it is usual with many of my posts, it’s been sitting in draft until I felt it “matured” enough. Now, I saw a convergence of two seemingly insignificant events, that made it feel like a good time to post this image.

It is not a secret that anything published in the Western main-stream media about Russia (as well as China, or Syria, or any other state that the Western elites feel is in need of some “democratic bombings”), is presented through a certain prism, where either partial truths or outright lies are given to the audience to form an image of an enemy.

This can be seen in the materials, published both…

… in Peace …

Seemingly such an innocent thing, a report by one of the many Russian TV channels on a vegetable shortage in Europe… But look how it got blown out of proportions both by the 5th column inside and the agents of influence outside of Russia.

Continue reading →

Dutch journalist: Truth in the war in the Ukraine plays a minor role

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This is a translation from Russian of an interview with the Dutch journalist Olaf Koons, published in “Argumenty i Fakty” on the 8th of October 2014.

Dutch journalist Olaf Koons, visited many times the hot spot in the east of Ukraine, and shared with the “AIF” his opinion about what he saw.

The western journalist has an opportunity to cover the conflict from both warring sides.

Vladimir Polupanov, “AiF”: Olaf, you recently returned from another trip to the Donbass. I know that you were in Lugansk, Donetsk, Ilovajsk, Mariupol. What did you, a foreigner, understand about this war?

Olaf Koons: That it is completely pointless, unnecessary and fratricidal.

– In your opinion, who is fighting whom there?

– First of all, the state propaganda wages war from both sides. This is a very powerful thing. The truth in this war plays a small role. The most important role is played by the desire of people to win at any cost. This is what kills them …

Certainly, there is a big geopolitical conflict between Russia and the West, but in the Donbass local people are fighting. 90% of the militias are locals. And in Kiev, they stubbornly do not want to believe it. Two weeks ago I was in destroyed to the foundation Lugansk airport, where there were positions of Ukrainian security forces. In the basement, where the soldiers, they left a lot of books – Andersen’s fairy tales, for example, some men’s magazines. Guess what is the language of these books? Correct – they are in Russian.

– The picture that you saw with your own eyes, is very different from that shown on television?

– The picture is not different. It is one and the same. The question is – how it is all explained and interpreted. You probably read “Life and Fate” by Vasily Grossman. It’s the first time I saw first-hand how it looks in reality. Under Lugansk I saw a village with such level of destruction that is beyond words, – the remains of huts, the church with a fallen dome, tanks and burnt bodies.

Fact:
About 30 destroyer battalions are fighting on the side of Kiev against the militia of the self-proclaimed republics.

– And a strong hatred on both sides?

– Yes, hatred is very strong. And it’s terrible. To understand where the virtual front line is, it is enough to see which search engine is used by the parties. If Yandex – it east, if Google – then west.

– Is a real peace possible there?

– I think that this war is there a long time. Everything’s destroyed, nothing works there. At best, these self-proclaimed republics will be similar to Transnistria. Among the militia they are in a mood to go if not to Kiev, then at least to Slavjansk. The National Guard and Ukrainian battalions (of which there are about 30) also have a desire to continue to fight. Moreover, the elections are coming soon in the Ukraine. So in the near future I think peace will not come to the Donbass.

– What difficulties are faced by the foreign journalists in this hot spot?

– It is difficult place to work. But what’s interesting – you can cover the conflict from both sides and give a more or less objective picture. Because in Syria or Iraq one can only work on one side. In Donbass, after every half kilometre there are roadblocks, where there are all kinds of people, among them there are inadequate. One of the features of this war – everyone resembles each other. Battalions and militia are sometimes completely indistinguishable from each other. Last time I was present at the prisoner exchange on neutral territory, where representatives of the Ukrainian army and militias met. At some point I ceased to understand where is the Ukrainian army, and where are militias. They are all in camouflage, all rough, all swear with Russian obscenities.

But the prisoners, by the way, are very different. They are quite different from each other. The prisoners who were captured by militia are the people of about the same age – young privates. Prisoners captured by Kiev party are usually ordinary people, farmers who only yesterday were digging potatoes. We see that it is certainly not the military.

And another interesting point: in places where the prisoners were exchanged, the reporters of, for example, the First and Perche channels come face to face. And they look at each other with the same hatred as front-line soldiers.

A lot of nonsense

– How is this conflict covered in the Dutch media? You surely have your own propaganda.

– You know, there’s a big difference between propaganda and stupidity (bad journalism). In the Netherlands, a lot of the bad, stupid, journalism. Most Dutch journalists writing about the conflict in the Donbass, have never been there and do not understand what they write about. After the fall of the “Boeing”, the country was awash hatred of Russia, and the people (not at the behest of the state) just splashed out their emotions. But it did not last long. In our embassy here if there are three people speaking Russian, then it’s counted for a lot. In Dutch universities if there are three departments, where they teach the Russian language, Russian literature and Russian politics, then it’s considered as much. There are at most 5 Dutch journalists working in Russia.

If at the university and diplomatic levels there are not many experts, if there are so few journalists, we can understand what the picture of Russia consists of in Dutch society.

– Why do the Dutch not show sufficient initiative to investigate the disaster of”Boeing” at the Donbass?

– A large investigation is under way in the Netherlands, but very slowly. You know, the Dutch have a problem – we all want to make the Dutch way. If in some faraway country where there is war, a plane falls with Dutch citizens on board, then in the Dutch view the crash site should immediately be cordoned off, closed from outsiders and investigated in the Dutch way: very clearly, prolonged, surveying everything meter by meter. It didn’t happen here. I can not say that everyone is happy with how the process goes. For example, I do not understand why I got to the site a day after the fall, while the Dutch experts came there a week later. Spent there a couple of days and left. Because they were afraid. I do not understand why I could work there, but they could not.

– What conclusions could you make while at the crash site?

– I do not know who shot down the plane. If I had my own version, I would have published it on the front pages of all Dutch newspapers. I also do not know what happened on September 11th in America. I was not there. But we have some consensus about what happened there. I think that after some time we’ll get a consensus also in the case of the crash of the Malaysian “Boeing” in the Donbass.