Ivan Katchanovski. Europe-Asia Studies. Volume 62, Issue 6. August 2010.
Since the ‘Orange Revolution’ a number of historical issues have come to the forefront in Ukrainian politics (Marples). Among the most significant have been the recognition of the famine in the Soviet Union in 1932-1933 as a genocide of Ukrainians, and the rehabilitation of leaders of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (Orhanizatsiia ukrainskykh natsionalistiv, OUN) during World War II, who are regarded by many Ukrainians and historians as Nazi collaborators. During his period of office President Viktor Yushchenko pursued policies aimed at domestic and international political and legal recognition of these interpretations of Ukrainian history, while he avoided raising a similar issue of recognising Nazi policies during World War II as a genocide of Ukrainians. Yushchenko issued orders to state organisations, including the Security Service of Ukraine (Sluzhba bezpeky Ukrainy, SBU), the Ukrainian mass media, and academic and educational institutions to commemorate ‘the famine-genocide of the Ukrainian people’, and he proposed a law which would make public denial of the famine as genocide of the Ukrainian people a crime. In contrast, the Party of Regions (Partiia Rehioniv) and the Communist Party (Komunistychna partiia Ukrainy), the leading opposition parties at that time, opposed both policies of the presentation of the famine (Holodomor) as genocide.
In addition to the Ukrainian parliament, parliaments in a number of countries, such as Estonia, Georgia, Poland and Canada, have recognised the famine in Soviet Ukraine as genocide, and the US government, while not explicitly recognising the famine as genocide, endorsed the point of view that the famine was directed against Ukrainians. On the other hand the governments of such countries as Russia, Kazakhstan and Israel have opposed both the declaration of the famine in the Soviet Union as a genocide of Ukrainians and the political and historical revisionism concerning OUN and World War II. Moreover, the European Parliament and leaders of Russia and Poland publicly condemned Yushchenko’s award of the title of ‘Hero of Ukraine’ to Stepan Bandera, a leader of OUN, pointing out OUN’s collaboration with Nazi Germany and its involvement in mass murder.
This article analyses political aspects of the policies adopted in Ukraine after ‘the Orange Revolution’ concerning historical recognition, legal designation, and public commemoration of the Soviet and Nazi genocides. A central question is whether political factors affect contemporary policies and public attitudes towards the question of Soviet and Nazi genocides in Ukraine. The article examines the determinants of public attitudes in contemporary Ukraine concerning these questions. Its research hypothesis is that the distinct regional and political cultures of western and eastern Ukraine are the main determinants of the policy positions of political leaders and parties and the attitudes of Ukrainians concerning the two issues. Different political values emerged in these regions as a result of distinct historical experiences before World War I and World War II, and it suggested that these values were transferred from one generation to another, and they became a major determinant of electoral behaviour and foreign policy attitudes in Ukraine after independence following the collapse of Soviet communism.
This article uses data from a brief national survey commissioned by the author and conducted in Ukraine by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology (Kyivskyi mizhnarodnyi instytut sotsiolohii, KIIS) as a part of its Omnibus survey in August 2008. The survey questioned 1028 adult respondents who were randomly selected in all regions of Ukraine. The questions concerned perceptions as to whether Soviet policies in Ukraine under Joseph Stalin and Nazi policies in Ukraine under Adolf Hitler were directed at the elimination of a significant proportion, either specifically of Ukrainians, or of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians. Specific responses to questions in this survey differentiate between the ethnic and class theories of the Soviet genocide. The ethnic theory of the Soviet genocide corresponds to responses stating that Stalin’s policy was aimed at the elimination of a significant proportion specifically of Ukrainians. Conversely, responses which agree that Stalin’s policy was aimed at the elimination of a significant part of the Soviet population, including Ukrainians are consistent with the class theory of the genocide.
Western Ukraine is defined in this analysis as comprising Galicia (the Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv and Ternopil regions), Bukovyna (the Chernivtsi region), Carpatho-Ukraine (the Transcarpathia region) and Volhynia (the Volyn and Rivne regions). Historic eastern Ukraine here includes the geographic east (Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions), the south (Crimea, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa regions), and the centre (Cherkassy, Chernihiv, Khmelnytsky, Kyiv city, the Kyiv region, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Sumy, Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr regions).
The next section of this article will briefly outline the sources of the different regional and political cultures of western and eastern Ukraine. The following sections then discuss the literature on the question of genocide in Ukrainian history; the current politics of using the term genocide to describe the 1932-1933 famine in Soviet Ukraine and Nazi policies of mass murder in occupied Ukraine; and recent new data on public attitudes to the question of genocide and regional differences in these attitudes.
The Origins of the Distinct Regional and Political Cultures of Western and Eastern Ukrainians
Nationalist and anti-Russian political values have evolved particularly in the western Ukrainian regions, especially, in Galicia (Katchanovski). These regions only came under Soviet rule as a result of World War II. Galicia, Bukovyna and Carpatho-Ukraine had been ruled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire before World War I, and between World War I and World War II Galicia and Volhynia were parts of Poland, Transcarpathia belonged to Czechoslovakia, and Bukovyna was under Romanian rule. Western Ukrainian regions, in which Ukrainians constituted the absolute majority of peasants, did not experience famine in 1932-1933 because they were not under Soviet rule until 1939.
In contrast, pro-Soviet and pro-Russian political values developed in historic eastern Ukraine, which includes all the other regions of present-day Ukraine. These regions experienced long periods of first Russian and then Soviet rule (Birch; Katchanovski). Ukrainian nationalist orientations in Soviet (eastern) Ukraine and Kuban were weaker than pro-communist and pro-Russian political orientations, particularly among peasants. In the December 1917 elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly in Ukraine, the Ukrainian Social Democratic Workers Party (Ukrainska sotsial-demokratychna robitnycha partiia), headed by Symon Petliura, the leading Ukrainian nationalist, won two seats out of 120, compared to 11 seats for the Bolsheviks (Bolsheviki), 30 for the Russian Socialist Revolutionaries (Partiia sotsialistov-revolutsionerov), and 71 for the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries (Ukrainska partiia sotsialistiv-revoliutsioneriv) (All-Russian). The left wing (borotbisty) of the Ukrainian Party of Socialist Revolutionaries joined the Bolshevik Party, and a number of their leaders, such as Panas Lubchenko, occupied top positions in the government of Soviet Ukraine at the time of the famine.
The majority of descendants of Cossacks who moved from Ukraine and settled in the Kuban region in the eighteenth century became culturally and linguistically assimilated and intermarried with ethnic Russians. As a result, Ukrainian identity in the region was weaker compared to the Cossack and Russian identities. For example, the pro-Ukrainian movement failed to gain strong support in this region during the Civil War. Although the 1926 census, conducted during the Soviet policy of Ukrainianisation of Kuban, showed that a majority of the population of this region identified themselves as ethnic Ukrainians and Ukrainian-speakers, in all subsequent Soviet and Russian censuses the proportion of those who called themselves either ethnic Ukrainians or Ukrainian speakers in this region was small.
The Question of Genocide
This study adopts a definition of genocide as mass murder and other similar acts committed with the intent to destroy a significant part of an ethnic, racial, religious, or social group. Such a definition of genocide is preferable, from a comparative politics perspective, to definitions adopted by the UN Genocide Convention and many previous studies because those narrower definitions exclude major cases of politically motivated mass murder, in particular, in the former Soviet Union. The Soviet and Nazi cases of mass murder have often been ignored in studies of genocide on the grounds that they do not fit the traditional narrow definitions of genocide, although a growing number of studies have applied the concept of genocide to various new cases which were previously not regarded as such by Western scholars. For example, Weitz argues that Soviet policy under Stalin was directed at the elimination not of classes, as proclaimed in Soviet ideology of the period, but of significant parts of national minorities like the Crimean Tatars and the Chechens. Previous studies of the Soviet and Nazi cases of mass murder were primarily examined by historians who analysed them as separate cases (Berkhoff; Conquest; Kulchytski). Most Western researchers have not recognised Soviet and Nazi policies in Ukraine as the genocide of Ukrainians.
The Question of Soviet Genocide of Ukrainians
A growing number of recent studies however, have addressed the issue of whether the famine in the Soviet Union in 1932-1933 constituted a genocide, and specifically a genocide of Ukrainians. Some historians, such as Kuromiya, address the question but emphasise the lack of documentary evidence that Stalin intended to kill peasants or Ukrainians. On the other hand, Ellman concludes that while the interpretation of the famine as genocide does not fit the definition of the UN Genocide Convention, it would fit a broader definition of genocide, and that Ukrainian, Russian and Kazakh peasants could be classified as victims of the genocide by famine.
Major arguments against viewing Stalin’s policy as a genocide of Ukrainians, are first, that it did not affect the whole Ukrainian population in a comprehensive way, because, for example, the famine affected peasants, primarily in Ukraine; and secondly, that there is a lack of evidence showing clear intent to destroy the Ukrainians as a group. Historical studies based on declassified Soviet archival data show that the famine resulted in the death of not only a significant proportion of Ukrainian peasants, but also of significant proportions of Kazakh and Russian peasants since the famine also affected Kazakhstan in 1931, and several major regions in Southern Russia in 1932-1933. Kulchytski estimates the famine deaths in Soviet Ukraine in 1933 at between 3 million and 3.5 million, as well as a further significant number in Kuban, while Vallin et al. put the famine death toll in Soviet Ukraine in 1932-1933 at 2.6 million. The total number of famine-related deaths in the Soviet Union in 1931-1933 was between 5.5 million and 6.5 million people (Davies & Wheatcroft).
However, some historians do view the famine as a genocide directed specifically against Ukrainians. They argue that the Soviet leadership deliberately organised mass famine in Soviet Ukraine and in the ethnically Ukrainian Kuban region in Russia in order to suppress Ukrainian identity and eliminate a base of Ukrainian nationalism among the peasantry (Kulchytski; Mace; Serbyn). These studies maintain that the famine falls under the definition of genocide in the UN Genocide Convention because it was directed at Ukrainians as an ethnic or national group. They conclude that the famine in non-Ukrainian regions of Russia and Kazakhstan was not comparable with the famine in Ukraine and Kuban because it resulted in a lower death toll and it was not genocidal in its intent. The decree of 22 January 1933 which prohibited the unauthorised exodus of peasants from Ukraine is cited as a crucial piece of evidence in favour of the theory of famine as the genocide of Ukrainians (Kulchytski; Serbyn). However, this decree, in addition to Ukraine, covered the whole region of the North Caucasus in Russia, including Kuban; and on 16 February 1933, the directive was extended to the Volga Region of Russia.
The proponents of the Ukrainian ethnic theory of genocide cite mass arrests of peasants who attempted to flee the famine in Ukraine and Kuban in 1933 and mass arrests of Ukrainian intellectuals by the Soviet security services in the 1930s as other crucial evidence of the genocidal nature of Soviet policy towards Ukrainians (Kulchytski; Serbyn). However, the analysis of the ethnic composition of arrested persons by the Soviet security service in Ukraine from 1931-1937 shows that the proportion of arrested ethnic Ukrainians during this time period, in particular in 1933 and 1937, did not exceed the proportion of ethnic Ukrainians in the population of Soviet Ukraine in the 1926, 1937 and 1939 censuses (see Table 1). Similarly, the proportion of ethnic Ukrainians among Gulag prisoners in the Soviet Union at the end of the 1930s did not exceed the proportion of ethnic Ukrainians in the Soviet population in the 1939 census. For example, Ukrainians comprised 14% of Gulag prisoners in January 1939 and 17% of the population of the Soviet Union in the census conducted at that time. In comparison, ethnic Russians constituted 63% of the Soviet prisoners and 58% of the Soviet population in the beginning of 1939 (Pohl; Prilozhenie).
TABLE 1 Ethnic Composition of those Arrested by the Soviet Security Services in Ukraine in 1931-1937 (%)
| Arrests | Census | |||||||
| 1931 | 1933 | 1934 | 1936 | 1937 | 1926 | 1937 | 1939 | |
| Ukrainians | 73.4 | 68.1 | 65.6 | 52.5 | 53.2 | 80.0 | 78.2 | 76.5 |
| Russians | 14.7 | 9.2 | 16.7 | 12.2 | 7.7 | 9.2 | 11.3 | 13.5 |
| Jews | 4.6 | 12.5 | 8.4 | 11.8 | 2.6 | 5.4 | 5.2 | 5.0 |
| Poles | 2.6 | 4.5 | 2.3 | 3.9 | 18.9 | 1.6 | 1.5 | 1.2 |
| Germans | 1.5 | 1.9 | 3.3 | 15.7 | 10.2 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 1.3 |
| Belorussians | 0.8 | 0.5 | 1.1 | 1.7 | 0.8 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.5 |
| Other | 2.4 | 3.3 | 2.6 | 2.4 | 6.6 | 2.0 | 2.0 | 2.1 |
| Total, % | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| N (thousands) | 49 | 54 | 53 | 20 | 160 | 29,010 | 28,398 | 30,946 |
| Note: The data for some years are incomplete or not available. | ||||||||
| Sources: Nikolsky (2003) and ‘Prilozhenie Demoscopa Weekly’, 2008, Demoscope Weekly, available at: (accessed 25 September 2008). |
While the ethnic theory of the Stalin’s genocidal policy entails a physical elimination of a significant proportion of Ukrainians, there is an alternative class theory of the Soviet genocide which implies that Stalin’s policy was aimed at the elimination of a significant part of the Soviet population, including Ukrainians from such targeted classes as kulaks (rich peasants), other individual peasants and capitalists. The analysis of data concerning the class composition of arrested persons by the Soviet security service in Ukraine from 1931-1937 provides evidence in favour of the class-based theory of the Soviet genocide. Kulaks comprised about 3% of the population of Soviet Ukraine in 1927 before the start of the policy of elimination of this social group as a class, and the total collectivisation of peasants. The proportion of arrested kulaks and former kulaks in Ukraine from 1931-1938 exceeded by many times their proportion of the population in 1927. For example, as shown in Table 2, declassified data of the NKVD indicate that ‘kulaks‘ and ‘former kulaks‘ comprised 27% of all arrested by the Soviet security service in Ukraine in 1931, between 40% and 42% in 1937, and between 31% and 32% in the first half of 1938. Only during the period 1937-1938 were close to 90,000 ‘former kulaks‘ arrested in Ukraine, which corresponds to more than one fifth of the total number of adult kulaks in Ukraine in 1927. Since most of those arrested in 1937-1938 were either executed or perished in the Gulag, these data show that at least a significant proportion of kulaks were physically eliminated by the Soviet government.
TABLE 2 Class Composition of Arrested by the Soviet Security Services in Ukraine in 1931-1938 (%)
| 1931 | 1933 | 1934 | 1935 | 1936 | 1937 | 1937 (uncor-rected) | 1938 First half | 1938 First half (uncor-rected) | 1938 Second half | |
| Kulaks | 27.0 | 21.6 | 8.4 | 8.6 | 18.2 | 41.6* | 39.7* | 31.6* | 31.3* | 22.5* |
| Individual peasants | 20.7 | 21.6 | 8.5 | 6.5 | 2.2 | 1.5 | 4.2 | 1.2 | 3.8 | 2.2 |
| Collective-farm peasants | 4.7 | 15.7 | 10.1 | 10.2 | 0.8 | 11.0 | 0.9 | 17.9 | 8.7 | |
| Blue-collar workers | 12.1 | 12.6 | 22.6 | 19.1 | 3.0 | 0.5 | 4.9 | 0.4 | 6.5 | 11.5 |
| White-collar workers | 21.2 | 29.4 | 37.4 | 31.8 | 8.4 | 2.7 | 18.2 | 2.3 | 22.5 | 29.7 |
| Former classes** | 0.4 | 1.5 | 1.5 | 45.4 | 36.7 | 6.1 | 52.3 | 7.7 | 10.4 | |
| Declassed*** | 5.0 | 7.0 | 12.4 | 7.5 | 9.1 | 6.8 | 4.3 | 2.7 | 0.6 | |
| Other**** | 14.3 | 15.3 | 4.5 | 9.9 | 15.3 | 7.1 | 9.1 | 7.0 | 7.6 | 14.4 |
| Total, % | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| N (thousands) | 60 | 54 | 30 | 37 | 16 | 160 | 158 | 89 | 88 | 17 |
| Notes: *former kulaks, **former capitalists, big landowners, nobility, tsarist officials and officers, etc. ***criminals, homeless, beggars, etc. ****priests, handicrafts men, military officers, soldiers, NKVD employees, unemployed, pupils, etc. The data for some years are incomplete or not available. | ||||||||||
| Sources: Nikolsky (2003) and ‘Prilozhenie Demoscopa Weekly’, 2008, Demoscope Weekly, available at: (accessed 25 September 2008). |
This mass murder of rich peasants was a result of Stalin’s policy of the elimination of kulaks as a social class. Specifically, the NKVD order of 30 July 1937 entitled ‘Concerning the operation for repressing former kulaks, criminals and other anti-Soviet elements’ singled out kulaks as a principal target group for executions and long-term imprisonment in the Gulag. Individual peasants, who were the most numerous group among peasants before the start of the mass collectivisation, and whose proportion in the population dropped to close to zero by 1939, were also overrepresented among those arrested in Ukraine, but to a lesser extent than kulaks (see Table 2). While a significant part of the kulaks were physically eliminated with the help of executions and imprisonment in the Gulag, a significant part of the individual peasant population was eliminated as a result of the famine in 1932-1933. Individual peasants, it can be argued, were targeted for a partial physical extermination by means of the government-induced famine because they resisted Soviet collectivisation, and many of them were branded as class enemies or podkulachniki (kulak henchmen).
‘Former classes’, such as former capitalists, big landowners, the nobility, tsarist officials and officers, was another social category targeted for arrests and executions in the 1930s. These groups, comprised a few percent of the population before the Bolshevik Revolution; and their absolute and relative number dropped significantly after the revolution because of the subsequent Red Terror and forced immigration as a result of the civil war. Thereafter, ‘uncorrected’ data reported by regional branches of the NKVD in Soviet Ukraine indicated that 6% in 1937 and 8% in the first half of 1938 of all persons arrested by the Soviet security service were classified as ‘former classes’. Data, listed in NKVD archival documents, as ‘corrected’ put the proportion of this category among those arrested in 1937 and the first half of 1938 at 37% and 52% respectively (see Table 2). Thus it may be concluded that the pre-revolutionary upper class was eliminated in the Soviet Union by the end of the 1930s, to a significant extent by means of a genocidal policy of physical elimination.
In contrast, declassified archival NKVD data shows that blue-collar workers were significantly underrepresented among those arrested by the Soviet security service in Ukraine during the 1930s. The working class included about one third of the population of Soviet Ukraine in 1939, but members of this social group comprised much smaller proportions among those arrested, particularly at the peak of arrests and executions in 1937 and 1938 (see Table 2). The fact that the working class was much less affected by these policies compared to other classes provides evidence in favour of the class-based theory of the Soviet genocide. As a result of Soviet policy, no rich peasants, individual peasants, capitalist and former upper classes continued to exist as socio-economic classes in the Soviet Union, including Soviet Ukraine, by the beginning of 1939. In contrast, Ukrainians continued to be the main ethnic group in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic.
The Question of Nazi Genocide of Ukrainians
While almost all Western historians and other scholars of this question use the term genocide to describe the deliberate annihilation of Jews by Nazi Germany during World War II, and the mass murder of Gypsies by the Nazis is also increasingly defined as genocide, Nazi policy towards such Slavic peoples as Ukrainians, Russians, Belorussians and Poles tends not to be characterised as genocide (Berkhoff; Davies). Rummel is one of a few Western scholars who treat the deaths of Ukrainians and other Slavic nations as Nazi genocide. He calculates, by averaging estimates from other studies, that the Nazis killed 10.5 million Slavs, and in particular 3 million Ukrainians, 2.4 million Poles, 1.6 million Russians and 1.4 million Belorussians (Rummel).
However, new estimates, made possible by the opening of the Soviet archives, show that the overall number of victims among civilians and prisoners of war (POWs) during World War II in the Soviet Union was much higher, reaching about 22 million, the absolute majority of whom perished as a result of Nazi policies (Davies; Ellman & Maksudov). A recent estimate of population losses in Ukraine from 1941 to 1945 is about seven million people (Vallin et al). Davies (p. 367) estimates that Soviet civilian losses, which totalled approximately 18 million, included between 5 million and 8 million Ukrainians, between 3 million and 4 million Belorussians, between 2 million and 3 million Russians, 2 million Jews, and between 1 million and 2 million Poles. The numbers for individual Slavic groups are derived from the overall Soviet losses, and they require more comprehensive academic studies, which are currently lacking. However, these rough estimates suggest that a significant proportion of the overall population of Ukrainians, Belorussians, Russians and Poles in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany became victims of a Nazi policy of genocide, and that between one sixth and one quarter of Ukrainian civilians—a significant proportion of the Ukrainian population—perished during the war.
The German genocidal policies were directed at extermination by various means of whole or significant parts of what the totalitarian Nazi ideology regarded as racially inferior people (Aly & Heim; Madajczyk). Generalplan Ost envisioned that the majority of the Slavic population of Poland and the western Soviet Union, including Ukraine, would be either physically exterminated or resettled by force into Siberia. The main aim of the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 and the Soviet Union in 1941 was to seize their territories for colonisation by Germans. In this context some previous studies have not counted the Slavic peoples as victims of genocide primarily because of the much lower proportions of these people that were killed by the Nazis in comparison with the Jews, and by attributing most of their deaths to war-related reasons. For instance, mass killings of Ukrainian villagers, including women and children, are attributed not to genocidal policy but to the anti-partisan war waged by Germany (Mazower).
On the other hand, the fact that the Nazis did not use the same methods to a comparable extent against western and northern Europeans provides evidence of the racial nature of the Nazi genocide. For example, the Nazi policy of deliberately killing entire village populations or burning all of their dwellings, thus causing a significant proportion of their former inhabitants to die from cold or lack of food, was an exception in dealing with partisan movements in France and Italy, but it was routinely employed in many occupied territories of the Soviet Union, in particular in the Reichskommissariat Ukraine. Similarly, the mass deaths of Soviet POWs, primarily Russians and Ukrainians, cannot be attributed to war-related reasons; the death rate of US, British and French POWs in German captivity was relatively small. In contrast, the majority of more than five million Soviet POWs in Nazi captivity perished as a result of deliberate starvation, mass executions and conditions aimed to kill prisoners with the help of hard work, infectious diseases and cold (Aly & Heim; Berkhoff; Davis 2006; Rummel; Porter).
Moreover, Nazi Germany employed a policy of deliberate starvation against a significant part of the Slavic population of the Soviet Union, including Ukraine (Aly & Heim). For example, Nazi civil and military authorities confiscated food in Ukraine to feed the German population and German soldiers; while food rations for residents of occupied territories, particularly in such major cities in Ukraine as Kyiv and Kharkiv, were deliberately limited by the Nazi authorities which controlled the food supply and food production. Another example is that the Nazi administration in occupied Ukraine did not disband collective and state farms in order to control agricultural output (Berkhoff; Politychnyi).
The Politics of Soviet and Nazi Genocides in ‘Orange’ Ukraine
Viktor Yushchenko and the ‘Our Ukraine’ (Nasha Ukraina) bloc have been the principal advocates of the policy of legal recognition and political commemoration of the famine in Ukraine as a genocide of Ukrainians. The official website of the President of Ukraine under Yushchenko listed 13 decrees concerning various aspects of public commemoration of the famine along with other Soviet-era famines and Soviet political repressions in Ukraine. Among them were decrees that ordered state organisations, including the Security Service of Ukraine, Ukrainian mass media and academic and educational institutions, to commemorate the famine of 1932-1933. Yushchenko’s last decrees referred to ‘the famine-genocide of Ukrainian people’. In his public speeches, he repeatedly overstated the number of victims of the famine by saying that it had claimed 10 million lives. For example, in his speech to university professors and students in the town of Bila Tserkva, Yushchenko maintained that no other nation had experienced such a genocide which resulted in a loss of 10 million individuals. In November 2006, he submitted to the Ukrainian parliament a law which declared the Soviet famine to be a genocide of the Ukrainian nation. In March 2007, he submitted a further law which made it a criminal offence to deny publicly that the 1932-1933 famine in Ukraine was a genocide of the Ukrainian people. Following Yushchenko’s orders, the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) launched and investigated a criminal case, which resulted in a decision by the Kyiv Administrative Court of Appeals that Joseph Stalin and his associates were guilty under the Criminal Code of Ukraine of organising and implementing genocide against the Ukrainian nation. During his presidency Yushchenko also made speeches and gave interviews calling on the parliaments and governments of other countries and international organisations, such as the United Nations, to recognise the anti-Ukrainian and genocidal nature of the Soviet famine of 1932-1933.
The ‘Our Ukraine’ bloc consistently supported the president’s policy; in fact it was the only parliamentary bloc or party that backed both the original presidential draft of the law, which declared the Soviet famine as genocide of Ukrainians, and the proposed law which criminalised the denial of the famine as genocide. Yulia Tymoshenko and her bloc, the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc (Blok Yulii Tymoshenko, BYuT), also backed many of Yushchenko’s policies concerning the famine. For example BYuT deputies voted in favour of the law which declared the famine an act of genocide of the Ukrainian people. However, the political stance of Tymoshenko and her bloc on this issue was much more passive and less consistent compared to the stance of Yushchenko and his bloc.
In contrast, the Party of Regions and the Communist Party were the two major political parties that opposed the policy of the legal recognition and public commemoration of the Soviet famine as genocide. The parliamentary faction of the Party of Regions, with the exception of two deputies, and the entire parliamentary faction of the Communist Party did not vote for the 2006 law which declared the famine to be genocide. The Party of Regions proposed its own draft of the law which omitted reference to genocide, and instead called the famine ‘a tragedy’. The Socialist Party (Sotsialistychna partiia Ukrainy), organised by a faction of former Ukrainian communists, opposed the original presidential draft which declared the famine to be genocide. This party, however, voted for the law after it amended the genocide law to include minorities and other peoples of the former Soviet Union who were victims of the famine.
In contrast to the Soviet famine of 1932-1933, President Yushchenko and his bloc did not pursue the policy of legal recognition and public commemoration of the extermination of a significant part of the Ukrainian population by Nazi Germany as genocide. Yushchenko acknowledged that during World War II, ‘Ukraine suffered most among all European countries’, that ‘thousands of towns and villages were burned down and destroyed’, and that ‘millions of Ukrainians were killed’ (Yushchenko), but he did not attribute this to a Nazi genocidal policy. Furthermore, he did not pursue any attempts to have Nazi policies in Ukraine recognised as a genocide of Ukrainians or, more broadly as genocide of the Ukrainian people, by the parliament of Ukraine, foreign governments and legislatures, and international organisations such as the UN. This is all the more notable since the law in which Yushchenko proposed to criminalise the denial of the Soviet famine as genocide of the Ukrainian people also proposed criminalisation of public denial of the Holocaust as a genocide of the Jewish people.
The different positions of political leaders and parties concerning the question of the Soviet genocide in Ukraine reflect differing political ideologies. Although Viktor Yushchenko was a member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and did not participate in the pro-independence movement during Soviet times, he came to embrace certain elements of nationalist ideology, especially concerning Ukrainian history, during his political career after Ukraine’s independence. The pro-Yushchenko bloc, ‘Our Ukraine’, included a number of influential nationalist parties and politicians along with parties and leaders of other political orientations. For example, the bloc included two successor parties of RUKH (Narodnyi rukh Ukrainy), which was the main nationalist organisation in Ukraine. In addition, the ‘Our Ukraine’ bloc included the Congress of Ukrainian Nationalists, a successor to the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (Orhanizatsiia ukrainskykh natsionalistiv), a radical nationalist organisation that was most influential during World War II and in the aftermath of the war in the underground Ukrainian Insurgent Army (Ukrainska povstanska armiia, UPA). Leadership of the People’s Union ‘Our Ukraine’ Party (Narodnyi Soiuz ‘Nasha Ukraina’), the main pro-presidential party in the bloc, included such nationalist politicians as Viacheslav Kyrylenko and Roman Zvarych. President Yushchenko appointed Ihor Yukhnovsky, one of the nationalist politicians in his bloc, as the head of the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, a governmental agency that is involved in researching, commemorating, and publicising modern Ukrainian history.
The reluctance of Viktor Yushchenko and his bloc to pursue domestic and international recognition and commemoration of the Nazi genocide of Ukrainians reflects a consideration that such recognition would hurt their political positions, and in particular, their own popularity, and the popularity of their nationalist ideology and their policy of legal and political rehabilitation of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists. Such recognition and commemoration would raise a question of a legal and political responsibility of the OUN for its involvement in the Nazi genocide of Jews and Ukrainians. Many historical studies and archival documents (see, for example, Berkhoff; Himka; Katchanovski; Marples; Orhanizatsia; Rudling) reveal that the OUN, which split into two rival factions, collaborated with Nazi Germany at the beginning of World War II. For example, the OUN had a significant presence in the auxiliary police and local administrations which assisted Nazi occupation authorities in Ukraine in conducting genocidal policies, such as mass executions of Jews and Ukrainian and Russian civilians and POWs. Yushchenko attempted to rehabilitate the OUN and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army, which the Stepan Bandera faction of the OUN started to organise in Spring 1943, by presenting them as a movement for Ukrainian independence and ignoring their involvement in genocide, collaboration with Nazi Germany, terrorism, and the ethnic cleansing of the Polish minority in Volhynia during World War II (Berkhoff ; Politychnyi).
The Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc also has included a number of nationalist politicians, such as Pavlo Movchan, Levko Lukianenko and Andrii Shkil, but their influence was less significant than the influence of nationalists in the ‘Our Ukraine’ bloc. Yulia Tymoshenko and her bloc are best described as populist, opportunistic and oligarchic in terms of their political ideology; they change their political stance and ideology to maximise chances of attaining power. In contrast to Viktor Yushchenko and the ‘Our Ukraine’ bloc, support provided by Yulia Tymoshenko and her bloc for the legal recognition of the famine as genocide was based, to a large extent, not on ideology but on opportunistic political considerations. Tymoshenko and her bloc adopted this stance towards the famine because they needed support from Yushchenko and his nationalist allies to form the ruling coalition and because they wanted to attract nationalist voters from western Ukraine.
The position of the Party of Regions concerning the Soviet genocide reflects both its pro-Russian political orientation and its semi-oligarchic nature as a party. Similarly, the stance of the Communist Party on this issue is a reflection of its communist ideology and pro-Russian political orientation. These two parties were allies in the anti-Orange coalition in 2006 and 2007. In addition, they are unwilling to recognise that there was a Soviet genocide because such recognition would undermine their political standing and their stance concerning Ukraine’s relations with Russia. As the Communist Party of Ukraine is a successor of the Communist Party of Soviet Ukraine, recognition of Soviet genocide in Ukraine would raise questions concerning the legal and political responsibility of the Communist Party of Soviet Ukraine which was involved in implementing the policy, for example, in the case of the famine in 1932-1933 in Ukraine.
In a similar way, President Yushchenko and his bloc were unwilling to pursue recognition of the Nazi genocide of Ukrainians because they thought that this would negatively affect Ukraine’s relations with Germany and its former wartime allies, such as Italy, even though Germany recognised its responsibility for the Holocaust. In particular, the Orange politicians might have believed that these countries would block Ukraine’s prospects for membership of NATO and the European Union, the main foreign policy objectives of Yushchenko and the ‘Our Ukraine’ bloc. These politicians were much less concerned about the negative impact of their policy of recognition of the famine as genocide of Ukrainians on the relations of Ukraine with Russia, which refused to declare the famine as genocide. Furthermore, it was both in the ideological interest and the perceived self-interest of Yushchenko and his bloc to create tensions with Russia and raise their electoral support by appealing to the anti-Russian political values of western Ukrainian voters, many of whom were swayed after the 2004 presidential elections by the economic populism of Yulia Tymoshenko and her bloc.
The influence of the particular ideologies and political orientations of major political leaders and parties in Ukraine after the ‘Orange Revolution’ was in itself affected by their electoral support. Many previous studies show that regional political culture or fundamental political values and orientations are the main determinants of support for the different presidential candidates, parties or blocs (Birch; Katchanovski). Therefore this relationship makes regional political culture a basic factor for explaining the divisions among the main political forces in Ukraine with regard to the Soviet genocide.
Election results and public opinion surveys show that Viktor Yushchenko and ‘Our Ukraine’ had the strongest support in historically western Ukraine, especially in Galicia. Galicia is the most important electoral region in the west, because in the context of Ukraine’s proportional electoral system it has a larger population than Bukovyna, Transcarpathia and Volhynia combined. In the first round of the 2004 presidential elections, Viktor Yushchenko received between 87% and 89% of the vote in three regions of Galicia, 69% and 77% in two regions of Volhynia, 67% in Bukovyna, and 47% in Transcarpathia, whereas in most regions of historic eastern Ukraine it ranged from 3% in the Donetsk region to 62% in Kyiv city. In the first round of the 2010 presidential elections, Yushchenko won between 25% and 31% of the vote in the Galician regions and between 5% and 8% in Bukovyna, Transcarpathia and Volhynia regions, compared to between 1% and 4% in eastern Ukrainian regions. Similarly, the ‘Our Ukraine’—People’s Self-Defence Bloc (Blok ‘Nasha Ukraina-Narodna samooborona’) in the 2007 parliamentary elections won between 35% and 37% of the vote in the regions of Galicia, 31% in Transcarpathia and between 20% and 21% in Volhynia and Bukovyna. Support for the pro-Yushchenko bloc was much lower in most of historic eastern Ukraine. It ranged from 2% to 8% in the regions of the geographic east, from 6% to 9% in the south, and from 12% to 21% in the centre.
Public Attitudes Towards Soviet and Nazi Genocides in Ukraine
In spite of the importance of the question of the Soviet and Nazi genocides in contemporary Ukrainian politics, the number of academic studies which examine policies and public attitudes concerning the issue of genocide of Ukrainians is limited. Some previous studies have focused on debates among historians and coverage of the Soviet and Nazi time period in the mass media and school textbooks (Marples; Rodgers). Also, there have been a few surveys that have asked questions concerning the famine or attitudes towards leaders implicated in Soviet and Nazi genocides in Ukraine (Katchanovski; Makeev). For instance, a 2007 KIIS national survey found that 63% of the respondents fully or partly supported the parliament’s recognition of the famine (Holodomor) as a genocide of the Ukrainian people. There were significant differences among supporters of major political parties on this issue. Absolute majorities of supporters of the ‘Our Ukraine-People’s Self-Defense’ bloc (93%) and BYuT (84%) backed such a recognition of the Holodomor, compared to substantial minorities of supporters of the Party of Regions (43%), and the Communist Party (41%). The survey showed significant regional differences as well. A total of 85% of respondents in western Ukrainian regions, which in this survey also included the Khmelnytsky Region, and 76% in the centre, supported recognition of the famine as genocide by the parliament, compared to 55% in the south and 35% in the east.
However, such a direct question concerning the famine as genocide is not a very valid indicator of attitudes on this issue because people are likely to have different conceptions of genocide. For example, leaders of the Communist Party of Ukraine often characterise a decline of the population after Ukraine’s independence, from 52 million to 46 million people, as a genocide of the Ukrainian people. Indirect questions, based on a particular definition of genocide, provide a more valid measure of public attitudes concerning genocide. A 2006 national survey conducted by the Kyiv International Institute of Sociology, showed that 14% of the respondents in Ukraine believed that the famine of 1932-1933 was directed at ethnic Ukrainians, while 33% stated that it was directed against all residents of Ukraine regardless of their ethnicity. Almost half of the respondents (45%) either did not consider the famine to be an intentional act or did not know about the famine.
The 2006 KIIS survey showed significant regional differences concerning the question of the famine as genocide, while age differences were small. A significantly higher proportion (30%) of respondents in the geographic west of Ukraine agreed that the famine of 1932-1933 was directed against ethnic Ukrainians while in the geographic south, east and centre there was much less support for this view—7%, 8%, and 13% respectively. Conversely, a much higher proportion of Ukrainians in the geographic east, south and centre (67%, 55% and 36%, respectively), compared to the west (27%), either did not consider the famine to have been deliberately imposed or did not know about the famine. In contrast, 36% in the western regions, 42% in the centre, 32% in the south, and 21% in the east believed that the famine was directed against all residents of Ukraine regardless of their ethnicity.
Attitudes towards early Soviet history and Soviet leaders produce a similar pattern of regional divisions. For example, the 2003 Institute of Politics national survey showed that the majority of respondents in regions of historical eastern Ukraine, compared to a minority in western Ukrainian regions, expressed a favourable attitude towards the Bolshevik Revolution and Ukraine’s inclusion into the Soviet Union. According to the same survey, about one third of the respondents in historically eastern Ukraine, compared to a small proportion of western Ukrainians, had a positive view of Stalin. Similarly, about half of the respondents in historical eastern Ukraine, compared to a small minority of western Ukrainians, expressed a favourable attitude towards Lenin. Nikita Khrushchev was somewhat less popular in the western Ukrainian regions of Galicia, Bukovyna, and Transcarpathia than in the geographic east (Katchanovski; Makeev).
The ‘Orange Revolution’ did not produce radical changes in attitudes towards Stalin and Bandera in spite of the official policy of condemnation of the communist past, or in particular towards the famine during Stalin’s rule and the rehabilitation of OUN leaders. Institute of Politics surveys showed that 23% of the respondents in Ukraine in December 2006 compared to 29% in December 2002 had positive views of Stalin. The negative attitudes towards Stalin also decreased somewhat (59% in 2006 and 65% in 2002). The proportion of those who had no definite opinion increased from 5% to 17%. Similar trends characterised changes in public views concerning Bandera. A quarter, 24%, of Ukrainians in 2006, compared to 29% in 2002, expressed positive attitudes towards the OUN leader, while 44% in 2006 compared to 48% in 2002 held a negative view. A higher proportion in 2006 than in 2002 (24% and 16%, respectively) had no definite opinion concerning Bandera (Instytut polityky).
However, attitudes towards Stalin, Khrushchev, Hitler and Bandera do not necessarily provide a valid measure of popular opinion concerning the questions of Soviet and Nazi genocide in Ukraine. The high ratings of the Soviet Union and communist leaders in eastern Ukraine might reflect favourable views of other dimensions such as the Soviet economic system and the Soviet victory in World War II. Similarly, the fact that significant proportions of western and eastern Ukrainians have positive views of Nikita Khrushchev can be attributed to his partial condemnation of the Stalinist mass terror in the second half of the 1950s when he was the leader of the Soviet Union.
There is little previous data concerning public attitudes towards the question of Nazi genocide in Ukraine. The 2004 Razumkov Centre Poll showed that 91% of Ukrainians expressed a negative attitude towards Adolf Hitler, while 1% expressed a positive attitude. One fifth, 20%, had a positive view and 35% had negative view of Stepan Bandera who, as leader of the OUN was involved in the Nazi genocide of Jews, Ukrainians and Russians in Ukraine. The survey data indicate a near consensus concerning attitudes toward Adolf Hitler in different regions of Ukraine. In contrast, the OUN leader appears to be more popular in historically western Ukraine than in the other regions. For example, a 2007 KIIS poll showed that Bandera was named as a ‘great Ukrainian’ by 3% of western Ukrainians but was not named by any respondents in the centre, south and the east.
In order to explore these issues in more depth a survey was conducted by KIIS in August 2008 using questions based on the definition of genocide adopted in this article. This study provides a comparative analysis of attitudes towards the Soviet and Nazi genocides in Ukraine. The 2008 KIIS survey data reveal that most residents of Ukraine regard Soviet and Nazi policies, especially in the case of the policy of Nazi Germany, as aimed at the extermination of significant parts of the population. Even though the survey questions did not ask directly whether these policies amounted to genocide, such responses are consistent with the definition of genocide adopted in this study. This survey shows that the majority of adult residents of Ukraine (55%) believe that the Soviet policy in Ukraine in the time of Joseph Stalin was directed at the extermination of a significant part either specifically of Ukrainians or of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians. The proportion of respondents who believe that Nazi policy in Ukraine was aimed at the extermination of a significant part either specifically of Ukrainians, or of the population of the Soviet Union including Ukrainians is much higher (78%). One in seven people (15%) believe that Soviet policy under Stalin was not aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the Soviet Union population, including Ukrainians. A smaller proportion (6%), think the same concerning the Nazi policy (see Table 3).
TABLE 3 Perceptions of Soviet and Nazi Policies in Ukraine, the 2008 KIIS Survey (%)
| Soviet policy under Stalin | Nazi policy under Hitler | |
| Aimed at the extermination of a significant part of specifically Ukrainians | 18 | 10 |
| Aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians | 37 | 68 |
| Not aimed at the extermination of a significant part of specifically Ukrainians | 10 | 5 |
| Not aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians | 15 | 6 |
| Don’t know/not sure | 19 | 11 |
| Total, % | 100 | 100 |
| N | 1028 | 1027 |
| Note: The categories in the table correspond to answers to survey questions. |
As also shown in Table 3, the survey data show that a minority of respondents share the view that the Soviet and Nazi genocides were directed specifically at Ukrainians (18% and 10%, respectively). Much higher proportions, especially in the case of Nazi Germany, believe that Soviet policy under Stalin and Nazi policy under Hitler were aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the Soviet Union population, including Ukrainians (37% and 68%, respectively).
As shown in Table 4, in all regions of Ukraine, the proportion of people who regard the Soviet policy under Stalin as a form of genocide exceeds the proportion of people who reject this notion. However, residents of western Ukraine are much more likely than people in other regions to embrace the belief that the Soviet policy amounted to genocide. In particular, a view that the Soviet genocide was directed specifically against Ukrainians is much more popular in regions of historically western Ukraine (38%, including 53% in Galicia), than in regions of historically eastern Ukraine, including the geographic centre (23%), the east (9%) and the south (2%).
TABLE 4 Regional Perceptions of Soviet and Nazi Policies in Ukraine, the 2008 KIIS Survey (%)
| Soviet policy under Stalin | Nazi policy under Hitler | |||||||
| West1 | Centre2 | South3 | East4 | West1 | Centre2 | South3 | East4 | |
| Aimed at the extermination of a significant part of specifically Ukrainians | 38 | 23 | 2 | 9 | 11 | 12 | 5 | 11 |
| Aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians | 38 | 36 | 45 | 34 | 67 | 63 | 80 | 68 |
| Not aimed at the extermination of a significant part of specifically Ukrainians | 4 | 8 | 20 | 12 | 6 | 8 | 5 | 3 |
| Not aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians | 4 | 13 | 15 | 24 | 4 | 8 | 4 | 5 |
| Don’t know/not sure | 16 | 20 | 18 | 21 | 12 | 9 | 6 | 13 |
| Total, % | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| N | 201 | 334 | 152 | 342 | 200 | 333 | 152 | 342 |
| Notes: 1Chernivtsi, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Rivne, Ternopil, Transcarpathia and Volyn regions; 2Cherkassy, Chernihiv, Khmelnytsky, Kyiv city, Kyiv Region, Kirovohrad, Poltava, Sumy, Vinnytsia and Zhytomyr regions; 3Crimea, Kherson, Mykolaiv and Odesa regions; 4Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kharkiv, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions. The categories in the table correspond to answers to survey questions. |
Public perception of the Nazi policy in Ukraine is more unanimous across historically western and eastern Ukraine than the perception of the Soviet policy. For example, only 4% of the respondents in the west (including 6% in Galicia) and the south, 5% in the east, and 8% in the centre believe that the Nazi policy was not aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the Soviet Union population, including Ukrainians. In all regions, including the west (67%, in particular 58% in Galicia), the centre (63%), the east (68%) and the south (80%), large majorities agree that the policy of Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler was directed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians (see Table 4).
Differences between historically western and eastern regions concerning the perceptions of Soviet genocide in Ukraine outweigh differences among major ethnic groups. Higher proportions of ethnic Ukrainians (58%), than Russians (44%), and the respondents from the other ethnic groups (47%) agree that the Soviet policy under Stalin in Ukraine was directed at the extermination of a significant part of either specifically Ukrainians or the Soviet population, including Ukrainians. Ethnic Ukrainians (21%) are more likely than Russians (7%) and others (7%), to embrace the view that there was a Soviet genocide directed against Ukrainians. However, a response that Soviet policy under Stalin was directed at the extermination of a significant part of the Soviet Union population, including Ukrainians, is more prevalent among all these ethnic groups, and ethnic differences in this case are not significant (see Table 5).
TABLE 5 Perceptions of Soviet and Nazi Policies in Ukraine by Ethnicity, the 2008 KIIS Survey (%)
| Soviet policy under Stalin | Nazi policy under Hitler | |||||
| Ukrainians | Russians | Other | Ukrainians | Russians | Other | |
| Aimed at the extermination of a significant part of specifically Ukrainians | 21 | 7 | 7 | 11 | 8 | 0 |
| Aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians | 37 | 37 | 40 | 67 | 68 | 88 |
| Not aimed at the extermination of a significant part of specifically Ukrainians | 9 | 17 | 13 | 5 | 8 | 8 |
| Not aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians | 14 | 20 | 20 | 6 | 4 | 3 |
| Don’t know/not sure | 19 | 19 | 19 | 10 | 13 | 2 |
| Total, % | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| N | 806 | 186 | 35 | 805 | 186 | 35 |
| Note: The categories in the table correspond to answers to survey questions. |
There are no significant disagreements between ethnic Ukrainians and Russians concerning perceptions of the Nazi policies in Ukraine. Large majorities of both Ukrainians (67%) and Russians (68%) agree that the policy of Nazi Germany was aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the Soviet Union’s population, including Ukrainians (see Table 5). Similarly, proportions of ethnic Ukrainians and Russians who believe that Nazi policy was not aimed at the extermination of a significant part of Ukrainians or the population of the Soviet Union do not differ much. The respondents from other ethnic groups are more likely than Ukrainians and Russians to agree (88%) that Nazi policy was aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians. This category of the respondents includes predominantly ethnic Moldovans and Belorussians, and much smaller numbers of Crimean Tatars, Poles, Jews, Hungarians and other minorities (see Table 5).
The differences among the respondents according to their language are less significant than the regional variations in attitudes towards the question of Soviet genocide. Similar proportions of Ukrainian speakers (37%) and Russian speakers (36%) believe that the Soviet policy under Josef Stalin was aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians. However, a higher proportion of Ukrainian speakers (28%), compared to 8% of Russian speakers, consider that Stalin’s policy was directed at the extermination of a significant part of Ukrainians. Both of these linguistic groups share the same view concerning a Nazi genocidal policy. Absolute majorities of Ukrainian speakers (66%) and Russian speakers (69%) consider that Nazi policy under Hitler was aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians (see Table 6).
TABLE 6 Perceptions of Soviet and Nazi Policies in Ukraine by Language, the 2008 KIIS Survey (%)
| Soviet policy under Stalin | Nazi policy under Hitler | |||
| Ukrainian | Russian | Ukrainian | Russian | |
| Aimed at the extermination of a significant part of specifically Ukrainians | 28 | 8 | 11 | 10 |
| Aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians | 37 | 36 | 66 | 69 |
| Not aimed at the extermination of a significant part of specifically Ukrainians | 9 | 21 | 6 | 5 |
| Not aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians | 6 | 16 | 5 | 6 |
| Don’t know/not sure | 20 | 19 | 11 | 10 |
| Total, % | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| N | 522 | 500 | 522 | 499 |
| Note: The categories in the table correspond to answers to survey questions. |
The youngest respondents, who experienced most of their political socialisation in independent Ukraine, do not differ much in their perceptions concerning Soviet and Nazi genocides from older respondents who were primarily socialised in the Soviet Union or lived under German occupation in Ukraine during World War II (see Table 7). For instance, similar proportions of respondents aged between 18 and 29 years old and 30-39 years old (both 17%) and respondents aged 40-49 years old, 50-59 years old, 60-69 years old, and 70 years old and older (ranging between 16% and 20%) regard Soviet policy under Stalin as aimed at the extermination of a significant part specifically of Ukrainians. Conversely, between 8% and 12% of the respondents in the different age groups express analogous perceptions of the Nazi policy. The youngest and the oldest age groups of respondents are almost equally likely to believe (35% and 31%, respectively) that Stalin’s policy was directed at the extermination of a significant part of the Soviet population, including Ukrainians. The same applies to the attitudes of these two age groups towards the Nazi genocidal policy. Both the 18-29 year olds (63%) and the 70-year-olds and older (64%) believe that it was aimed at the elimination of a significant part of the Soviet population.
TABLE 7 Perceptions of Soviet and Nazi Policies in Ukraine by Age, the 2008 KIIS Survey (%)
| Soviet policy under Stalin | Nazi policy under Hitler | |||||||||||
| 18-29 | 30-39 | 40-49 | 50-59 | 60-69 | 70 and older | 18-29 | 30-39 | 40-49 | 50-59 | 60-69 | 70 and older | |
| Aimed at the extermination of a significant part of specifically Ukrainians | 17 | 17 | 19 | 20 | 16 | 20 | 10 | 9 | 8 | 12 | 11 | 12 |
| Aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians | 35 | 38 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 31 | 63 | 62 | 74 | 71 | 76 | 64 |
| Not aimed at the extermination of a significant part of specifically Ukrainians | 11 | 12 | 10 | 9 | 9 | 12 | 6 | 9 | 4 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
| Not aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians | 9 | 13 | 16 | 19 | 18 | 19 | 7 | 7 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 5 |
| Don’t know/not sure | 27 | 19 | 17 | 13 | 17 | 19 | 14 | 13 | 10 | 7 | 6 | 12 |
| Total, % | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| N | 228 | 178 | 198 | 143 | 150 | 131 | 228 | 178 | 197 | 142 | 150 | 131 |
| Note: The categories in the table correspond to answers to survey questions. |
Rural residents are more likely than their urban counterparts (27% as opposed to 14%) to embrace a view of Soviet genocide against Ukrainians. Similar proportions, 34% of rural and 38% of urban residents, think that Stalin’s policy was directed at the elimination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians. Conversely, a much higher percentage of urban respondents (31% compared to 14% of rural respondents) consider that Soviet policies were not aimed at the annihilation of the significant part of Ukrainians specifically or significant segments of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians. However, these differences are smaller than the regional differences.
In contrast to attitudes towards Soviet genocide, views of rural and urban residents of Ukraine concerning Nazi polices do not differ much. Only 11% of rural respondents and 10% of urban respondents deny the genocidal nature of Nazi policies. Two thirds, 64% of rural and 70% of urban residents, believe that Hitler’s policy was aimed at the elimination of a significant part of the Soviet population, including Ukrainians.
Gender differences concerning views of the Soviet genocide are relatively small. The same percentage of men and women regard Stalin’s policy as genocidal (55%). However, slightly more women than men (20% compared with 15%) embrace a view that this policy was directed at partial annihilation specifically of Ukrainians. Both genders express almost identical attitudes concerning Nazi genocide.
Similarly, level of education does not have a major effect on perceptions of the Soviet and Nazi genocides in Ukraine (see Table 8). Respondents with a higher education (17%) are almost as likely as their counterparts with lower levels of education (18%-19%) to say that the Soviet policy under Stalin was aimed at the extermination of a significant part specifically of Ukrainians. The same applies to the opinions of these three groups concerning Nazi policy (10%-11%). Perception of Stalin’s and Hitler’s policies as aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians, is supported by somewhat larger proportions of the respondents with higher education (38% and 71%, respectively), compared to the respondents with less than a secondary education (28% and 65%, respectively).
Conclusion
This article has shown that the focus of the Orange policies on political recognition, legal definition and public commemoration of the Soviet famine of 1932-1933 as a genocide of Ukrainians was motivated primarily by political factors, in particular, political ideology which, in turn reflects to a large extent, regional political culture. President Yushchenko and ‘Our Ukraine’ promoted an ethnic theory of genocide to the Soviet famine while ignoring evidence that backed a class theory of genocide that included not only government-induced famine but also other means of mass murder in the 1930s, such as the Great Terror and Gulag. Orange policies concerning the Soviet genocide, in particular, portrayal of the famine in Soviet Ukraine as a genocide directed against Ukrainians to a large extent reflects the nationalist and anti-Soviet values of western Ukrainians. Orange forces, in particular the Yushchenko bloc, have the strongest support in historically western regions of Ukraine (especially in Galicia), which became part of Soviet Ukraine as a result of World War II.
TABLE 8 Perceptions of Soviet and Nazi Policies in Ukraine by Education Level, the 2008 KIIS Survey (%)
| Soviet policy under Stalin | Nazi policy under Hitler | |||||
| Less than secondary | Secondary | Higher and above | Less than secondary | Secondary | Higher and above | |
| Aimed at the extermination of a significant part of specifically Ukrainians | 18 | 19 | 17 | 10 | 11 | 10 |
| Aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians | 28 | 38 | 38 | 65 | 67 | 71 |
| Not aimed at the extermination of a significant part of specifically Ukrainians | 21 | 14 | 15 | 4 | 6 | 5 |
| Not aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the population of the Soviet Union, including Ukrainians | 10 | 9 | 13 | 6 | 6 | 5 |
| Don’t know/not sure | 23 | 20 | 16 | 14 | 10 | 9 |
| Total, % | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 | 100 |
| N | 134 | 603 | 284 | 134 | 603 | 284 |
| Note: The categories in the table correspond to answers to survey questions. |
Although Nazi policies towards Ukrainians were more severe than Soviet policies, in terms of the magnitude and intensity of mass murder, the actions and intentions of Nazi Germany were not characterised by President Yushchenko and the Orange coalition governments as genocide. The reluctance to recognise the Nazi genocide against Ukrainians reflects the pro-Western political values of western Ukrainians and consideration by nationalist Orange politicians that such recognition would hurt their popularity, because it would raise the issue of collaboration by the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists with Nazi Germany in the beginning of World War II. Similarly, the denial of the Soviet genocide in Ukraine by the Party of Regions and the Communist Party of Ukraine reflects a pro-Russian and pro-Soviet political culture in their eastern Ukraine strongholds and the fact that such recognition would undermine the political standing of these parties and Ukraine’s relations with Russia.
The analysis of the public opinion data reveals that regional political culture is a principal factor of mass attitudes concerning the question of genocide in Soviet Ukraine. Western Ukrainians, compared to eastern Ukrainians, are much more likely to view the famine in the Soviet Union as a genocide of ethnic Ukrainians and to express negative attitudes towards Stalin. The 2008 KIIS survey revealed that residents of western Ukraine are much more likely than the respondents in other regions to believe that the Soviet policy under Stalin involved the annihilation of a significant part of Ukrainians. The differences among the respondents by ethnicity, age, language, education level, gender, and rural or urban residence are much less significant than the regional differences. In contrast, residents of historical western Ukraine and eastern Ukraine tend to express much more uniform attitudes when it comes to recognising ultimately the Nazi policy in Ukraine as equivalent to genocide, as it is defined in this study. The large majorities of the respondents in both historically eastern Ukraine and in historically western Ukraine believe that the policy of Nazi Germany during World War II was aimed at the extermination of a significant part of the Soviet Union population, including Ukrainians.