SOVIET PROPAGANDA DURING THE GREAT FAMINE IN UKRAINE (1932-1933)

• Authors: Kusnierz R.
• Languages of publication: PL

Abstracts

EN

For many years Ukraine remained one of the chief grain producers in Europe. The destructive agrarian policy initiated at the end of 1929 by the Stalinist leadership reduced Ukrainian agriculture to a state of ruin and condemned the local peasants to an atrocious famine which in Ukraine alone took the life of at least 3 million people. Throughout the time of the famine, the Ukraine and the Soviet Union as a whole were officially presented as free of hunger; more, the Bolshevik propaganda praised the magnificent life enjoyed by members of state farms and honestly working peasants in the Soviet state. Every Soviet newspaper of the period, regardless whether it was a local or a union publication (such as 'Pravda' or 'Izviestiya'), contained larger or smaller texts about 'comfortable life in the kolkhoz'. The Soviet press did make frequent mention of the famine, but only whenever it described the 'tragic plight of the peasants and workers starving in capitalist states. The Bolshevik propaganda, however, did not limit itself to negating the actual existence of famine in the Soviet Union, but made all possible efforts to prove to the world that information reaching the West was the mere product of the imagination of 'counter-revolutionary elements interested in discrediting the Soviet state'. In this respect, considerable successes of Soviet propaganda included the skilful presentation of Ukraine and the Northern Caucasus, i. e. areas most effected by the famine, to the French Prime Minister Edouard Herriot

Keywords

EN

GREAT FAMINE; SOVIET PROPAGANDA; UKRAINE

Discipline

• HISTORY: HISTORY

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk. Instytut Historii im. Tadeusza Manteuffla PAN w Warszawie
• Journal: Dzieje Najnowsze
• Year: 2004
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 29-46
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Kusnierz R.

• R. Kusnierz, Uniwersytet Marii Curie-Sklodowskiej w Lublinie, Instytut Historii, pl. Marii Curie-Sklodowskiej 4, 20-031 Lublin, Poland

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

04PLAAAA0027625