Douglas Tottle

Douglas Tottle (b. 1944) is a Canadian trade union activist and the author of a book about the Ukrainian famine of 1932–1933 (often referred to as the Holodomor) entitled Fraud, Famine, and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard. Tottle claims that fraudulent, anti-Semitic "famine-genocide" propaganda has been spread by former Nazis, anti-communists and Ukrainian Nationalists, sometimes posing as academics in Canadian universities. Tottle's critics regard him as a "Soviet apologist", or a "denunciator" of the famine. Tottle also has defenders such as the Stalin Society, author Jeff Coplon, the Swedish Communist Party, which insists that his book is a solid piece of historical research that exposed the "myth of the famine-genocide ... once and for all". When published, his book received endorsements from two Canadian University professors (see below).

Biography

Tottle was born in Quebec, but later lived mainly in Western Canada. He had various jobs throughout his working life, including photo-lab technician, fine artist, miner, and steelworker. As a trade union activist, he edited The Challenger, a journal of the United Steelworkers, from 1975 to 1985. Tottle also researched labour history and worked as a union organiser, for example among Chicano farm workers in California, and Native Indian farm workers in Manitoba. Tottle has written for various Canadian and US publications.

Fraud, Famine, and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard

Douglas Tottle is mostly known for his controversial book Fraud, Famine, and Fascism: the Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard, in which he asserts that claims the Holodomor was an intentional genocide are "fraudulent", and "a creation of Nazi propagandists". He downplays the responsibility of what he calls "mistakes" by Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin and "amateurish Soviet planning," and suggests blame can be placed on Ukrainian saboteurs, resisting collectivization. Nonetheless, Tottle puts significant emphasis into denying the validity of photographs of the famine, suggesting a conspiracy.

Only a portion of Tottle's book deals with the Holodomor, as most of it deals with claims of conspiracy and supposed fascist cover-ups. Tottle admits that he "does not attempt to study the famine in any detailed way" (p. 1) and that he is more interested in the "Nazi and fascist connections" and the "coverups of wartime collaboration" (p. 3). Critics argued that both of these topics, even if objectively treated, are not relevant to the study of the famine and can neither prove nor disprove the existence of the famine or define the nature of the tragedy. It has also been argued that Tottle's attacks on various segments of the Ukrainian diaspora constitute hate literature.

His book, published by the pro-Communist Progress Publishers in Toronto, appeared practically at the same time Ukrainian Communist party leader Volodymyr Shcherbytsky publicly acknowledged the Famine, in December 1987. As a result the book was subsequently withdrawn from circulation. Nevertheless, the book is available on the internet, and continues to be cited as an "invaluable" and "important" book by groups such as the Stalin Society in Great Britain, author Jeff Coplon, and the Communist Party of Sweden.

In a review of Tottle's book in the Ukrainian Canadian Magazine, published by the pro-Communist Association of United Ukrainian Canadians, Wilfred Szczesny wrote: "Members of the general public who want to know about the famine, its extent and causes, and about the motives and techniques of those who would make this tragedy into something other than what it was will find Tottle's work invaluable" (The Ukrainian Canadian, April 1988, p. 24).

In his book, Searching for place, Lubomyr Luciuk comments: "For a particularly base example of famine-denial literature, see Tottle, Fraud, famine, and fascism...".

In 1988 the International Commission of Inquiry Into the 1932–33 Famine in Ukraine was set up to establish whether the famine existed and its cause. Tottle was invited by the commission to attend the hearings, however he ignored the request. While the commission was organized along judicial lines, it had no judicial power to compel witnesses to attend or testify. However Tottle's book was examined during the Brussels sitting of the commission, held between May 23–27, 1988, with testimony from various expert witnesses. The commission president Professor Jacob Sundberg subsequently concluded that Tottle was not alone in his enterprise to deny the famine on the basis that material included in his book could not have been available to a private person without official Soviet assistance.

In general the book is regarded as nothing more than a rather blatant example of pro-Soviet propaganda, not credible in any sense of the word. Today not only has Ukraine recognized that the Great Famine of 1932-33 was genocidal but research has confirmed that the "father of the UN genocide convention," Dr Raphael Lemkin, himself regarded the famine and related Soviet oppression of the Ukrainian nation as genocidal.

Other similar writings supporting Tottle's view include:

• Wilfred Szczesny ("Fraud, Famine and Fascism", The Ukrainian Canadian, page 24, April 1988);
• Jeff Coplon ("In Search of a Soviet Holocaust", Village Voice, 12 January 1988);
• Donne Flanagan (1964–2008), (a bureau chief of the Canadian University Press) wrote ("The Ukrainian Famine: Fact or Fiction"), which appeared in the McGill Daily, November 22, 1988,
• Challenge-Desafio's article ("The Hoax of the Man-Made Ukraine Famine of 1932-33"), which appeared in a newspaper of the Progressive Labor Party in 1987.

Praise from Canadian University Professors

Two individuals praised Tottle's book which, otherwise, was not well received nor reviewed.
Clarence J. Munford (1935-), Professor of Black Studies and History at the University of Guelph strongly praised Tottle's book, writing that:

Douglas Tottle exposes the fraudulent charge of famine-genocide made against the USSR . . . Skillfully Tottle traces the labyrinthine history of the "evidence" — documentary and photographic — on its convoluted passage from nazi publications to the Hearst press to the misfounded "scholarship" of such present-day Kremlinologists as Robert Conquest. Tottle' s sharp and engagingly written investigation is useful and intelligent. The author makes an important contribution by exposing the ways and wiles of anti-communist propaganda.

David Whitefield (1931–2007), a Professor of History at the University of Calgary also praised Tottle, writing that

For almost 70 years the study of the Soviet Union has been trapped in a sea of distortion, lies and propaganda. While this has not always been one-sided, its overall effect has been to stimulate fear, suspicion and danger of war. In the present age of new thinking about the history of socialism in the USSR, it remains necessary to deal w ; tii and disperse at least the worst of the lies. Tottle's book demonstrates clearly the viciousness surrounding the theory of the Ukrainian genocide and hopefully will open the way to genuine study of the Ukrainian road to socialism.

Books

• Tottle, Douglas (1987). Fraud, Famine, and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard (PDF). Toronto: Progress Books. ISBN 0919396518. OCLC 31968778. Retrieved 19 April 2009.

For a more recent interpretation by serious scholars see L Y Luciuk and L Grekul, eds, Holodomor: Reflections on the Great Famine of 1932-1933 in Soviet Ukraine (Kingston: Kashtan Press, 2009)

See also

• Denial of the Holodomor