Declassified KGB files shed new light on Soviet crimes

Marco Levytsky, NPUN Western Bureau Chief.

Declassified KGB files available at the Sectoral State Archive of the Security Service of Ukraine shed light on previously unknown information about Soviet crimes against Ukrainians, says its director.

Speaking during a public lecture sponsored by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta, October 29, Dr. Andriy Kohut focussed primarily on those documents related to the Holodomor.

One such collection are the archival files of the German consulates in Kyiv, Odesa, and Kharkiv that cover the period from 1923 to 1940. Almost half of all file volumes contain information about the artificial mass famine of 1932-1933. Therefore, today it is an important source for the study of Holodomor organized by the Soviet regime in Ukraine, he explained.

One of the documents he cited was a letter a German consul wrote to the German Foreign Ministry in 1933 in which he stated that 80% of the population in Ukrainian villages have died of starvation. In other reports, German diplomats wrote that the number of victims of the famine was estimated at between four and seven million people.

In another surviving document, the diplomats explicitly stated that the famine was artificially organized. They noted that the Soviet authorities had “a diabolical desire to destroy certain segments of society by ‘organized famine' are historical facts, the details of which are now clarified by the testimony of reliable witnesses.”

The Soviet secret services were actively involved in a campaign of disinformation to convince Europe and the world that everything was fine in the Soviet Union and there was no famine.

For this purpose, the Soviet regime tried to attract well-known world politicians and leaders. They were invited to the Soviet Union and given demonstration tours of the country. Something similar to the way the UN Secretary-General was coming to Russia recently.

In 1933, a visit to the Soviet Union was organized by the leader of the Radical Socialist Party, former French Prime Minister Edouard Herriot. Therefore, the task of the Soviet secret services was to organize his security.

But in fact, the archival records show that the main task was to prevent “unreliable citizens,” including representatives of the French colonists, from visiting Herriot. The Soviet secret services and the Communist Party carefully selected the route of the visit through villages and collective farms specially prepared for the arrival of the French guest. The visit was planned so that Herriot would not visit the northern regions of the Odesa oblast, which the German consulate reported as having died of starvation.

The mechanism that led to the Holodomor was launched in the late 1920s from Moscow by the then leaders of the Communist Party, headed by Stalin. Archival evidence from the KGB archives reveals virtually all of its stages, said Kohut.

“The history and memory of the Holodomor is an important motivator to continue the struggle against Moscow's attempt to occupy Ukraine once again. The KGB archives clearly demonstrate what fate awaits Ukrainians in case of defeat.

“That is why it is extremely important that the archives of the Soviet secret services be made available to everyone and that researchers continue to study them,” he concluded.

To hear the full lecture, please go to: https://www.ualberta.ca/en/canadian-institute-of-ukrainian-studies/news-and-events/events/2024/postal-rats-soviet-agents-and-special-operations.html

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