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Secondly, it obviously needs to be pointed out that it was not the Nazis who uncovered and promoted awareness of the Holodomor, but reputable reporters like the Welshman, Gareth Jones, the Englishman, Malcolm Muggeridge, and the Canadian, Rhea Clyman, who first alerted the world about the terrible crime against humanity that was taking place in Soviet Ukraine.

All of them saw with their own eyes what was happening and were so appalled by the behaviour of the Bolshevik regime that they felt compelled to speak out. They were subsequently joined by a growing chorus of other Western journalists and intellectuals, all of whom who had left-wing views and initially believed in the Soviet “experiment:” Eugene Lyons, William Henry Chamberlin, Louis Fischer, Harry Lang and Will and Ariel Durant. They too, denounced the Soviet government for the famine and its use of institutionalized terror.

In this era of fake news and alternative facts, we must avoid misinformation drawn from the propagandistic backwaters of the internet. Those interested in learning more about the Soviet regime and the Holodomor should, instead, consider well-researched and scholarly sources, such as the following: Labour and the Gulag: Russia and the Seduction of the British Left, 2017; Red Famine: Stalin’s War on Ukraine, 2017; Bloodlands, Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, 2010; The Holodomor Reader: A Sourcebook on the Famine of 1932-1933, 2012; and finally, The Famine of 1932-1933 in Ukraine: An Anatomy of the Holodomor, 2018.

The latter two are available through the University of Alberta Press. An easily accessible source is the website of the Holodomor Research and Educational Consortium, www.holodomor.ca

Jars Balan is director of the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta.