Monday, November 28, 2005

On Saturday, several TV channels showed Oleksandr Moroz, leader of the Socialist Party of Ukraine, speaking on the Famine (in Ukrainian, as he usually does) during his trip to Lviv.

I couldn't bear listening to him, not on this subject - and especially after an introduction in which he declared his right to talk about the Famine, if only because half of his native village had perished in it. This sounded so outrageous.

Moroz was born in 1944, so he cannot be blamed for the horror of 1932-33 directly. But he joined the Communist Party in 1972 and made an impressive career through it - which, of course, didn't turn into a burden overnight, the moment the Soviet Union collapsed. Quite the opposite.

In the Nov. 4, 2005, issue of the Socialist Party's Kyiv branch newsletter, Kyyeve miy, Moroz had a column on the 88th anniversary of "the Great October." Here're a few quotes:

[...]

Some people are unfairly calling the revolution a coup carried out by the Bolshevik party. No, it was indeed a people's revolution, and if the party hadn't found the exact answer to the aspirations of the peoples of Russia, nothing would've worked, nothing would've changed.

Yes, many things that the revolutionaries dreamed of and V. Lenin aspired to were not implemented. Today, those who use politics to their own ends are happy to point out the failures, tragedies and defeats, but they forget that the best achievements of the Soviet order (collective values, patriotism, industrial breakthrough, free education and medicine, no unemployment, etc.) were the result of the October Revolution. [...]

Yes, there were repressions, and famine, and unjust wars, and the loss of a mighty state. The reasons for each of these events have been studied, but these studies are of unequal depth and credibility. Still, I dare state that the common cause - and perhaps the main one - of those troubles was the lack of democracy and management mechanisms, which would have placed the government under the control of the society and made it dependent on the people. The government that cannot be controlled can easily escape punishment, and is often criminal; it inevitably turns hostile to its own people. The experience of the past years in Ukraine does confirm this.

[...]


Moroz may not have real blood on his own hands; but he sure has inherited some of the sins of his mentors and predecessors - and the blood they shed.

The blood of half a village of dead people Moroz claims to be speaking on behalf of is but a tiny part of it.

3 comments:

  1. Moroz is a moral coward for equating even Kuchma's regime with the Soviet Union. I respect Moroz for supporting the Orange Revolution, but he is simply delusional on this topic.

    OEC

    ReplyDelete
  2. Don't you think that Lenin was well-intentioned and wanted the best for people?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Lenin? absolutely not. Regardless, results are all that matter.

    OEC

    ReplyDelete