The Holodomor’s Bitter Harvest

Lazar Kaganovich Mar 2017Recently someone sent me a link to the trailer of an upcoming movie entitled Bitter Harvest, a love story set against the backdrop of the Soviet-induced Ukrainian famine in 1931-32 known as The Holodomor (meaning “death by forced starvation”). The film, largely funded and produced by Canadian businessman Ian Ihnatowycz (himself of Ukrainian origin), depicts the Bolshevik regime’s systematic starvation campaign that killed over six million mainly Christian Ukrainians who resisted Stalin’s bid to collectivize the region’s agriculture.

The first real English-language film on the subject of The Holodomor, Bitter Harvest could be a tool to enlighten Westerners about the murderous character of the Bolshevik regime, America’s World War Two ally. But, as I predicted upon seeing the film’s trailer, there will be a move to hijack the narrative and make the film tell another story other than that which history bears out. And sure enough, shortly after the film opened in Canada and Ukraine, we have an opinion piece from one Ted Woloshyn in the 3 March edition of the Toronto Sun entitled “Ukraine’s genocidal famine remembered” that pushes The Narrative I expected all along.

When compared to the publicity given The Holocaust since the end of World War Two, there has been very little told of The Holodomor outside of Ukraine and certain scholarly circles. Thus, it is heartening to see this much-neglected tragedy garner publicity. But to sanitize the story of The Holodomor for purposes of political correctness will further obfuscate the truth of history during this tumultuous era. And sanitize it “they” will.

In his editorial, Woloshyn does note that New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty, who covered the USSR from the paper’s Moscow Bureau, lied to his readers (and won a Pulitzer Prize in the bargain) about the genocidal starvation campaign which, as Woloshyn writes, “favorably influenced America’s perception of Stalin, and prompted newly-elected U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt to recognize the Soviet Union.”

But what Woloshyn fails to tell his readers (and he likely will not be alone) is the Jewish origins of Bolshevism (Communism) and the anti-Christian, anti-European fanaticism of the ideology. If he did, we might have something to historically balance against The Holocaust, a dubious story told over and over to induce Christian guilt and promote Jewish victimization.

Read what the great Russian novelist and commentator Alexander Solzhenitsyn had to say about the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917: “There are many Jewish authors who to this very day either deny the support of Jews for Bolshevism, or even reject it angrily, or else—the most common case—only speak defensively about it. The matter is well-attested, however: these Jewish renegades were for several years leaders at the center of the Bolshevik Party, at the head of the Red Army (Trotsky), of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee (Sverdlov), of the two capitals (Zinoviev and Kamenev), of the Comintern (Zinoviev), of the Profintern (Dridzo-Lozovsky), and of the Komsomol (Oskar Ryvkin, then Lazar Shatskin).” (From Two Hundred Years Together: Jews and Russians during the Soviet Period, p. 91).

But instead of pointing out Jewish complicity, Woloshyn tells us that Ukraine today stands in danger of another tragedy because of the depredations of the Russian Federation and Vladimir Putin. He writes: “So once again, Ukrainians are fighting for their freedom against Russia. Only this time the devil’s name is Putin.”

The Ukrainians were not fighting “Russia” for their freedom in the early 1930s. Rather, they were fighting against the terror of Judeo-Bolshevism, which had seized Russia from the Czar with the help of organs like The New York Times and the governments of the West. To conflate Russia today with the USSR of some 80 years ago is beyond disingenuous; it is an outright lie. Again, Solzhenitsyn understood who was behind the revolution of 1917:

“You must understand. The leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of human remorse. The October Revolution was not what you call in America the ‘Russian Revolution.’ It was an invasion and conquest over the Russian people. More of my countrymen suffered horrific crimes at their bloodstained hands than any people or nation ever suffered in the entirety of human history. It cannot be understated. Bolshevism was the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant of this reality is proof that the global media itself is in the hands of the perpetrators.”

In 2010, Bolshevik official Lazar Kaganovich – considered by some to be the greatest mass murderer of all time – and a number of other Jews were posthumously convicted by the Kiev appellate court over the Holodomor genocide. The international media ignored the story.

Bitter Harvest unfortunately probably will not tell the true story of The Holodomor or the wider tale of the Bolshevik Revolution. Instead, it will be used by international Jewry to bash current day Russia and support Jewish interests in Ukraine, an area some believe may one day become in fact Greater Israel. But that is another story for another day. For now, it is enough to say that The Holodomor story is being co-opted as part of The Narrative which upholds the power and interests of international Jewry.

Michael Hill