State OKs remembrance of Soviets' forced famine
Together with the second anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the California Legislature officially recognized and condemned an earlier atrocity carried out by the Soviet Union — a forced famine that killed millions of Ukrainians — and designated November as Holodomor Memorial Month.
“Ninety-two years ago, the Soviet government starved millions of Ukrainian people in an effort to destroy their national movement for independence,” state Sen. Bill Dodd, who authored a remembrance resolution about the famine, said in a press statement issued Monday.
The term Holodomor, “death by hunger” in Ukrainian, refers to the Sovietengineered starvation of some 6 to 7 million Ukrainians in the eastern part of the country in 1932-33. Desperate, starving and deprived of their livelihood by the policies of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, Ukrainians were forced to eat grass, tree bark, flowers, rats, dogs and, in the end, their children, some historians have noted.
Stalin, feeling threatened by Ukraine's strengthening cultural autonomy, enacted the brutal measures to quash the Ukrainian peasantry and the country's intellecutal and cultural elites, to prevent them from seeking independence after the Soviets declared the country a constituent republic in 1922.
“It was genocide, pure and simple, a systematic violation of human rights, denying an entire nation the freedom of self-determination,” Dodd, who represents the 3rd State Senate District, added in the prepared statement. “Today, violence against Ukraine continues as the Russians invade their sovereign land and wage a brutal and unjust war on its people. Bringing awareness to this history is important as we support Ukraine in its quest to maintain liberty.”
In the statement, Dodd noted the Soviets deliberately confiscated grain harvests in a country known as the “breadbasket of Europe” and sealed Ukraine's borders to prevent anyone from escaping or receiving international aid. The Soviets also barred journalists from reporting on it.
Dodd's Senate Concurrent Resolution 89 remembers the Holodomor and honors those who were lost. It also condemns the systematic violations of human rights, including the freedom of self-rule and freedom of speech, by the Soviet government. As the same time, it encourages “dissemination of information regarding the Ukrainian famine in order to expand the world's knowledge of this atrocity,” according to the document's wording.
Legislature unanimously approved the resolution on Thursday, designating November as Holodomor Memorial Month, and Nov. 23 as Holodomor Memorial Day.
It comes as Russian leader Vladimir Putin continues to cultivate an image of an unpredictable strongman ready to escalate tensions with the West. It also comes as Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., returned from Ukraine and issued a dire warning to Republicans in Congress who are blocking billions of dollars in military aid to the war-torn Eastern European nation. And on Friday the U.S. government — responding to the Feb. 16 death of Russian activist Aleksei Navalny earlier this month in an Arctic prison — unleashed its most extensive package of sanctions on Russia's financial sector and military-industrial complex to degrade the Kremlin's war effort.
“Honoring the memory of our fellow countrymen who fell victim to the Holodomor in Ukraine, it is noteworthy that the deliberate and purposeful starvation, resulting in the deaths of millions of Ukrainians, was yet another instrument of genocide against the Ukrainian people by Russian imperialism,” Dmytro Kushneruk, consulate general of Ukraine in San Francisco, said of Dodd's resolution. “This imperialism persists in its unchanged objective: the destruction of Ukraine and its people. We wholeheartedly welcome this historic recognition, considering it as a significant testament to the robust support from the United States, particularly California.”
“We value the ongoing solidarity and commitment demonstrated by the United States, and we believe that such declarations contribute to raising awareness about historical injustices,” the consul general added.
Besides Solano, Dodd's district includes all or portions of Yolo, Napa, Sonoma, Contra Costa, and Sacramento counties.