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Holodomor denial includes the act of making a statement or statements that the Famine that took place in Ukraine in 1932-33 was not an intentional act perpetrated by the then Soviet government on the Ukrainian people. The Holodomor was a major famine in Ukraine (at the time the Ukrainian S.S.R) in 1932-1933 in which an estimated one third of the Ukrainian population died.
The Holodomor remains an emotionally charged issue to this day.
Holodomor Denial in the Soviet Union
Until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the Communist party of the Soviet Union initially denied that a famine took place.
In 1983, under pressure, the Soviet government finally admitted that some of the peasantry died after the harvest of 1933. It began a campaign of misinformation stating that the reasons for the famin of 1932-33 was a poor harvest due to climate changes, specifically due to a drought.
It continued however, to downplay and to avoid taking any responsibility for the large negative demographic change associated with the famine. It also denied that the sudden escalation of casualties were associated with the sudden implementation of drastic government policies.
Soviet disinformation
At the same time the Soviet government intensified a campaign of disinformation regarding the Holodomor which resulted in the publication of numerous pamphlets in the West discrediting and opposing the existence of the Holodomor.
Coverup by Soviet sources
The accuracy of Soviet sources is questionable.
In 1934 the capital of Ukraine was suddenly moved from Kharkiv to Kiev. In the move of government offices anarchy transpired and as a result many government workers were not paid for a period of 10 months. It is estimated that many government documents describing the impact of the government policies and the tragic effect on the population disappeared at his time.
The census of 1937 was suppressed.
Holodomor Denial in Canada
In Canada the Association of United Ukrainian Canadians (pro-Communist Labour temple movement within the Ukrainian community) published numerous articles denying the Holodomor in Ukraine in its magazines and newspapers. Through its bookstore outlets it deseminated pamphlets and materials whose point of view corresponded with that of the Special Services of the Soviet Union.
Canadian trade-unionist and activist Douglas Tottle author of the controversial book Fraud, Famine, and Fascism the Myth of the Ukrainian Genocide from Hitler to Harvard claims that the Holodomor was "fraudulent" and "a creation of Nazi propagandists" . By the author's own admission, however, his book is only carried by 28 libraries around the world.