So, i finished Douglas Tottle’s “Fraud, Famine and Fascism” and i wanted to do a thread on it.
If you’re an ML and you’ve been online, you’ve seen some discourse about the Holodomor.
This thread is for those who have never heard of it, or maybe need a refresher.

The Holodomor is, broadly speaking, a historical narrative which claims that the USSR *deliberately* produced a famine in 1932-33, with the express intention of starving Ukrainians. Proponents of this theory refer to it as “famine-genocide.”

This claim originated with Ukrainian Nationalists, cited Nazi propaganda, and was boosted by virulently anti-communist Hearst papers in the US.
(for context, Hearst was widely known as “America’s Number One Fascist” and his news service once employed pre-Duce Mussolini)

Put simply, these claims are patently untrue. Yes, there was a drought in 1932-33; yes, people died, and yes, Soviet mistakes may have aggravated the famine. But there is absolutely *no* evidence that this famine was deliberate, and targeted at Ukraine.

Famine-genocide proponents claim anywhere from 1 to 10 million () victims, with each source competing to wrangle the highest death count out of thin air.
Any honest look at the sourcing reveals a dizzying web of fascist propaganda, inconsistent sourcing, and general dishonesty

A few examples: Thomas Walker, the Hearst source through which the claim first gained currency, did not even come within several hundred miles of the Ukrainian districts he claimed to tour. Photos sourced to Walker in one publication are sourced to literal Nazis in others;

one source refers to the USSR as propagating “Jewish Bolshevism”...
If this isn’t enough to convince you, French premier, Eduaord Herriot, said in 1934: “the campaign on the subject of Ukraine is currently being waged. While wandering around Ukraine, I saw nothing of the sort.”

Or, to quote journalist Louis Fischer “Mr. Hearst wants to deprive us of encouragement and faith by painting a picture of ruin and death in the USSR. The attempt is too transparent, and the hands are too unclean to succeed.”

I encourage those that are skeptical to investigate the book themselces, because the evidence is pretty damning. I will admit, years ago when I heard of the Holodomor, i felt unsure about those referring to it as propaganda.. I didn’t want to be dismissive of anyone’s suffering.

This is by design. The “Holo” prefix is a deliberate rhetorical move to associate the scale of violence with that of the Holocaust. one Nationalist source is titled “Why Is One Holocaust Worth More Than Others”

Holocaust denial is implicit in this framing. “ours is the REAL tragedy.” Hence why these same sources are claiming “Jewish Bolshevism,” using photos of mass graves *perpetrated by Ukrainian fash against Jews* & claiming these photos represent Ukrainian victims of Soviet genocide

Ukrainian Nationalists are not some innocent victim of Soviet “imperialism,” as they might represent themsleves, but a highly organized group of fascists that actively collaborated with the Nazis (including their own literal SS division ) to murder Jews.

After the war, the OUN (Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists) cooperated with Canadian intelligence officers to circumvent immigration bans on nazi collaborators, and have been actively propagating the Holodomor myth in Canada (and the US) ever since.

It experienced a major resurgence in the 80s, most notably through Robert Conquest’s book Harvest of Sorrow, but also through Nationalist influence upon institutions of higher learning, esp. in Canada. In the US, Harvard University’s Ukrainian Studies Fund is a noteworthy example

These organizations purport to represent an unbiased Ukrainian voice, but can actually be directly traced to Nazi collaborators. The goal is to discredit the USSR, and communism in general, and thereby vindicate the Ukrainian Nationalist claim to statehood.

Recognizing these facts, and situating this story within the context of the unremitting propaganda war waged by western capitalists since the minute the Bolsheviks seized power, I no longer have any qualms with saying: this is *blatant* and insidious anti-communist propaganda.

It may seem odd to dredge this up during such a dynamic political moment, but by my estimation, a crash course in Marxist history & anti-communist propaganda is the *first* step to stimulating wide acceptance of Marxism in the US.

I believe educating people about this can bear the fruit of future organization. If people’s qualms with Marxism are conditioned by blatant falsehoods, then dispelling these falsehoods will facilitate openness to communism, and skepticism of capitalist narratives.

Thread over tysm