Although the starvation in Soviet Ukraine was said to have ended in the summer of 1933, recent demographic research has shown that people were still dying of hunger in 1934. Of course, untold others suffered lasting effects that seriously compromised their physical and mental health, ultimately shortening their lives. Nevertheless, appeals for the international community to intervene in aid of the victims of the famine created and used as a weapon by the Bolshevik leadership fell on deaf ears, in part because the Soviet government continued to insist that the victims themselves were largely responsible for their terrible fate and that there was no need for assistance from abroad.

Jars Balan, Coordinator of the Kule Ukrainian Canadian Studies Centre at the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta.