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Step 12 of 16 · August–September 1933

The staged tour

Moscow turns down foreign relief, saying there is no famine. Édouard Herriot is shown a cleaned-up Kyiv and Kharkiv, and settlers from Russia and Belarus move into the emptied villages.

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  • Losses 1932–34 (circle area)
  • Cordon of 22 January 1933
  • Hiding or exposing the record

Circles show each 1932 oblast's total losses for 1932–34 (HURI); no month-by-month split per oblast is published. Borders and the cordon are approximate.

Claims

Hiding the famineMedium confidence
1) Time range
1933-07 … 1933-08-23
2) Human profile
Mikhail Kalinin · Chairman of the Central Executive Committee of the USSR (formal head of state)
3) Decisions
  1. Rejected Western food aid, calling its organisers political cheats
  2. Soviet sources answered Cardinal Innitzer's appeal with "neither cannibals nor cardinals" (NYT, 20 Aug); Duranty called famine reports "malignant propaganda" (23 Aug)
Affected
Famine victims, who received no international aid
Gap
The date and venue of Kalinin's statement are not given; the author of the "cardinals" rebuttal is not named.

EN Wikipedia · DenialUK Wikipedia · Заперечення Голодомору

Hiding the famineMedium confidence
1) Time range
1933-08-26 … 1933-09-09
2) Group profile
NKID, Intourist, GPU and the CP(b)U leadership in Kyiv and Kharkiv · Hosts of Édouard Herriot, former French Prime MinisterSelector: Route Odesa – Kyiv – Kharkiv
3) Decisions
  1. Cleaned the route of beggars, orphans and corpses, stocked shop windows and staged a showcase kolkhoz
  2. Herriot publicly denied the famine; Pravda printed his denial on 13 Sep 1933
Affected
International, especially French, opinion
Gap
The EN Wikipedia attributes the staging to Harry Lang as an allegation; the UK edition states it as fact.

EN Wikipedia · DenialDmytryshyn, Le voyage de M. Herriot

FamineMedium confidence
1) Time range
1933-08-31 … 1934-12-31
2) Group profile
Sovnarkom of the USSR · Resettlement decreeSelector: Moscow
3) Decisions
  1. Ordered 15,000–20,000 families resettled into emptied Ukrainian villages and at least 10,000 into the Kuban and Terek
Affected
About 117,000 people (about 23,000 families in 329 trains) from Russia and Belarus; 38,504 settlers had already arrived in the Kuban in December 1932
Gap
Totals vary between sources ("over 200,000" in some).

EN WikipediaTexty.org.ua

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