Below please find an open appeal in connection with a decision of the municipality of the city of Yalta to erect a monument to Joseph Stalin. The text below is rendered in three languages: English, Ukrainian and Russian. The three texts are identical. Inquiries should be forwarded to info@grigorenko.org. An open appeal to President of Ukraine Victor Yustshenko and members of Ukrainian Parliament. Dear Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, deputies of Verkhovna Rada, Disturbing news has just reached us. It has been made known to us that the municipal council of the city of Yalta has adopted a resolution to erect a monument to Joseph Stalin. The erection of a monument to the bloodiest tyrant in human history is already sacrilege in itself. But erecting it in Ukraine and especially in Crimea is a double sacrilege. Let us remind you of just a few facts of the history of Ukraine in connection with the man who neo- communists try to portray as a great hero of the Second World War. As a member of Lenin's government, Stalin shares responsibility with Lenin, Trotsky and others for the installation of a pro-Moscow puppet government in Ukraine. He declared the city of Kharkiv the capital of Ukraine at a time when the legitimate Ukrainian government in the historical capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, was struggling against invading forces. As a result of an international-socialist invasion, the unification of Ukraine, which took place January 22, 1919, was annulled and most of her territory annexed and incorporated into the Soviet Empire. In the 1930's, Stalin and his clique orchestrated show trials against the Ukrainian intelligentsia, starting with the infamous case of "Union for the Liberation of Ukraine" (Spilka Vizvollennya Ukrainy). Other well-known atrocities include the deportation of the so-called "kulaks", and of course, the organizing of outright genocide: the artificial starvation known as Gladomor (1932-1933). The later tragedy was reflected in the folklore epic "Duma pro Golod" (ˇ°The Ballad about Starvationˇ±) sung by predominantly blind traveling bards, called "kobzars". To erase the people's memory, the kobzars were exterminated by a direct order from Stalin, and a centuries-old folklore tradition died with them. In direct violation of the Versailles treaty, Stalin's government trained officers of Hitler's Wehrmacht in its military schools and conspired with the Nazis to instigate the Second World War. Despite what many historians presume, the Soviet Union entered into the Second World War not on June 22nd of 1941, but on September 1st of 1939, when it transmitted radio signals from city of Minsk, effectively guiding German bombers to their destination in Warsaw. A couple of weeks later, on September 17, 1939, the Soviet Army crossed the Polish border and stabbed the already bleeding Poland in the back. Under Stalin's rule, the Soviet Union entered into the Second World War as an aggressor and ally of Nazi Germany, and until June 22, 1941 remained as such. The photograph depicting Soviet foreign minister Molotov embracing and kissing his Nazi counterpart Joachim von Ribbentrop is well known throughout the world. Furthermore, Stalin labeled any anti-fascist activity before June 22, 1941 a crime and many anti-fascists ended up in the Gulag, where they perished. The invasion of Poland was the first, but hardly the last aggressive act of the USSR during the course of WWII. Following the invasion of Poland, the USSR invaded Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Romania and annexed the three Baltic states and large portions of Finland and Romania. In 1944, without much ado, the USSR also annexed Tuva (Tannu Tuva), the country situated between Russia and Mongolia. Stalinists are trying to convince us that the USSR was surprised by the German attack. But in doing so, they fail to explain how the German army managed to capture over two million prisoners of war in just a few hours and then proceeded to march into Soviet territories without a visibly organized resistance. They also have no explanation as to how it happened that the well-known song "The Holy War" was written by Stalin's order before the German invasion, or why millions of copies of the famous placard "Your Native Country calls" were printed also before the German invasion. The answer to these questions is simple: Stalin and his generals did not plan to defend the Soviet Union, on the contrary, they had planned their own invasion, but neglected to anticipate the possibility of similar treachery on the part of the Germans. For their leaders' criminal overconfidence, Soviet citizens paid with millions of needlessly lost lives. The conduct of Stalin and his clique was no less than high treason. But shortly after this first act of treason, Stalin committed a second one: denying the rights of prisoners of war to Soviet soldiers captured abroad. Captured soldiers of all other armies, including the armies of countries occupied by Germany, were treated as POW's, all except Soviet soldiers, and Stalin bears direct responsibility for this. The third treason was Stalin's military "doctrine": do not spare anyone. The later caused an unforgivably high level of casualties At the conference of Yalta (February 4 - February 11, 1945), Stalin managed to convince Churchill and Roosevelt to deport all refugees, displaced persons and POW's from Western countries to the USSR. Upon their return, the vast majority of these unfortunate people were integrated into the Soviet slavery system of concentration camps, where they, like so many others, perished without a trace. This same Yalta conference also laid the foundations for the Cold War and the subsequent Iron Curtain that was to divide Europe As a final accord to the war, mislabeled as the "Great Patriotic War", Stalin proclaimed May 9 as a G Victory Day while it was, in reality, May 8. By misplacing the G Victory Day, Stalin effectively separated the population of the Soviet Union from the rest of the world. But for Ukraine, the guns did not fall silent on G Victory Day. A guerilla war against Soviet occupation lasted eleven more years, until 1956, and caused thousands of further casualties. In the summary repressions against Ukrainian resistance, Stalin's government deported several million Ukrainians to Siberia and the Far East. On May 18, 1944 in Crimea, Stalin and his international-socialist clique committed the most gruesome crime against humanity: genocide ¨C the killing of a nation. On that day the deportation of Crimean Tatars brought the Crimean nation to the brink of total annihilation. Half of the Crimean Tatar population was exterminated, all traces of their culture were eradicated, and historic geographical names changed for Russian ones. Along with the Crimean Tatars, Greeks and Armenians were also deported and all trace of their cultural presence in Crimea also eradicated. Stalin and the post-Stalin Soviet government knowingly suppressed the knowledge of Nazi atrocities against the Jewish and Gypsy populations of Ukraine. Furthermore, he instigated an ugly anti-Semitic campaign, labeled as a struggle against the "cosmopolites", in preparation for the deportation of Soviet Jews in much the same manner as it was done with the Koreans of the Far East (1937), Volgo-Germans (1941), Pontian Greeks (1942), Karachais (1943), Kalmucks (1943), Chechens (1944), Ingushs (1944), Balkars (1944), Crimean Tatars (1944), Turks (1944), Kurds (1944), Khemshils (Armenian Muslims) (1944), Meshetians (Georgian Muslims) (1944), Armenians and Greeks of Crimea (1944) and many others. Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen, the attempt of neo-communists to erect a monument to Stalin is nothing less than a desecration of the graves of deportees, prisoners of the Gulag and veterans of the Second World War. We ask you to stop the provocateurs. Do not let Crimea slip into turmoil, for there may well be no resolution. There must be no place on Earth for monuments to criminals against humanity! Andrew P. Grigorenko, President of General Petro Grigorenko Foundation, New York USA Vladimir Bukovsky, Writer, Cambridge, UK Victor Suvorov, Historian, London, UK Elena Bonner, Chairperson of The Andrei Sakharov Foundation, Boston, USA Fikret Yurter, President of Crimea Foundation and Association of Crimean Tatars in the USA, Commack, USA Mustafa Dzhemilev, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Les Tanyuk, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Mykhaylo Pozhyvanov, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Yaroslav Kendzor, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Oleksandr Tkalenko, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Bohdan Kostynyuk, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Mykola Kulchynskyy, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Yuriy Klyuchkovskyy, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Yuriy Kryvoruchko, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Serhiy Slabenko, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Mykola Chechel, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Valeriy Lebedivskyy, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Oleksiy Kozachenko, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Oleksandr Omelchenko, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Olena Bondarenko, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Mykhaylo Kosiv, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Serhiy Zhyzhko, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Ivan Drach, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Yuriy Karmazin, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Viktor Korol, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Ivan Ivancho, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Volodymyr Yavorivskyy, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Yuriy Kostenko, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Stepan Davymuka, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Ivan Zaets, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Oleksandr Slobodyan, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Oleksa Hudyma, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Mykola Kruts, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Oleksandr Ustenko, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Pavlo Movchan, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Ivan Tomych, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Yaroslav Dzhodzhyk, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Mykhaylo Ratushnyy, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Andriy Shkil, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Ryfat Chubarov, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Stepan Khmara, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Oleksandr Chornovolenko, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Valeriy Asadchev, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Pavlo Kachur, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Ihor Hryniv, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Hennadiy Udovenko, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Levko Luk'yanenko, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Mykola Martynyuk, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Vadym Trofymenko, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Borys Bespalyy, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Oleh Bilorus, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Serhiy Sobolev, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Oleh Lukashuk, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Viktor Teren, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Kostyantyn Sytnyk, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Volodymyr Onopenko, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Valentyn Zubov, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Mykhaylo Hladiy, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Kseniya Lyapina, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Vitaliy Korzh, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Ihor Nasalyk, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Leonid Derkach, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Borys Zahreva, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Evhen Hirnyk, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Mykola Zhulynskyy, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Oleh Tyahnybok, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Vasyl Bartkiv, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Liliya Hryhorovych, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Yuriy Orobets, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Leonid Chernovetskyy, Member of Ukrainian Parliament Pavel Litvinov, Soviet Human Rights Leader, USA Martin Dewhirst, Honorary Research Fellow, University of Glasgow, Scotland, U.K. Vladimir Gershovich, Professor, Hebrew University, Jerusalem. Israel Yuri Orlov, Cornell University, Ithaca, New York, USA All signatures are in the order they were received. The collection of signatures is continued. Please join us. The signatures list is continued on the next page>>>>>
Left to Right: A. Grigorenko, N. Svitlychna, Dr. M. von Hagen The Third Annual Grigorenko Reading. The Grigorenko Readings are held annually in honor of the late General Petro Grigorenko, one of the most prominent human rights activists of the former USSR. This year participants were: Dr. Mark von Hagen (Harriman Institute), Fr. Leonid Kishkovsky (Orthodox Church in America, Ex-President of National Council of Churches, Editor-in-Chief of “Orthodox Church”), Carol Leborg (President of a Toastmasters Club, Canada), Pavel Litvinov (the leading figure of earlier years of Human Rights Movement in USSR), Nadia Svitlychna (President of Human Rights in XX Century, former Soviet Human Rights activist, founding member of Ukrainian Helsinki Group), Yuri Yarim-Agaev (former Soviet Human Rights activist, member of Moscow Helsinki Group), Fikret Yurter (President, Crimea Foundation and Association of Crimean Tatars in the USA), Andrew Grigorenko (President, General Petro Grigorenko Foundation, former Soviet Human Rights activist). The Third Annual Grigorenko Reading took place at Columbia University (420 West 118th Street) Harriman Institute Room 1219 IAB, October 16, 2003. Note: Speeches will be published on this site in near future.
Left to Right: F. Yurter, A. Grigorenko, Father L. Kishkovsky	Henrik & Carol Leborg
P. Litvinov & Dr. M. von Hagen	F.Yurter & Y. Yarym-Agaev