The Holodomor: Stalin’s Deadliest Weapon

November is a month when communities around the world commemorate the Holodomor–Stalin’s genocide famine in Ukraine that, in 1933, starved millions to death, the vast majority of them Ukrainians. Conservative estimates place the death toll at 3.9 million. During the famine, a death certificate listed the cause of death simply as “Ukrainian.”

In the years leading up to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine today, Vladimir Putin’s KGB dictatorship revived the cult of mass-murdering dictator Joseph Stalin–producing propaganda textbooks, putting up Stalin statues, and outlawing acknowledgment of the fact that Stalin helped launch World War II by invading Poland two weeks after Nazi Germany, then holding joint military parades with the Nazis. Stalin monuments and billboards are today in regions of Ukraine under Russian occupation.

Back in the early 1930s, as Stalin laid the groundwork for his man-made famine–a diabolically efficient way of killing millions before the invention of the atomic bomb–the New York Times praised his regime. Walter Duranty, the paper’s Moscow bureau chief, won a Pulitzer for Soviet propaganda and went on to gaslight readers by insisting, “There is no famine.”

Challenging the media establishment, political elites, and industry leaders eager to profit from helping Stalin modernize his empire was a young Welsh journalist, Gareth Jones. Idealistic and courageous, he risked his life and career to become a vital independent witness to the genocide. His story is told in the film Mr. Jones and in the award-winning graphic novel In the Shadow of Stalin: The Story of Mr. Jones. The film was developed with support from historical advisors, including Timothy Snyder, whose classic Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin opens with Jones’s story.

To commemorate the Holodomor this year, we’re sharing the audio from a video interview from September 2024 featuring In the Shadow of Stalin: The Story of Mr. Jones, which recently won a Ringo Award for Best Nonfiction and received the honor of being a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard selection. (You can find the video in the show notes). Andrea Chalupa of Gaslit Nation, the writer/producer of the Mr. Jones film and comic In the Shadow of Stalin, speaks with Anastasia Ulanowicz, an Associate Professor of English at the University of Florida who specializes in comics as a medium for personal and historical memory.

If you’re looking for a way to help Ukraine, consider purchasing a copy of In the Shadow of Stalin: The Story of Mr. Jones for your local school or library. Hundreds of copies have already been given to members of Congress and sold to raise funds for Razom for Ukraine–Andrea has given away so many copies that she will never see any royalties for this as those books must be paid off to the publisher to cover their costs. When you purchase a book to give away to raise awareness, you’re supporting Ukraine, not the author. Any effort to help spread this story is deeply appreciated. For those who haven’t seen Mr. Jones, it’s available here, and Andrea’s short documentary Stalin’s Secret Genocide–which screened at the United Nations in 2016 and features Timothy Snyder; Anne Applebaum; Norman Naimark of Stanford, author of Stalin’s Genocides; Serhii Plokhii of Harvard, author of The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine; and other leading historians–is available here.

Thank you to everyone who continues to raise their voices for Ukraine during the country’s existential fight for survival–and for the freedom of the world against Russian fascist lawlessness.

 

Show Notes:

Buy a copy for your local school or library: In the Shadow of Stalin: The Story of Mr. Jones By Andrea Chalupa, Illustrated by Ivan Rodrigues https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/In-the-Shadow-of-Stalin-The-Story-of-Mr-Jones/Andrea-Chalupa/9781637152775

 

Watch the video discussion of the Mr. Jones graphic novel In the Shadow of Stalin: The Story of Mr. Jones:  https://education.holodomor.ca/new-webinar-holodomor-hot-off-the-press/

 

Watch Stalin’s Secret Genocide: https://youtu.be/Sr5WkhEiqcY

 

Where to watch Mr. Jones http://www.samuelgoldwynfilms.com/mr-jones/

 

Music: Prayer for Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zn0_p1ZR3hg&list=RDzn0_p1ZR3hg&start_radio=1