On 7 November 2003, twenty-five member countries1 (subsequently, fourteen more member countries signed directly or sent letters of support) issued a Statement to the 58th Session of the United Nations’ General Assembly, which was transmitted to the Secretary General of the United Nations by the Permanent Mission of Ukraine to the UN. The Statement read in part:

In the former Soviet Union millions of men, women and children fell victims to the cruel actions and policies of the totalitarian regime. The Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine (Holodomor), which took from 7 million to 10 million innocent lives and became a national tragedy for the Ukrainian people. In this regard we note activities in observance of the seventieth anniversary of this Famine, in particular organized by the Government of Ukraine.

On 10 November 2003, the Ukrainian World Congress (hereinafter UWC) issued a Statement In Support of Remembering the Victims of the Great Famine 1932-33 in Ukraine. The Statement, distributed in the United Nations, read in part:

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the enforced famine of 1932-33, engineered by the Soviet regime in which 7-10 million Ukrainians perished.

On 29 January 2008, the United Nations’ Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations, holding its 2008 Regular Session from 21-30 January 2008, considered the UWC’s 2003-2006 quadrennial report and submitted the following questions for further clarification:

1. What is the position of your organization on the joint statement about the “Holodomor” made during the 58th of the United Nations General Assembly?
2. What are the sources of the numbers of the deaths from the “Great Famine” in your statement?

On 30 January 2008, the UWC responded:

Thank you for your consideration of our quadrennial report and, particularly, your interest in the Great Famine-“Holodomor.”

The position of the UWC on the joint statement about the “Holodomor” made during the 58th Session of the United Nations General Assembly is that it is an important acknowledgment by almost forty countries in the world community of the existence of this great tragedy. Furthermore, we feel that it was an important initial step in recognizing this event as Genocide within the meaning of the Genocide Convention of 1948. The UWC assisted Ukraine’s Permanent Mission to the UN with the Statement by offering suggestions. The final text, naturally, was authored by the Mission.

The seven to ten million assessment stated in our Statement of November 10, 2003 comes from various sources such as: Robert Conquest’s book “Harvest of Sorrow,” the Final Congressional Report of the U. S. Commission on the Ukraine Famine and the findings of an International Commission of eminent international jurists convened by the Ukrainian World Congress which rendered its final report in 1990. The number seven - ten million ascribes seven million to the territory of the former Ukrainian SSR and three million to other areas of the USSR including Kuban, the North Caucases in Russia and Kazakhstan. The regions outside the Ukrainian SSR where the famine was most severe in many instances were populated heavily by Ukrainians. The International Commission report includes statistics from two censuses taken in the USSR along ethnic lines pre and post the famine of 1932-33 which support the aforesaid number.

Should you require any further clarification, substantiated by documentation, we would be willing to supply same upon request. We appreciate your interest.

On 5 February 2008 the UWC received a notification from the UN Non-Governmental Organizations Section/DESA:

This is to inform you that the Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations at its 2008 Regular Session from 21-30 January, decided to defer the consideration of the quadrennial report of your organization, “Ukrainian World Congress”, on its activities for the period 2003-2006.

The committee will continue its review of the report during its 2008 Resumed session scheduled for 29 May- 6 June 2008 and an invitation from our office will follow.

The number of victims has been the subject of much debate and some estimation. There are at least two significant declarations against interest. Winston Churchill in his memoirs published in 1959 refers to a conversation with Marshal Stalin in August 1942 about the stresses of the war as compared with carrying through the policy of the collective farms. In the course of the conversation, according to Churchill, Stalin talks about the collectivization effort and holds up two hands with the words “Ten million, it was fearful.”2 William Strang, a diplomat at the British Embassy, Moscow, wrote about a conversation with the notorious Soviet apologist and Great Famine denier, Walter Duranty, The New York Times reporter at that time in the USSR, in September 1933 after Mr. Duranty returned from Ukraine and the North Caucasus:

Mr. Duranty thinks it quite possible that as many as 10 million people may have died directly or indirectly from lack of food in the Soviet Union during the past year.3

Dr. W. Horsley Gantt, chief of the medical division of the American Relief Administration, Leningrad Unit (1922-23), a collaborator in Pavlov’s Laboratories (1925-29) and a member of the school of medicine at John Hopkins University returned to the USSR in 1933 to continue his work with Pavlov. In 1936 he published “A Medical Review of Soviet Russia: Results of the First Five Year Plan” in the British Medical Journal. In a March 6, 1964 letter to Dana G. Dalrymple of the U.S. Agriculture Department, noting that the Soviet government forbade news correspondents to travel from Moscow or Leningrad to the outlying areas of the country, he wrote:

However, I as a scientist, was allowed in areas outside of the cities, and I could talk with doctors who gave me first hand reports of both the famine and the epidemics. These later were a complicating picture of the famine. Your highest estimate of the famine deaths is put at ten million, while I got the maximal figure of fifteen million, received privately from Soviet authorities in Russia. Since starvation was complicated by the epidemics, it is not possible to separate which of these two causes was primary in casualties.4

Noted British historian Robert Conquest in his book The Harvest of Sorrow 5estimates the total number of victims from the 1932-33 famine at 7 million with 6 million Ukrainians. Additionally he estimates 4 million deaths within the USSR from 1930-37 as a result of de-kulakization.” Ukrainians were considered the main opponents to de-kulakization. Some 80% of that 4 million were Ukrainians, which would mean that in 1930-37 more than 9 million Ukrainians lost their lives from famine and de-kulakization. The distinction between death from famine and death from de-kulakization, in our view, is difficult to define.

In its report to the Congress of the United States adopted and submitted in 1988, the Congressional Commission on the Ukraine Famine sets the number of Ukrainian victims as widely ranged but with a high end of over 8 million.6 James Mace, the Executive Director of the Congressional Commission, had written earlier of a 7.5 million number: “Actually, the figure might well be higher. The figure of ten million total victims of the famine seems to have circulated with the Soviet elite.”7 “The extraordinary frequency with which the ten million figure appears obliges us to take seriously the possibility that it did in fact originate in Soviet official circles, even if we cannot claim to know with certainty.”8

The International Commission of Inquiry into the 1932-33 Famine in Ukraine in its 1990 report concluded that the number of victims in Ukraine was at least 4.5 million with approximately three million outside Ukraine, thus at least 7.5 million.9 The Summary of the International Commission of Inquiry into the 1932-33 Famine in Ukraine refers to two censuses in the USSR, one in 1926 and the other in 1939.10 It is important to add that there had been a thorough and complete census conducted in 1937 that evidenced such an egregious loss of life attendant to the Famine, that Stalin had the results suppressed and the officials responsible promptly arrested and executed.11 In any event, the 1926 census about which there is no dispute reveals that in 1926 the total population of the USSR was 147 million with 31 million Ukrainians and 116 million non-Ukrainians. The 1939 census, which was sanctioned officially as accurate shows the total population of the USSR at 170.5 million with 28 million Ukrainians and 142.5 million non-Ukrainians. This indicates that the Ukrainian population actually declined by some three million during that period while the population of non-Ukrainians grew by 26.5 million or at 23%, which if applied to Ukrainians would have meant that in 1939 there should have been 38 million Ukrainians. Thus, it would appear that the Ukrainian population declined by ten million.

Arguably, Stalin’s purges, commenced in late 1937, resulted in the deaths of a disproportionate amount of Ukrainians particularly from labor camps. Thus, the 1937 census (conducted in January 1937) statistics are very important. The demise of the USSR and the opening of archives have shed light on the results of the suppressed 1937 census. According to that census, the number of Ukrainians within the USSR in 1937 was 26.4 million almost 5 million less that in 1926.12 That, in and of itself, is staggering. When combined with what was the normal growth rate of non-Ukrainians in the USSR from 1926 to 1937 at 17%, Ukrainians should have numbered 36.5 million in 1937. The conclusion is that between 1926 and 1937, the Ukrainian population within the entire USSR declined by 10.1 million. However, in assessing the number of actual victims an allowance should be made for children never born to those victims.

Certitude as to the number of victims in any crime against humanity or genocide is impossible due primarily to a perpetrator’s attempts to cover up, dislocations etc. This is particularly true in the case of the former USSR where purges of records and record keepers were the norm. The passing of seventy-five years makes this endeavor more problematic. Nevertheless, a seven - ten million estimate appears to present an accurate picture of the number of deaths suffered by the Ukrainian nation from the Great Famine (Holodomor) of 1932-33.

Askold S. Lozynskyj
President, Ukrainian World Congress

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