Kyiv, Ukraine, May 25, 2006

6.              INTERNATIONAL CHARITABLE FOUNDATION FOR
                                UKRAINIAN NATIONAL MEMORY
By Morgan Williams, Publisher and Editor
Action Ukraine Report (AUR) #845, Article 6
Washington, D.C., Monday, May 21, 2007 

 

Kyiv, Ukraine, May 25, 2006

"We need to know the truth. How, without any war, could our nation have lost
over 10 million people?". These words formed part of Viktor Yushchenko's
address to the memorial gathering to honour the victims of communist terror
in Bykivnya.

In his speech to the thousands who attended, the President stressed that the
tragedy of Bykivnya should be remembered together with other such crimes,
those of Oswiecim (Auschwitz), Buchenwald and Dachau.

"We speak today not only about Bykivnya, but about the Vinnytsa, Kharkiv,
Sumy and Lviv graves. They are not only in each regional centre, and in
district centres. They are also "parts" of the Bykivnya Mass Graves".

More than 2 thousand people came to the Bykivnya Memorial to honour the
dead. Leaders of Ukraine's Churches held a requiem service near the mass
grave.

From 1936 to 1941, each night the bodies of political prisoners, shot by the
NKVD, were buried in this pine forest on the eastern outskirts of Kyiv.  A
special zone was organized for the secret burials.

The archives of the Kyiv land development service have a document on
allocating land to the capital's NKVD in 19 - 20 quarters of the Darnytsa
forest area near the village of Bykivnya "for special purposes".

The first victims were buried there at the end of the 1920s, being taken
there from the Lukyanivska Prison (in Kyiv).

The bodies of approximately 100 thousand people murdered in the NKVD

torture cells were thrown into deep graves between the roots of the pine trees.
Some decades later bad weather washed up bones from the sandy earth.

However, the number of victims, as well as the "political affiliation" of
the perpetrators of this bloody carnage, were made public only fifty years
after the crime.

For a long time the Soviet bodies of state security assured anxious local
residents that the terrible forest held the graves of victims of Nazism.

However precisely the Germans, who had an interest in exposing the previous
region, made public information from their own excavations of the massive
grave in Bykivnya which stretched for 15 thousand squared metres.

P. Kolmus wrote about this as early as September 1941 in the newspaper
Berliner Morgen Zeitung.

After the area again came under Soviet rule, at various times three state
commissions "worked" in Bykivnya, "trying to find out the truth" about the
mass burials.

At the same time the poet Vasyl Symonenko with likeminded friends from the
"Klub tvorchoyi molodi" ["Club for Creative Young People"] "stirred people
up" circulating information about the real, not the fictitious, perpetrators
of the atrocities.

In 1963 the poet died after being brutally beaten by unidentified
individuals [1].  Then in May 1968 at the fork in the road coming up to the
forest, the guardians of hammer and sickle consciousness erected a stone
with a sign reading: "Here lie buried 6,329 Soviet fighters, partisans,
underground activists and civilians tortured by the fascist occupiers from
1941 to 1945".

"A window into memory" opened at the end of the 1980s. Today, thanks to the
historical and educational Society "Memorial", scholars and publicists, the
truth about Bykivnya is available to all.

And on the Day in Memory of the victims of communist repression, the
relatives of those murdered in the labour camps of Siberia and Solovky, as
well as the dissident - "Shestydesyatnyky" ["Sixties activists"] who
themselves were subjected to "Soviet re-education", come here as a central
symbolic place of remembrance near the capital

"We need to stop being frightened to talk about our history. We have to
write truthful pages of that history", the President said, adding his
disappointment that a car show and concerts with stars performing would
today attract more people, than those who would come to honour the memory

of those murdered.

"However I am not trying to reproach the people", he stressed, "there will
come a day when tens of thousands will come to the Bykivnya Graves to honour
the dead".

In 2001, the Cabinet of Ministers which was at that time headed by Viktor
Yushchenko, passed a Resolution "On creating a state historical memorial
protected land "Bykivnya Graves".

Now in the last few days Yushchenko as President signed a Decree on giving
"Bykivnya Graves" the status of national protected land. 2005 was a crucial
year for objectifying knowledge about the past.

For the first time at state level the question was raised of an Institute of
National Remembrance, of the need to make museums up-to-date and support
them, and of the creation of a memorial for the victims of Holodomor [the
artificially-induced Famine of 1932-1933].

And on the eve of this year's Day in Memory of victims of the communist
terror, on the instructions of the President, and carrying out two of his
Decrees, the government passed a decision on creating an institute of
National Remembrance as a central executive body.

The President's Press Service reports that, in accordance with the decision
of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, the newly created State Committee of
National Remembrance should deal with a number of issues, among them

being to:

     [a] ensure the implementation of state policy as regards renewing

     and maintaining the national memory of the Ukrainian people,
     [b] coordinating the activity of other bodies of power and
     [c] promoting a comprehensive teaching of the history of the

     Ukrainian nation, and the
     [d] dissemination of objective information about Ukrainian history

     in the world.

The new State Committee will also work on immortalizing the memory of the
victims of the Holodomors[2] and the political repression in Ukraine, as
well as the participants in the national liberation struggle.

"This program is entirely new for us", our "UM" correspondent was told by
the Minister of Culture, Ihor Likhovy.  "It will be a state executive body
which has never existed before in Ukraine".

The Minister believes that one of the main objectives for the newly created
Committee will be to coordinate the efforts of the various ministries and
museums.

These museums and protected reservations are presently divided between
several executive bodies and need to be coordinated. Questions of national
heritage, the history of Ukraine are today dealt with by the Academy of
Sciences, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, the Ministry of Construction.

The Minister does not deny that the creation of an Institute of National
Remembrance could be the starting point for a change in attitude to Ukraine's
historical legacy, however he stresses that this is "only the form, the
vector", while filling it with specific work will not be easy.

For example there is no provision in the staffing of regional state
administrations for a subdivision dealing with issues involving the
protection of cultural heritage.

"Last year the issue of activity for ensuring remembrance was submitted at
sessions of the Verkhovna Rada three times. The majority of deputies did not
vote, not wanting to have any influence on the situation", the Ministry of
Culture explained.

In Bykivnya, the President announced the name of the Head of the newly
created State Committee of National Remembrance.

The new Head will be academician Ihor Yukhnovsky, a major figure in
Ukrainian science and in civic life, a State Deputy from the bloc "Nasha
Ukraina" ["Our Ukraine"] and the Head of the All-Ukrainian Association of
Veterans.                                            -30-
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[1]  While this attack certainly took place, Vasyl Symonenko in fact died of
cancer.  More about the attempts to reveal the true crimes committed can be
found in the KHPG History of Dissent section (specifically Vasyl Symonenko,
Alla Horska and Les Tanyuk)  (translator's note)
[2]  There were three major famines in Ukraine under Soviet rule.  It has
become common to call them all Holodomor, since none was a purely natural
catastrophe, but rather involved political motives. However Holodomor still
usually refers to the Famine of 1932-1933 when the harvest was literally
taken away, and from 7 to 10 million people starved to death.  (translator's
note)

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http://khpg.org/en/index.php?id=1148583481; http://www.umoloda.kiev.ua/
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Yukhnovsky [nominated by President Yushchenko] has created a not-for-

profit, non-governmental organization, in Ukraine, the International

Charitable Foundation for Ukrainian National Memory.

The main purpose of the new Foundation is to provide financial and
other support to the Institute of National Memory from private sources.
Borys Ponomarenko, a former member of Parliament has been selected
to head the Foundation.

Ihor Yukhnovsky and Borys Ponomarenko told me the International
Charitable Foundation for Ukrainian National Memory plans to have
representative offices around Ukraine. The Foundation also plans to
have a presence in counties were there are strong Ukrainian communities
such as Canada, and the United States.

The official documents of the Foundation, given to me by Bory
Ponomarenko, are found below.  They were translated from Ukrainian
to English for the Action Ukraine Report (AUR).
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
                           OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS OF THE
              INTERNATIONAL CHARITABLE FOUNDATION
                      OF UKRAINIAN NATIONAL MEMORY

PROGRAM of Activities of the International Charitable Foundation
for Ukrainian National Memory

The Foundation is focused on explanatory and educational activities,
distribution of information about Ukraine, its history, contemporary and
its future in the world, fostering the process of self-identification of
Ukrainians, forming a sense of national well-being, national pride, national
perspective and financial support for the implementation of the program of
the Institute of National Memory.

The sense of national well-being will increase with the dynamic development
of the middle class.  New quality of life standards and a worthy place in
the European Community will encourage strengthening of the feeling of
national perspective, while better knowledge of its own complicated but true
history will promote a feeling of patriotism and national pride.

The main areas of the Foundation's program are:

[1] fostering development of historical studies, implementation of
     scientific, educational and historical research programs, assistance to
     scholars, university students, teachers, school students, veterans;
[2] fostering development of  research with the help of modern mathematic
     methods for the purpose of developing optimal models for Ukraine's
     development;
[3] fostering cultural development, including implementing national and
     cultural development programs accessible to the general public;
     fostering preservation of cultural values of the Ukrainian nation;
[4] fostering exploration, protection and preservation of the cultural
     heritage, historic and cultural environment, historic and cultural
     monuments, burial places of distinguished representatives of the
     Ukrainian people;
[5] providing assistance in the development of publishing and mass media
infrastructure.

For the purpose of implementation of its statutory goals the

Foundation, following in the order established by law, shall:

[1] popularize the Foundation's activities by distribution of information
     and promotion of its ideas and goals with the aim of attracting
     charitable donations, as well as expanding the geography of the

     Foundation's activities;
[2] participate in reception and free distribution of material, financial,
     humanitarian, technical and other assistance;
[3] organize cultural exchange programs between Ukraine and other countries;
[4] foster creation of scientific and methodological developments with
     regard to statehood building direction of the development of Ukraine's
     history for the purpose of development of educational and information
     programs and free distribution of relevant information;
[5] prepares, provides financial support and promotes the realization of
     meetings, seminars, conferences, etc. on the noted issues;
[6] represents the legal interests of the members of the Foundation in
     state, civic and other organizations;
[7] supports the education of the wishful (groups, communities,
     associations, individuals, etc.) according to existing approved
     educational programs;
[8] attracts, according to the established procedure, financial means from
     physical and legal persons for the realization of statutory
     assignments;
[9] organizes and takes part in the realization and financial support of
     national and international cultural events;
[10] supports the establishment of mass media;
[11] forms international contacts with NGO's, takes part in events, that do
       not contradict the statutory goals of the Foundation with the aim of
       multifaceted cooperation in the spheres of education, culture,
       science and the joint running of conferences, symposiums, seminars, etc.;
[12] provides financial support to pay for business trips to foreign
       countries for education, internships and research, and to study the
       local experience in centers of education, culture and science;
[13] supports the reproduction, restoration and reconstruction of structures
       and buildings, which are historical and cultural monuments, as well
       as the material-technical base of the Institute;
[14] materially supports the work of scholars researching problematic issues
       in Ukrainian history, economics and state-building and supports the
       publication of scholarly works on these issues;
[15] works with Ukrainian civic organizations, centers of culture, education
       and science, as well as with corresponding organizations, centers,
       funds and private institutions of foreign countries;
[16] supports the creation of centers of Ukrainian culture and education
       abroad, is the executor of key charitable programs, grants, dues.

As such, the charitable program of the Foundation is directed at supporting
processes of trying to understand the past and the mobilization of the
Ukrainian people in creating a flourishing Ukraine.

Founders of the International Charitable Foundation for
Ukrainian National Memory

Ihor Rafayilovych YUKHNOVSKY
Oleksandr Lvovych IVANKIV
Borys Josypovych PONOMARENKO
Valentyn Pavlovych SHEVCHENKO
Vitaliy Fedorovych SHEVCHENKO

Honorary President of the Foundation -
Ihor Rafayilovych YUKHNOVSKY

Board of Directors of the Foundation:
Ihor Rafayilovych YUKHNOVSKY
Oleksandr Lvovych IVANKIV
Borys Josypovych PONOMARENKO
Mykhaylo Dmytrovych SYROTA
Vitaliy Fedorovych SHEVCHENKO
Valentyn Pavlovych SHEVCHENKO
Oleksandr Viacheslavovych SLOBODIAN

APPROVED by conference decision of the International Charitable
Foundation for Ukrainian National Memory Protocol # 1 from 25
January 2007

STATUTE of the Supervisory Council of the International Charitable
Foundation for Ukrainian National Memory

The Supervisory Council of the International Charitable Foundation for
Ukrainian National Memory (the Foundation) controls the
financial-administrative activities of the Foundation, in accordance with
the Statute, decisions of the Foundation Conference, and adherence to
statutory regulations by the Foundation's officials.

The Supervisory Council is elected by the Foundation's Conference for
a term of 5 years and is accountable to it.

The Supervisory Council conducts inspections of the activities of the
Foundation per the Foundation' Conference or under its own initiative.

At the request of the Supervisory Council, it is to be given all materials,
accounting or other documents and personal explanations by the
Foundation's officials.

The Supervisory Council reports on the results of the inspections conducted
of the Foundation's Conference.

The Supervisory Council draws up conclusions on the annual reports and
balance sheets of the Foundation.  Without the conclusion of the Supervisory
Council, the Foundation's Conference does not have the right to approve this
balance sheet.

The Supervisory Council can demand an extraordinary convocation of the
Foundations' Conference in case of the emergence of threats to substantial
interests of the Foundation or the misuse of the Foundation by its
officials.

Supervisory Council of the International Foundation for
Ukrainian National Memory

Anatoliy Tymofiyovych AVDIYEVSKY
Volodymyr Semenovych BOYKO
Teodor BUYNIAK
Morgan WILLIAMS [USA]
Ivan Mykhaylovych DZIUBA
Vasyl Mykhaylovych DUMA
Stanislav Oleksiyovych DOVHYY
Vitaliy Anatoliyovych HAIDUK
Oleksandr Mykolayovych HUMENIUK
Viacheslav Anatoliyovych KYRYLENKO
Serhiy Vasyliovych KOMISARENKO
Leonid Petrovych KOZACHENKO
Vitaliy Terentiyovych KORZH
Ivan Ivanovych LAZARENKO
Askold LOZYNSKY [USA]
Yaroslav Semenovych MARCHUK
Dmytro Oleksiyovych MELNYCHUK
Ihor Ivanovych OSTASH
Lidia Stepanivna PORECHKINA
Dmytro Vasyliovych REPELA
Volodymyr Vasyliovych RYBAK
Hanna Arkadiyivna SKRYPNYK
Volodymyr Semenovych STELMAKH
Oleksandr Anatoliyovych SUHONIAKO
Ihor Hryhorovych TARASIUK
Vira Ivanivna ULIANCHENKO

Approved by conference decision of January 25, 2007

                              REPRESENTATIVE OFFICE
REGULATIONS on the Representative Office of the International
Foundation of Ukrainian National Memory

The Representative Office of the Foundation is a group of physical and/or
legal persons who are members of the Foundation and who reside or are
located outside the city of Kyiv and Kyiv oblast and who of their own free
will have united for the fulfillment of the objectives envisaged by the
Statute of the Foundation and these Regulations.

The Representative Office shall be established according to the decision
of no less than five physical and/or legal persons-founders, which is
documented in an appropriate constituent protocol. Each Representative
Office shall be named as agreed by the Board of the Foundation.

The Representative Office shall be accepted as an established entity once
the constituent protocol has been approved by the Board of the Foundation
and registered at local institutions of justice.

The Representative Office shall be registered without being accorded the
status of a legal person.

The Representative Office shall be established with the aim to accumulate
funds and perform charitable activities in a certain region of Ukraine, in a
certain institution/establishment/organization or in a certain educational
and cultural area.

The supreme authority of the Board of the Foundation shall be vested in a
General Meeting to be held when necessary, but not less than once a year.

The General Meeting shall provide recommend to the Board of the
Foundation as to the appointment of the Representative Office Coordinator
and Secretary.

Upon authorization, the Coordinator shall be entitled to represent the
interests of other members of the Representative Office at the Foundation's
Conference.

The General Meeting shall accept the Representative Office's charitable
activity plan for the current year with the main provisions of the plan to
be taken into account while the Charitable Program of the Foundation is
being accepted at the Conference.

The Representative Office shall be entitled:

[1] to organize the collection of charitable contributions and contributions
     by physical and legal persons, foreign states and international
     organizations to be placed in the Foundation's account;
[2] to independently identify the scope, objects and subjects of the
     charitable assistance within the limits of the funds collected;
[3] to participate in the General Meeting of the Foundation and in
     managing the Foundation's affairs;
[4] to elect and nominate candidates to the governing bodies of the
     Foundation;
[5] to receive information on the general state of the Foundation's
     activities and also complete information on the state of the
     Representative Office's funds and property;
[6] to put forward proposals to be considered by the Foundation's
     supreme bodies of management and control;
[7] to inform the general public about its activities.

The Representative Office is required to:

[1] advocate the activity of the Foundation and the Representative Office;
[2] preclude any actions that discredit the Foundation and the
     Representative Office;
[3] follow the provisions of the Statute and Regulations of the Foundation,
     and standards of operation and accounting reporting set up by the
     Foundation's Accounting Office.

Should any provision of the Foundation's Statute be violated, the
Representative Office of the Foundation can be dissolved by a decision of
the Foundation's Board.

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NOTE: The above are a copy of the Official Documents of the International

Charitable Foundation of Ukrainian National Memory. They were translated

into English exclusively for the Action Ukraine Report (AUR).  They can

be used with permission from the AUR.
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[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]
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7.                     1937 AND THE PRESENT DAY

be known as the Great Terror after the publication of the eponymous book

by Robert Conquest. Stalin declared that the subversive activities of
saboteurs, spies, and fifth columnists the country were endangering the
country.

Seventy years is the average life expectancy. Today there are no more people
who remember Stalin's campaign, but the events of the cruel year of 1937
imprinted themselves on people's subconsciousness.

For Ukraine this was another year of unspeakable horror after 1933.

Scholars are still at a loss as to why it all happened.

1. THE GREAT TERROR
The Great Terror does not fit smoothly into the 1937 calendar year. The
starting point for Stalin's action was March 1937, but it was only on July 2
that Stalin signed the decision of the Central Committee of the All-Union
Communist Party (Bolshevik) (CC VKP(B)) based on which was issued

operations instruction #00447 for the Soviet NKVD (People's Commissariat

of Internal Affairs).

This was the first in a long series of descriptions of "enemies of the
people," according to which 269,000 persons were to be exposed and
repressed.

The Great Terror came to an end in November 1938, when NKVD head Nikolai
Yezhov was removed from office. He was shot after being indicted on the
basis of a standard charge: "espionage on behalf of foreign intelligence
services."

In 1963 a commission set up by the Central Committee of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union (CC CPSU) found that 1,372,392 people were arrested in
the USSR in 1937-38, of which 681,692 were shot.

            IN UKRAINE THERE WERE 265,669 ARRESTS,

 

In Ukraine there were 265,669 arrests and 198,918 cases were committed for
trial. Sixty-two percent (123,329 people) were shot to death, 34.7 percent
(68,823) sent to labor camps, 2.1 percent (4,124) imprisoned, 0.5 percent
(1,067) exiled, and 0.3 percent (658) released.

What distinguished the Great Terror from the Holodomor was not only the
nature of the repressions but also the absence of a distinct national
coloring. The Holodomor was the result of a Cheka-run all-out food
confiscation campaign in January 1933.

It took place when famine was spreading in the grain-producing regions of
the USSR, including Ukraine, and was caused by the confiscation of the 1932
harvest.

This grain procurement operation was in essence a terrorist activity, as it
led to tens and hundreds of thousands of deaths, but it cannot be called a
purposeful extermination campaign.

Unlike the famine of 1932-33, the Great Terror in the USSR was, from
beginning to end, a Cheka operation aimed at destroying people. After the

Holodomor and the accompanying decimation of the Ukrainian intelligentsia

in 1933, there was no need to target Ukraine specifically.

However, the long-suffering republic again found itself at the epicenter of
repressions. Stalin's enhanced attention to Ukrainian affairs manifested
itself in 1937 perhaps only in the fact that the top leadership of the
republic was being destroyed especially methodically.

Ten out of eleven members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party
(Bolshevik) of Ukraine (CC KP(B)U) were executed. It was purely by accident
that the "all-Ukrainian headman," Hryhorii Petrovsky, survived-thanks to the
temporary chaos reigning supreme in the state government, which was caused
by the repressions.

The all-Union census, conducted several months prior to the terror, allows
us to compare the statistical contribution of each nationality to Ukraine's
population and arrested people.

In 1937-38 Ukrainians comprised 78.2 percent of the country's population

and 53.2 percent of the arrested. Poles made up 1.5 and 18.9 percent,
respectively, and Germans, 1.4 and 10.2 percent.

These disproportionate figures were due to the special orders guiding Cheka
officers: order No. 00439 of July 25, 1937, on the German operation and
order No. 00485 of Aug. 11, 1937, on the Polish operation.

These orders were a continuation of the Kremlin's repressive policy, which
began in 1935 with the deportations of Germans and Poles from Ukraine's
border districts.

I often have occasion to debate with Russian scholars who fail to
distinguish between the Ukrainian Holodomor and the all-Union famine of
1932-33. They argue that the Stalinist repressions were class-rather than
nationally-oriented.

However, facts attest to the existence of both class-based and national
repressions. There were special operations during the Great Terror, which
targeted Poles, Germans, Latvians, Greeks, and other nationalities. Neither
did the Kremlin overlook Russians, who comprised 58.3 percent of all those
arrested in the period from October 1936 to July 1938.

In 2004 the Institute of Ukrainian History at the National Academy of
Sciences organized a workshop on the collective work, The 1932-1933
Famine in Ukraine: Causes and Consequences.

The late Viktor Danylov presented me with an unpublished table showing the
national distribution of arrests made during the Great Terror. The figure in
the paragraph above was taken from this table.

It offers convincing proof that Stalin did not have an ethnic bias or ethnic
preferences. However, it does not argue the absence of the ethnic component
in Stalin's terror.

I believe that we will be able to find a common language with Russian
historians if we clearly distinguish the Kremlin from Moscow and the regime
from the country.

Even the Communist Party of the time was not responsible for the actions of
Stalin's clique. Let me use the arguments presented in Danylov's last
publication, The Soviet Village in the Years of the Great Terror.

On April 14, 1937, the Politburo of the CC VKP(B) set up a permanent
commission in order to prepare and resolve secret issues (secret from the
Politburo!). This five-man commission, consisting of Stalin, Molotov,
Kaganovich, Voroshilov, and Yezhov, dealt primarily with issues related to
the terror.

In 1937- 38 Yezhov was in Stalin's office 278 times and spent a total of 833
hours there. Only Molotov, the head of the Council of People's Commissars
(Radnarkom), communicated with the secretary general more frequently. This
shows who the true spearheads of the terror campaign were.

In 1997 a fundamental study entitled The Black Book of Communism was
published in Paris. It was written by an international group of authors;
translations into many languages soon followed. The chapter on "The Great
Terror" was penned by the well-known historian Nicolas Werth.

He argued that the repressions of 1937-38 pursued two objectives: first, to
subject the provincial bureaucracy to the center and second, to destroy all
suspects who figured in Cheka dossiers-members of other political parties,
opposition members from the VKP(B), and members of the privileged classes.
Werth was right but the terror did not target only the elite.

                 WHY THE EVENTS OF 1937 HAPPENED?
Hundreds of thousands of absolutely ordinary people died in the inferno of
repressions. Still unanswered is a question that was first formulated by the
Moscow-based dissident historian Mikhail Gefter in the popular Gorbachev-era
journal The 20th Century and the World (1990, no. 9):

     "I am a historian, but can I understand why the events of 1937
happened? I have not found a single example in world history  when at the
peak of a country's success millions of its absolutely loyal citizens were
being destroyed."

Nonetheless, an answer to this question does exist. If we reject all
speculations (e.g., that Stalin was paranoid), what remains is one
indisputable fact: the procedure of forming Soviet government bodies
underwent a radical change.

2. GOVERNMENT ORGANIZATION UNDER THE

DICTATORSHIP OF THE PROLETARIAT
In November 1917 the Bolsheviks established what is known as the
dictatorship of the proletariat. The proletarian masses were proclaimed the
sovereign subject of power, and councils (soviets) consisted of
representatives of workers and peasants.

In the periods between congresses the legislative, executive, and judicial
power was in the hands of executive committees-bodies elected by councils.
These committees passed laws and were a day-to-day governing body that lent
an ear to the electorate's commands.

Lenin discerned that this government organization offered his party colossal
opportunities for securing invisible dictatorship.

The formulation of electors' orders, the nomination of candidates to
congresses of councils and making sure that these candidates were
successfully elected, supervision over the activities of deputies and, if
need be, their recall from office-all these functions were to be performed
by a structure placed outside the bounds of the constitution.

The Bolshevik party apparatus governed social life indirectly - through
Soviet government agencies. This indirect approach was deemed advantageous,
as it enabled the party to resolve key issues without taking upon itself
direct responsibility for the current state of affairs.

The power invested in Soviet government bodies was secondary in nature but
nevertheless real. The dictatorship of party committees was not reflected in
constitutions and thus did not mar the constitutional image of the councils.
Power was usurped by committees on the personal level rather than the
institutional one.

Decisions adopted by party committees were implemented precisely because
plenipotentiary representatives of the Soviet government were members of
this party and abided by its iron party discipline.

The usurpation of the power with which the councils were constitutionally
invested had to be repeated every time elections were held. That is why
elections to Soviet government bodies were always an extremely important
matter for party committees, from the lowest ones all the way to the Central
Committee.

In order to maintain its control over the country, the state party
elaborated election procedures that ensured the desired composition of
government bodies according to all parameters: class origins, party
membership, demographic features, and personal traits.

The "party-soviet" dictatorship system was based not only on coercion but on
propaganda. The system's immediate connection with citizens enabled the
rallying of millions of people to carry out top-priority tasks earmarked by
the party leadership.

The councils employed hundreds of thousands of deputies and became an
efficient conveyor belt stretching from the state party administration to
the entire population. The same conveyor-belt function was performed by the
multimillion-strong "external" body of the party, as well as by trade
unions, the Komsomol, Pioneers, and Octobrists.

To ease the burden of orchestrating elections to the councils, the idea of
equal representation was abandoned. The Constitution of the Soviet Union
stipulated that workers had a five-time greater share of votes than
peasants.

The non-labor class was completely stripped of the right to vote. Up to 10
percent of the population belonged to this category of non-voters.

Enterprises, organizations, and educational institutions were selected as
electoral districts. Candidates were nominated on behalf of party and trade
union organizations. They were typically voted in merely with a show of
hands. Electors who disagreed with nominations were immediately subjected to
administrative influence.

Direct elections were held only to local councils. Delegates to all
congresses - from the raion to the all-Union level- were deputies from local
government bodies.

Appropriate party committees scrutinized the lists of congress delegates and
members of councils' executive committees, from the bottom to the All-Union
Central Executive Committee.

Electioneering techniques were above criticism. Anyone who ventured any
critical remarks was immediately charged with anti-Soviet conduct and
repressed. Therefore, dissenting voices were anonymous.

A flier that was circulated in January 1929 by the Socialist Revolutionaries
(so-called SRs) in Dnipropetrovsk stated: "The Bolsheviks imposed on us
open voting in council elections. Can't we elect freely when we elect
openly?

Who, being watched by the party cell kingpin, will have the courage to vote
for an honest non-party candidate or raise his hand in a vote against a
wicked communist if he is nominated by the party cell?"

3. THE THREAT OF FREE ELECTIONS
Committee members who specialized in organizing council elections were
shocked to read a brief notice in newspapers about the decision passed by
the February 1935 Plenum of the CC VKP(B).

The Plenum suggested that the next All-Union Congress of Soviets consider
the issue of amending the Soviet Constitution as part of its agenda. It
emphasized the need to democratize the electoral system by replacing unequal
representation with an equal one and multilevel open elections with direct
and closed ones.

In February 1935, the 7th All-Union Council of Soviets set up a
constitutional commission headed by Stalin. On June 12, 1936, the commission
published the draft of the new constitution and a nearly six- month
discussion ensued.

In Ukraine 13 million people took part in it - a record high for the
organizational and mass propaganda activities of the party and government
apparatus. On Dec. 5, 1936, the 8th Extraordinary Congress of Soviets
adopted a new constitution. The constitution proclaimed that in the Soviet
Union the construction of socialism was complete.

In this connection and according to the still valid 1919 program of the
Russian Communist Party (Bolshevik) (RKP(B), the class criterion was to be
abandoned both in the distribution of voting rights and the formation of
government bodies. Therefore, multilevel elections were replaced by direct
ones and secret balloting was introduced.

Peasants were given the same rights as workers in electing and running for
election to all government bodies. Electoral districts in cities had to
reflect the residential distribution of electors rather than being tied to
production facilities (factories, institutions, etc.).

Congresses of councils on different levels were replaced by sessional
meetings of local and republican councils and the Union's Supreme Soviet.
New councils were beginning to exhibit the features of the parliamentary
system.

The fundamental changes to constitutional norms did not alter the real
government system one iota. Councils were not an independent branch of power
prior to that and were unable to become one in the parliamentary system.
Party committees maintained their control over state and society.

However, their dictatorship was officially denied and hidden behind the
empty phrase, "the dictatorship of the proletariat." The Constitution of the
Soviet Union declared that the Communist Party was the governing nucleus of
all public and state organizations, but this declaration was legally void.

Numerous documents have already been published, which confirm the growing
discontent of the party and government staff with Stalin's dictatorship.

Apparatchiks were dissatisfied with another power hierarchy that he had
built-the one in the system of state security agencies. A protest against
the terrorist methods of governance was spreading throughout the entire
society.

Stalin could not be a dictator by relying only on the GPU-NKVD (State
Political Directorate-People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs). He needed
strong support from the party and government apparatus. In order to secure
this support the secretary general made bureaucrats face the danger of free
elections.

Wielding control over state security bodies, Stalin was the only one who
could avert the threat of new people appearing on all the rungs of the
Soviet administrative ladder.

Cognizant of this, Soviet apparatchiks had to rally around the secretary
general to jointly counter the threat posed by Stalin's constitution -
without a hint of irony, the most democratic constitution in the world.

Everyone understood that in helping to hold democratic elections state
security agencies could employ the usual Cheka methods of state terror. In
this way, the party and government apparatus gave Stalin carte blanche to
carry out repressions on any kind of scale.

In the situation engineered by the secretary general, those who refused to
follow orders mechanically were to perish in the inferno of terror. There
was no shortage of eager successors.

4. "FREE ELECTIONS" ACCORDING TO STALIN'S

CONSTITUTION
Embodied in the 1919 program of the RKP(B) was a plan that the party chiefs
had for carrying out communist reforms. This program, with its violent
trial-and-error implementation, was considered valid until Khrushchev's day.
Some elements were successful, while others had to be temporarily shelved or
permanently abandoned.

Since the 1938 publication of the Brief History of the VKP(B), which glossed
over the party's failures and emphasized its achievements, the history of
the USSR unfolded as a succession of tasks set by the prescient leadership
for the people and fulfilled by the heroic efforts of the latter.

Only on one occasion did the gift of foresight fail the leadership - on June
22, 1941. The suddenness of the attack was used as an excuse for all the
failures that the Red Army experienced over the next 18 months.

The above implies that what Stalin had in mind was a certain sequence of
actions stipulated by the party program. The proclamation about the
successful construction of socialism would by necessity entail certain
actions on his part and these he calculated well in advance.

The proof is found in the changes that were introduced in the criminal
procedure codes of the Union republics after Kirov's assassination in
December 1934. Technically, they provided for mass terror, even though
for a certain period of time they were not implemented.

On the day Stalin's constitution was adopted, an announcement was issued
about scheduling the elections to the USSR's Supreme Soviet at "an early
date." However, they were delayed for an entire year, until Dec. 12, 1937.

Instead of the election, in February-March 1937 Stalin organized a plenum of
the CC VKP(B), which set the Great Terror in motion. The delay was
necessary in order to prepare the electorate properly.

The unfolding terror put an end to any talk of alternative nominations -
such as took place during the discussion of the draft constitution.
Electoral commissions pledged to register only one candidate for each
deputy's office - the candidate nominated by the "bloc of communists

and non-party citizens."

Proposals of alternative nominations were viewed as anti-Soviet
manifestations. However, in keeping with world practice, the ballots bore
the following inscription: "Leave the name of the one candidate you are
voting for and cross out the rest."

Even when ballots contained only one name, in free elections voters were
supposed to express their opinion in writing, i.e., by crossing out one word
in the pair "agree-disagree." Nevertheless, the organizers of the first and
all subsequent Soviet elections by secret vote introduced a treacherous
simplification of the ballot: it mentioned only the candidate's name and the
first nominating organization.

This way, a positive vote did not require a written mark. A negative vote,
on the contrary, would make it necessary to cross out the candidate's name
on the ballot. Thus, only those voters who intended to cast a nay vote had
to go into one of the voting booths. The booths became a testing ground for
loyalty.

Voters were at the disposition of a huge army of agitators, who were
recruited according to the industrial feature of their milieu. An agitator
was personally responsible for ensuring that all his voters went to the
polls. But agitators were not responsible for ensuring that they voted as
they should. Here, the key role in creating a proper atmosphere was played
by the state security organs.

During the terrorist operations that came one after another, hundreds of
thousands of people were physically exterminated, and millions were
destroyed morally by being coerced into cooperating with the security
agencies, public denouncements of so-called "enemies of the people," and
false testimonies against work colleagues, acquaintances, and even family
members. People were entrusted with ballots only after they had been
terrorized into a desirable condition.

5. RETURNING TO THE HOLODOMOR
This article began with a reference to the Holodomor, and I would like to
end it on the same painful topic.

More precisely, I would like to share my thoughts on possible ways of
persuading scholars, the general public, and the government of the Russian
Federation, as well as all Ukrainian citizens who identify with us, that
Stalin's terror had all three components - social-class, national, and
individual.

The Russian government cannot be accused of defending Stalin. They have a
pragmatic fear that Ukraine will demand financial compensation from Russia
for the death of millions of Ukrainian citizens. This anxiety is shared by
Ukrainian political figures, who are afraid of spoiling our relations with
Russia.

Recently I had a conversation with a high-ranking official in the "corridors
of power." He claimed that rather than genocide, what happened in 1933 was
sociocide, which affected his non-Ukrainian relatives, among others.

The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of
Genocide does not include sociocide in its classification of crimes. This is
precisely the reason why he used the term "sociocide," despite the fact that
several years earlier, and in a different political situation, he had spoken
with complete confidence about the fact of genocide.

Politicians must apply measures in order to convince their Russian
colleagues that Ukraine does not intend to place the burden of
responsibility for Stalin's terror on Russia. Unfortunately, these
intentions are occasionally declared by political extremists. But extremists
are in ample supply everywhere, including Russia.

Our scholars and journalists should aim at restoring the historical memory
of the Ukrainian nation, which endured both physical and moral sufferings
caused by Stalin's terror. Isn't it humiliating for us to pigeonhole the
deaths of our family members: genocide goes here and sociocide goes there?

The Great Terror, just like the Great Famine, proves that the Stalinist
repressions were omnivorous. They were an instrument of state policy. During
the collectivization campaign peasants suffered from repressions, and this
type of terror may be called sociocide.

This is also another kind of genocide, but it does not appear in the UN
Convention on genocide adopted on Dec. 9, 1948, only because Soviet
representatives at the UN knew the history of their country all too well.
Collectivization and the grain procurement policy led to the 1932-33 famine,
which had an especially pronounced adverse impact on Ukrainian peasants.

There is a political reason behind this fact as well: Stalin wanted to
engineer a severe famine in the Ukrainian SSR and Kuban in order to prevent
a social explosion that was emerging as a result of the destructive grain
procurement policy.

During the Great Terror, Cheka officers were proportionally the largest
victim category because Stalin needed to shift the blame for the mass
persecutions onto others.

An instrument of state policy until the early 1950s, mass terror in Ukraine
had two spikes - in 1933 and 1937. In both cases they hit the target. This
can easily be checked against the experience of the oldest or even the
middle of today's three generations.

People older than 40 can be asked two questions: why didn't you make any
public mention of the famine in Ukraine, which at the time was common
knowledge but officially silenced? Why did you vote in favor of the single
candidate by avoiding the voting booth?

One should bear in mind that this state of affairs lasted from 1953 to 1987,
i.e., over three and a half decades-without mass terror, only facilitated,
if necessary, by preventive conversations in KGB offices.
 STALIN'S TERROR STILL HAS ITS STRANGLEHOLD ON US
Stalin's terror still has its stranglehold on us: we do not feel humiliated
by the fact that we live in cities or walk down streets that bear the names
of Cheka officers and their bosses.                         -30-
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LINK: http://www.day.kiev.ua/180519/
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AUR847, item 27, 25May2007

27. IS BYKIVNIA A SYMBOL OF DECOMMUNIZATION IN UKRAINIAN SOCIETY?

Graves turned out to contain the remains of victims of purges before WW II.

By Stanislav Kulchytsky, Professor, Historian, Scholar
The Day Weekly Digest, #14, Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, 22 May 2007

We have two significant anniversaries this year, separated by two decades. What makes them similar somewhat is the fact that they launched a series of important events.

Thus, the February revolution opened the road for fateful events in Ukraine and we are marking its 90th anniversary. Regrettably, events took place toward the end of 1917 that must be remembered, not celebrated. The Bolsheviks came to power in Petrograd in November.

In December they established a powerful body of state security, the All- Russia Emergency Commission, or VChK [generally known as the Cheka], meant to destroy or isolate all dissenters. Two decades later a plenary meeting of the CC VKP(b) was held in February-March 1937.

Its resolutions signaled the launch of a "cleanup" throughout the country where Stalin's socialism now reigned. Month after month the Cheka/NKVD methodically closed their cases of "enemies of the people" using the most simple method of mass shootings.

IN BIG CITIES THOUSANDS WERE MASSACRED

In big cities thousands were massacred and the authorities found themselves faced with a serious problem: what to do with the material evidence, bodies? The NKVD leadership decided to bury them in the suburbs and place the sites under special control.

It was thus Kuropaty appeared at Minsk, the Butovsky proving ground at Moscow, and Bykivnia at Kyiv. With time the security details were withdrawn and no one seemed to remember the victims.

When the Wehrmacht occupied a part of the Soviet territory the Nazis tried to the demonstrate to the rest of the world the scope of Stalin's atrocities (particularly in Vinnytsia and Katyn). The Soviet media immediately blamed the Nazis for the mass executions.

A specific situation developed with Bykivnia. It is safe to assume that the populace promptly put two and two together and knew what all those NKVD trucks were bringing to a fenced-off site in the Bykivnia forest. Yet the subject started being discussed only in the spring of 1941.

In 1944 the Bykivnia graves were qualified by a Soviet war crimes commission as ones belonging to inmates of the Darnytsia [Nazi] POW camp. The picture looked convincing because the camp was located nearby where 75,000 Red Army officers and man had died. However, talk about mass shootings prior to the war continued.

In 1971 a new governmental commission studied Bykivnia. It confirmed the findings of the previous one. Ditto the third commission that studied the place in 1987.

To make the picture even more convincing, a gravestone was placed with the legend, "Buried here are Soviet soldiers, partisans, and civilians massacred by the fascist aggressor in 1941-43."

However, a different political situation was unfolding in the country and the Council of Ministers of the Ukrainian SSR ordered to study the Bykivnia burial site again in 1988. The graves turned out to contain the remains of victims of purges before WW II.

SEVENTY YEARS SEPARATE US FROM THE GREAT TERROR

Seventy years separate us from the Great Terror. There are practically no survivors of witnesses of that terror left in the postcommunist countries, yet our memories remain.

On May 19, Patriarch Aleksii and Metropolitan Lavr, head of the Russian Orthodox Church abroad, consecrated the Temple of New Russian Martyrs on the Butovsky proving ground. On May 20, Viktor Yushchenko took part in a mourning ceremony by the national historical memorial preserve Bykivnia Graves.

The 70th anniversary of the Great Terror makes one wonder whether our society will be decommunized before the last generation of graduates of the Soviet political school step down from the stage.

We can understand now that decommunization started in the Soviet Union a long time ago. Last year historians concentrated on the 50th anniversary of the 20th Congress of the CPSU. This event can be regarded as the launch of the process.

[1] The beginning turned out to be very cautious as the topic at the time was the struggle against the cult of Stalin's personality. [2] The second stage of the campaign, tagged by historians as destalinization, fell on the period of Gorbachev's perestroika.

The last Communist Party General Secretary failed to adjust the communist doctrine, party, and sociopolitical order to the challenges of the modern times.

However, a number of "birthmarks" of communisms remained in the countries that rose from the debris of the Leninist-Stalinist empire.

COMMUNIST PARTY IN UKRAINE OBSCURES MEMORIES ABOUT THE HEINOUS CRIMES OF THE SOVIET EPOCH

Ukraine perhaps has the greatest number of these birthmarks. Last year the Communist Party joined the governmental coalition.

Facts show that this allows this party to obscure the memories about the heinous crimes of the Soviet epoch, including by providing conditions in which it is possible to introduce corrections in modern school history textbooks.

Let us hope that the unnatural alliance between the Communists, Socialists and the Party of Regions will sooner or later lose its political meaning. This, however, does not promise quick success in the decommunization process.

It must be understood that people living in various regions of Ukraine have different historical memories. Whereas those in the western regions have a strong immunity to communism, inoculated by mass postwar repressions, people in the southeast often harbor nostalgic memories.

Even the older generation here did not suffer from repressions that accompanied the formation of the Soviet system.

In the minds of many residents of these districts communism is associated with Soviet propaganda proclaiming social equality, paternalism by the state that was the main factor of the socioeconomic order and with which many were quite content.

More often than not the point in question is the older generation. These people refuse to accept the realities of initial capitalism in which we all of us found ourselves after the Soviet Union's collapse.

THERE IS NO RETURNING TO THE PAST

They do not realize that there is no returning to the past and that it is a long way to the future embodied by Europe.

Precisely these moods among the Ukrainian electorate are being supported by political parties rooted in the CPSU, thus throwing monkey wrenches into the works of decommunization.

Finally, it should be stressed that to try to decommunize this society by anticommunist propaganda would be futile. The communist doctrine in its abstract form does not have a single negative element.

However, a body politic built on this doctrine will always be a threat to man's freedom, even life. This is evidenced by the historical experience of several dozen countries.

Final decommunization depends [1] primarily on a successful implementation of the European standards regulating economic and political life; [2] second, on an effective treatment of the historical memory of all those graduates of the Soviet school, using educational means.

ATTEMPTS TO EDIT HOLODOMOR & BYKIVNIA OUT OF SCHOOL TEXTBOOKS DOOMED

Attempts by modern communists to edit the Holodomor and Bykivnia out school textbooks are doomed, among other things because these and other crimes of the Soviet regime can no longer be hushed up.

However, it is necessary for all citizens to become aware of the in-depth reasons for these atrocities and their regular nature in conditions of dictatorship.

Then the problem of renaming Dniprodzerzhynsk - so as to leave no mention of Dzerzhynsky, the founder of the Cheka - will be solved automatically.

Final decommunization is possible only after business and political competition are finally asserted in our society as the main factors of democracy. -30-

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LINK: http://www.day.kiev.ua/181823/
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[return to index] [Action Ukraine Report (AUR) Monitoring Service]

        A FOREST IN BYKIVNYA NEAR KYIV

But a few eyewitnesses survived!

All the victims were charged with being enemies of the Soviet people. In
fact, nobody but the Kremlin leaders knew why millions of innocent people
were castigated.

My father, who was a professional historian, believed that the Kremlin had
thus been trying to conceal the traces of its crimes during the Civil War,
collectivization and Holodomor, which is why the government exterminated the
most active and educated part of the Soviet Union's society.

It must have been really hard to face death without knowing why one should
die. It is impossible to imagine bigger injustice than such arbitrary and
unjustified murders. The victims were horrified, having no confidence their
tormentors would be punished one day and being unable to tell their
murderers they detested them.
        MAKE THESE MARTYRS FORGOTTEN
When I am in the Bykivnya forest, I seem to hear "Why?" in the whisper of
its pines. The Soviet leaders wanted to make these martyrs forgotten. They
tabooed the memory of the Holodomor and repressions, and no facts appeared
until Khrushchev's Thaw and later Gorbachev's perestroika.

Inveterate partisans of the Communist Party of Ukraine cite poor crops as
the main cause of the great famine in 1932, which they cannot dare deny
today, but they cannot explain why so many people were repressed. Silence is
a reliable method of concealing their crimes.

When the Bykivnya site was discovered, the government announced these were
the graves of the victims of Nazism. A monument was erected. The people
believed it was true because there had been a death camp for military
prisoners near the place. Babyi Yar, another German site of mass killings,
was not far away.

However, the Kyiv-based organization "Memorial" found eyewitnesses to those
killings. The government was made to form three commissions, in 1971, 1987
and 1988-89, the latter proving that the graves in Bykivnya were full of
those massacred under Stalin.

The government replaced a plaque on the monument, and "To the victims of
fascism" became "To the victims of totalitarianism."

In fact, many other such sites had been discovered earlier in Solovki,
Kolyma, Kingiri, Vorkuta, as well as on Kharkiv's Cold Hill and in mines of
Donetsk and Lugansk.
                           MASS GRAVES IN VINNYTSYA
I first heard of these crimes in 1941 but could not believe it. In 1941, the
Germans discovered several mass graves in Vinnytsya.

Women in nearby villages even recognized their dead husbands, although their
bodies were covered in some chemical substance for faster decomposition.
They first thought these people had been killed by the Germans. Only in the
1980s it was proven that they were Stalin's victims.

In the 1990s, Polish researchers announced that they had found remains of
three thousand Polish officers killed in the Soviet Union in Bykivnya. They
may be right but we cannot say for sure because no systematic investigation
had been carried out. To prove there are any Poles in Bykivnya, one needs to
excavate the forest.

Should we disturb hundreds of thousands of those peacefully resting victims
to know the exact figure? Of course, this number has been preserved in
Moscow's KGB archives but we will probably never learn the truth.
    BYKIVNYA FOREST A SYMBOL OF STALIN'S REGIME
The Bykivnya forest became a symbol of Stalin's regime. People come there in
groups or alone to honor their relatives, tortured in the GULAG camps and
prisons.

I once saw students and professors of the Boychuk Arts and Design College in
the forest. They came to mark the birthday of Boychuk, one of the many
victims.

Some visitors tie ribbons or photographs with the names of the dead to the
branches. They silently stand or kneel to pray. Even if none of your
relatives were executed under Stalin, you still feel guilty there.
         HONOR VICTIMS OF POLITICAL REPRESSIONS
On every second Sunday of May we officially honor the victims of political
repressions. When Pope John Paul II was in Kyiv, he also prayed in the
Bykivnya.

There is a monument there shaped like a man in a felt coat, traditionally
worn by the GULAG prisoners, and with the date "1937," which is as eloquent
in our history as 1933 and 1941-1945.

The government of Ukraine is about to start building a memorial complex in
Bykivnya but the project may be delayed because of the political situation.

The governing coalition includes two left-wing parties, which have no habit
of honoring the victims of communist terror.

There is one more problem - Satanists. They have recently vandalized some
graves in Bykivnya. Earlier, nobody in Ukraine knew who they were. This
problem is believed to have appeared along with foreign films. But there are
no political motives in their actions, for we all remember those tortured to
death.                                             -30-
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LINK: http://www.ukraine-observer.com/articles/228/992

Humanity Committed in the Territory of Latvia from 1940 to 1956 during

the Occupations of the Soviet Union and National Socialist Germany
http://vip.latnet.lv/LPRA/angliski.htm

Tartu City Museum KGB cells
http://linnamuuseum.tartu.ee/en/branches/kgb/museum.html

Museum of Genocide Victims, Lithuania
http://muziejai.mch.mii.lt/Vilnius/genocido_auku_muziejus.en.htm

Exploring these websites in depth, with their photographs and other displays
of "Soviet Glory" it becomes inevitable that David and Goliath do indeed
exist.

Three small Baltic countries succeed in establishing in-depth museums and,
by doing so, unashamedly confront their horrific pasts.

They stood up against a giant (be it the USSR of the past or the Russian
Federation of today) while in Ukraina the lessons still remain to be learned
when a group of chervoni malorossy-yanychary unveil a post-soviet monument
to Lenin in some little known Poltava village.

Talk about den' i nich' (night and day) when one looks at Ukraina and the
Baltic states.

Slava abo han'ba Ukraini??? You decide!!!   MY

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