The famine that didn’t happen

In the early 1930s there was a famine in the Soviet Ukraine that
killed 13 million people. Kremlin officials long denied that any such
famine took place. In those days, the Soviet Embassy in Washington
reported that the Ukraine had the lowest death rate of any Republic in
the USSR, that its population was growing at 2 percent a year. How could
there be a famine?

Many Western journalists and intellectuals supported Moscow’s claim.
The British writer, George Bernard Shaw, traveled extensively in Russia
and the Ukraine. Feeling certain that the famine was sheer anti-Soviet
invention, he mercilessly ridiculed those who said that millions were
starving. He wrote, “I did not see a single under-nourished person in
Russia, young or old. Were they padded? Were their hollow cheeks
distended by pieces of India rubber inside?”

Sadly, Shaw was mistaken. The terror-famine of the early 1930s was
all too real. The Kremlin created this famine in order to exterminate a
politically unreliable section of the population. Like Shaw, the West
accepted Moscow’s lies. Evidence was ignored and testimony was
suppressed.
Only a generation later did the truth finally emerge in all its gory
detail.

Of course, Soviet Russia has changed and now we have the Russian
Federation. It is only a matter of inheritance that both these states
are governed by liars, though the liars have curiously reversed
themselves. Under Soviet Russia the pattern of disinformation was to
hide weaknesses, atrocities, and ethnic problems. On the other hand,
under the Russian Federation the pattern of disinformation serves to
expose weaknesses, atrocities, and ethnic problems. This is what KGB
defector Anatoliy Golitsyn calls the “weakness and evolution pattern” in
Russian strategic disinformation. According to Golitsyn, with this
approach “real and artificial weaknesses in the system are emphasized;
readjustments and solutions are presented as failures. …”

Why present yourself as weak when you are strong?

According to the Chinese general, Sun Tzu, “All warfare is based on
deception. Hence, when able to attack, we must seem unable; when using
our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the
enemy believe we are away; when far away, we must make him believe we
are near.
Hold out baits to entice the enemy. Feign disorder, and crush him.”

In the 1930s Soviet Russia was at war with the West. Since all
warfare is based on deception, the Kremlin regularly used deception to
fool the West. The same logic applies to the Kremlin today. It remains
at war with the West. Therefore, its pronouncements are deceptive. In
this respect, nothing has changed in Russia.

What we have seen in the 1990s as opposed to the 1930s, is a parade
of stories about Russia’s weakness. We are shown pictures of Russia’s
rotting navy. We see the dilapidation of the army. We read of Russia’s
defeat in Chechnya. We are shown the economic despair of the people, the

profound failures on every front. Russia is depicted as a mess, chaos —
on the verge of civil war.

In this context, Russia announced last autumn that it was suffering
its worst famine in 40 years. As it happened, the harvest shortfall was
only one dimension of the problem. Russia’s concurrent financial crunch
meant that food imports were in serious decline. In other words, the
Russian
people were facing starvation. The Western reaction was immediate. “It
is in our interest,” said Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, “to make
sure that Russians are fed through the winter.”

As news of the alleged famine unfolded, a few of us in the West noted
serious inconsistencies in Moscow’s agricultural statistics. Some of us
concluded last October that the famine was probably a hoax, that the
Kremlin’s objective was to obtain excess grain and food for stockpiling
in nuclear war bunkers. Such stockpiling conforms to an observed pattern
of Russian military preparations.

Naturally, those of us who distrusted Moscow’s famine reports were
ignored. Our arguments were said to be overly paranoid. The U.S.
Congress believed the famine was real. The CIA raised no objections to
the famine relief package. Consequently, the Clinton Administration sent
Russia more
than a billion dollars worth of food. Western Europe sent Russia an
additional $400 million in food.

Was the famine real or not?

On Monday The Washington Post reported that Western famine relief to
Russia had been unnecessary. The 5 million metric ton shortfall that
Moscow had predicted turned out to be a 2 million metric ton surplus.
According to the Post article, out of 89 regions in Russia only the
Magadan region (in the Siberian Far East) reported food shortages over
the winter.

U.S. officials dare not admit they were duped. Like officials of the
1930s who could not admit they were wrong about the Ukraine
terror-famine, today’s officials are incapable of seeing reality. Even
now, new lies are being created to replace the old. This year, Moscow is
again claiming an agricultural disaster. This time it is drought and
locusts.

What is alarming about Moscow’s famine swindle is the West’s
gullibility and the apparent bankruptcy of our intelligence community.
If Russia’s worst famine in 40 years did not happen, then what of
Russia’s supposed nuclear disarmament? What about the state of Russia’s
navy and army?

The evidence of widespread and continuing Russian deception is
overwhelming. The evidence of Western incompetence is also overwhelming.