In Red Famine, Anne Applebaum argues that more than three million of those dead were Ukrainians who perished not because they were accidental victims of a bad policy but because the state deliberately set out to kill them. But instead of sending relief the Soviet state made use of the catastrophe to rid itself of a political problem. At least five million people died between 19 in the USSR. The result was a catastrophic famine, the most lethal in European history. In 1929 Stalin launched his policy of agricultural collectivization-in effect a second Russian revolution-which forced millions of peasants off their land and onto collective farms. "With searing clarity, Red Famine demonstrates the horrific consequences of a campaign to eradicate 'backwardness' when undertaken by a regime in a state of war with its own people." - The Economist A revelatory history of one of Stalin's greatest crimes, the consequences of which still resonate today, as Russia has placed Ukrainian independence in its sights once more -f rom the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag and the National Book Award finalist Iron Curtain.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |