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Douglas Tottle is a Canadian trade union activist and the author of a book about the Ukrainian famine of 1932–1933 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 is regarded as a Soviet apologist by Frank Sysyn, a recent example of a Soviet denialist by Dr. Eric J. Schmaltz and a "denunciator" of the famine by Patricia Marchak.

Biography

Tottle was born in Quebec, but later lived mainly in Western Canada. He had various jobs thorughout his working life, including photo-lab technician, fine artist, miner, and steelworker. As a trade union activist, he edited theThe 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 farmworkers in California, and Native Indian farmworkers 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 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. In fact, very little of Tottles book deals with the Holodomor at all, as he devotes most of it to claims of conspiracy and fascist cover-ups.

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 As a result the book was subsequently withdrawn from circulation.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 others.

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.

Other similar writings include an article by Wilfred Szczesny ("Fraud, Famine and Fascism", The Ukrainian Canadian, April 1988); an unsigned article ("The Ukrainian Famine: Fact or Fiction"), which appeared in the McGill Daily, November 22, 1988, and 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.

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.

References and Notes

1. Tottle, Douglas (1987). Fraud, Famine, and Fascism: The Ukrainian Genocide Myth from Hitler to Harvard (PDF). Toronto: Progress Books. pp. 128ff., 135–40. ISBN 0919396518. OCLC 31968778. Retrieved 19 April 2009.
2. Sysyn, Frank (1999). "The Ukrainian Famine of 1932–3: The Role of the Ukrainian Diaspora in Research and Public Discussion". In Chorbajian, Levon; Shirinian, George (eds.). Studies in Comparative Genocide. New York: St. Martin's Press. p. 193. ISBN 0312219334. OCLC 39692229. Retrieved 19 April 2009. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
3. Dr. Eric J. Schmaltz, Soviet "Paradise" Revisited: Genocide, Dissent, Memory and Denial,
4. Marchak, Patricia (2003). Reigns of Terror. Montreal; Ithaca: McGill-Queen's University Press. p. 183. ISBN 0773526420. OCLC 52459228. Retrieved 19 April 2009.
5. Information about the author from front matter in: 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.
6. Douglas Tottle, "Fraud, famine, and fascism: the Ukrainian genocide myth from Hitler to Harvard", Toronto: Progress Books, 1987. ISBN 0919396518
7. ^ THE LAST STAND OF THE UKRAINIAN FAMINE-GENOCIDE DENIERS By Roman Serbyn
8. link Letter from David R. Marples
9. Lubomyr Luciuk, Searching for place: Ukrainian displaced persons, Canada, and the migration of memory, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2000, p. 413. ISBN 0802042457
10. International Commission of Inquiry Into the 1932–33 Famine in Ukraine by Prof. Jacob Sundberg
11. A.J.Hobbins, Daniel Boyer, Seeking Historical Truth: the International Commission of Inquiry into the 1932-33 Famine in the Ukraine, Dalhousie Law Journal, 2001, Vol 24, page 166
12. The Hoax of the Man-Made Ukraine Famine of 1932-33
13. "The Hoax of the Man-Made Ukraine Famine of 1932-33", Challenge-Desafio, February 25, 1987.

See also

• Denial of the Holodomor

• United Steelworkers
• Canadian non-fiction writers
• Canadian trade unionists