PAVEL PETROVICH POSTYSHEV AND RICHARD MILHOUS NIXON

The 28^th December seemingly embraces the environment. Two particular events were brought about through the auspices of two rather curious politicians each at opposite ends of the political spectrum.

A letter by Pavel Petrovich Postyshev (Па́вел Петро́вич По́стышев) published in Pravda revived the tradition of the New Year Tree. The tradition to install and decorate a Ёлка (pr: Yolka, tr: spruce tree) dates back to the 17th century when Peter the Great imported the tradition from his travels of Europe. However, in the Imperial Russia Yolka were banned since 1916 by Synod as a tradition, originated in Germany (Russian counterpart during World War I). This ban was prolonged in the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic SFSR and the Soviet Union until 1935 (New Year tree was seen as a "bourgeois and religious prejudice" until that year). The New Year celebration was not banned, though there was no official holiday for it until 1935. The New Year's tree revived in the USSR after the famous letter by Pavel Petrovich Postyshev, published in Pravda on 28^th December, 1935, where he asked for installing New Year trees in schools, children's homes, Young Pioneer Palaces, children's clubs, children's theatres and cinema theatres. In 1937, a New Year Tree was also installed in the Moscow Palace of Unions. An invitation to the Yolka at the Palace of Unions became a matter of honour for Soviet children.

Pavel Petrovich Postyshev (Па́вел Петро́вич По́стышев) was a Soviet politician. He is considered to be one of the principal architects of the so-called man-made famine of 1932–33, or Holodomor. His role in the famine is part of a much larger history covering the Stalin years. In his role of secretary of the Kharkiv Oblast and city Party committees Postyshev organized the purge of Trotskyists and Ukrainian national-communists as well as industrialisation and collectivisation campaigns in the region.

It is curious that his letter published in Pravda, a newspaper whose founders included Leon Trotsky, one of its first editor, should have had such a performative effect in the USSR. The Holodomor (Ukrainian: Голодомор, 'Морити голодом', literal translation Killing by hunger) was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of Ukraine.

The Endangered Species Act of 1973 is one of the dozens of United States environmental laws passed in the 1970s. Signed into law by President Richard Nixon on 28^th December, 1973, it was designed to protect critically imperiled from extinction as a "consequence of economic growth and development untempered by adequate concern and conservation."

There have been significant improvements as a result of these various Acts of Congress.

Peregrine Falcon (increased from 324 to 1,700 pairs between 1975 and 2000); removed from list.

Grizzly bear (increased from about 271 to over 580 bears in the Yellowstone area between 1975 and 2005); removed from list 22/3/07

California’s Southern Sea Otter (increased from 1,789 in 1976 to 2,735 in 2005)

San Clemente Indian Paintbrush (increased from 500 plants in 1979 to more than 3,500 in 1997)

Red Wolf (increased from 17 in 1980 to 257 in 2003)

And many more…

As to Richard Nixon...