Participation of the Embassy of the Soviet Union in Canada in Deniing the Holodomor in Ukraine (1983–1984)
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The article examines the participation of the embassy of the Soviet Union in Canada in denying the Holodomor of 1932–1933 in Ukraine. It was established that the information campaign of the Ukrainian community, in particular the Ukrainian Canadian Committee (UCC) and the World Congress of Free Ukrainians (WCFU), which was designed to draw attention to the causes and consequences of the famine-genocide, caused an extremely negative reaction from Moscow. The Embassy of the Soviet Union in Ottawa was actively involved in the campaign to deny the artificial famine in Ukraine, trying to mix the accents in the coverage of the problem. The Soviets did not plan to engage in open discussions with their opponents, but instead: 1) promoted the achievements of the collective farm system through publications under the control of the “News” Press Agency; 2) used the trips of delegations controlled by the special services of the organization “Ukraine” to form a “correct vision” of the events of the past; 3) in every way they showed the “true goals of anti-Soviet actions” in publications published abroad. The method of denial included falsification of historical events, emphasis on the success of collectivization of agriculture, interpretation of any talk about famine as “anti-Soviet slander”, etc. Through its embassy, Moscow tried to convince Canadian politics of the need to take measures to stop “anti-Soviet provocative activities”. A special press release dated April 28, 1983, sent by the Soviet embassy to Canadian politicians, universities and the mass media, was decisive in explaining the events of 1932–1933 in Ukraine. His key message was the assertion that there was no famine, and Ukraine in 1932–1933 was experiencing only certain difficulties caused by the drought and the “resistance of the Kurkuls”. The support of the actions of the Ukrainian community on the part of influential Canadian politicians caused the appearance of several notes of protest from the embassy of the Soviet Union condemning the practices of commemorating the victims of the Holodomor (installation of monuments in Edmonton and Winnipeg, creation of the documentary film “Harvest of Despair”, holding of thousands of memorial events, etc.). Over time, from defensive tactics (denial, shift of emphasis), the Soviets switched to “active measures” designed to discredit researchers and witnesses of the Holodomor, as well as public figures who publicized Stalin’s crimes (for example, labeling them “fascists”, “accomplices fascists” etc.). Therefore, with the efforts of the Committee for State Security (KGB) and with the support of the Soviet Embassy, a special operation codenamed “Pharisees” was launched. Its measures were aimed at “throwing/promoting” abroad materials designed to refute information about the artificial nature of the 1932–1933 famine and undermine the credibility of researchers and witnesses of the Holodomor. However, despite all efforts to divert Canadian politicians from supporting Ukrainians and to change the narrative about the Holodomor across the ocean, the Soviets failed. Keywords: Holodomor, Canada, Embassy of the Soviet Union in Ottawa, objection, note of protest, Committee for State Security, Ukrainian Canadian Committee, Brian Mulroney, discredit.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.004 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.029 | 0.005 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.005 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.002 | 0.005 |
| Research integrity | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.005 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".