Holodomor - Soviet and Western Denial

Soviet and Western Denial

Holodomor denials are the assertions that the 1932–1933 famine in Soviet Ukraine either did not occur or did occur but was not a premidated act. Denying the existence of the famine was the Soviet state's position, and reflected in both Soviet propaganda and the work of some Western journalists and intellectuals including Walter Duranty and Louis Fischer. Denial of the famine by Soviet authorities was immediate and continued well into the 1980s. The denial of the famine was a well orchestrated and highly successful disinformation campaign by the Soviet government. Stalin "had achieved the impossible: he had silenced all the talk of hunger... Millions were dying, but the nation hymned the praises of collectivization", wrote Edvard Radzinsky. This was the first major instance of Soviet authorities adopting Hitler's Big Lie propaganda technique to sway world opinion according to Robert Conquest.