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Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine Hardcover – October 10, 2017
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From the author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Gulag and the National Book Award finalist Iron Curtain, a revelatory history of one of Stalin's greatest crimes—the consequences of which still resonate today
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. The result was a catastrophic famine, the most lethal in European history. At least five million people died between 1931 and 1933 in the USSR. But instead of sending relief the Soviet state made use of the catastrophe to rid itself of a political problem. 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.
Applebaum proves what has long been suspected: after a series of rebellions unsettled the province, Stalin set out to destroy the Ukrainian peasantry. The state sealed the republic’s borders and seized all available food. Starvation set in rapidly, and people ate anything: grass, tree bark, dogs, corpses. In some cases, they killed one another for food. Devastating and definitive, Red Famine captures the horror of ordinary people struggling to survive extraordinary evil.
Today, Russia, the successor to the Soviet Union, has placed Ukrainian independence in its sights once more. Applebaum’s compulsively readable narrative recalls one of the worst crimes of the twentieth century, and shows how it may foreshadow a new threat to the political order in the twenty-first.
- Print length496 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDoubleday
- Publication dateOctober 10, 2017
- Dimensions6.49 x 1.65 x 9.54 inches
- ISBN-100385538855
- ISBN-13978-0385538855
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Editorial Reviews
Review
—Timothy Snyder, Washington Post
“Lucid, judicious and powerful . . . The argument that Stalin singled out Ukraine for special punishment is well-made . . . [An] excellent and important book.”
—Anna Reid, Wall Street Journal
“Applebaum chronicles in almost unbearably intimate detail the ruin wrought upon Ukraine by Josef Stalin and the Soviet state apparatus he had built on suspicion, paranoia, and fear . . . Applebaum gives a chorus of contemporary voices to the tale, and her book is written in the light of later history, with the fate of Ukraine once again in the international spotlight and Ukrainians realizing with newly-relevant intensity that, as Red Famine reminds us, 'History offers hope as well as tragedy.'”
—Steve Donoghue, Christian Science Monitor
“A magisterial and heartbreaking history of Stalin’s Ukrainian famine.”
—Simon Sebag Montefiore, London Evening Standard
"Powerful . . . War, as Carl von Clausewitz famously put it, is the continuation of politics by other means. The politics in this case was the Sovietisation of Ukraine; the means was starvation. Food supply was not mismanaged by Utopian dreamers. It was weaponised . . . 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
“Anne Applebaum’s Red Famine—powerful, relentless, shocking, compelling—will cement her deserved reputation as the leading historian of Soviet crimes.”
—Daniel Finkelstein, The Times (London)
“Chilling, dramatic . . . In her detailed, well-rendered narrative, Applebaum provides a ‘crucial backstory’ for understanding current relations between Russia and Ukraine. An authoritative history of national strife from a highly knowledgeable guide.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
The Ukrainian Question
For centuries, the geography of Ukraine shaped the destiny of Ukraine. The Carpathian Mountains marked the border in the southwest, but the gentle forests and fields in the northwestern part of the country could not stop invading armies, and neither could the wide open steppe in the east. All of Ukraine’s great cities—Dnipropetrovsk and Odessa, Donetsk and Kharkiv, Poltava and Cherkasy and of course Kyiv, the ancient capital—lie in the East European Plain, a flatland that stretches across most of the country. Nikolai Gogol, a Ukrainian who wrote in Russian, once observed that the Dnieper River flows through the centre of Ukraine and forms a basin. From there “the rivers all branch out from the centre; not a single one of them flows along the border or serves as a natural border with neighbouring nations.” This fact had political consequences: “Had there been a natural border of mountains or sea on one side, the people who settled here would have carried on their political way of life and would have formed a separate nation.”
The absence of natural borders helps explain why Ukrainians failed, until the late twentieth century, to establish a sovereign Ukrainian state. By the late Middle Ages, there was a distinct Ukrainian language, with Slavic roots, related to but distinct from both Polish and Russian, much as Italian is related to but distinct from Spanish or French. Ukrainians had their own food, their own customs and local traditions, their own villains, heroes and legends. Like other European nations, Ukraine’s sense of identity sharpened during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. But for most of its history the territory we now call Ukraine was, like Ireland or Slovakia, a colony that formed part of other European land empires.
Ukraine—the word means “borderland” in both Russian and Polish—belongedto the Russian empire between the eighteenth and twentieth centuries. Prior to that, the same lands belonged to Poland, or rather the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which inherited them in 1569 from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Earlier still, Ukrainian lands lay at the heart of Kyivan Rus’, the medieval state in the ninth century formed by Slavic tribes and a Viking nobility, and, in the memories of the region, an almost mythical kingdom that Russians, Belarusians and Ukrainians all claim as their ancestor.
Over many centuries, imperial armies battled over Ukraine, sometimes with Ukrainian-speaking troops on both sides of the front lines. Polish hussars fought Turkish janissaries for control of what is now the Ukrainian town of Khotyn in 1621. The troops of the Russian tsar fought those of the Austro-Hungarian emperor in 1914 in Galicia. Hitler’s armies fought against Stalin’s in Kyiv, Lviv, Odessa and Sevastopol between 1941 and 1945.
The battle for control of Ukrainian territory always had an intellectual component as well. Ever since Europeans began to debate the meaning of nations and nationalism, historians, writers, journalists, poets and ethnographers have argued over the extent of Ukraine and the nature of the Ukrainians. From the time of their first contacts in the early Middle Ages, Poles always acknowledged that the Ukrainians were linguistically and culturally separate from themselves, even when they were part of the same state. Many of the Ukrainians who accepted Polish aristocratic titles in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries remained Orthodox Christians, not Roman Catholics; Ukrainian peasants spoke a language that the Poles called “Ruthenian,” and were always described as having different customs, different music, different food.
Although at their imperial zenith they were more reluctant to acknowledge it, Muscovites also felt instinctively that Ukraine, which they sometimes called “southern Russia” or “little Russia,” differed from their northern homeland too. An early Russian traveller, Prince Ivan Dolgorukov, wrote in 1810 of the moment when his party finally “entered the borders of the Ukraine. My thoughts turned to [Bohdan] Khmelnytsky and [Ivan] Mazepa”—early Ukrainian national leaders—“and the alleys of trees disappeared . . . everywhere, without exception, there were clay huts, and there was no other accommodation.” The historian Serhiy Bilenky has observed that nineteenth-century Russians often had the same paternalistic attitude to Ukraine that northern Europeans at the time had towards Italy. Ukraine was an idealized, alternative nation, more primitive and at the same time more authentic, more emotional, more poetic than Russia.4 Poles also remained nostalgic for “their” Ukrainian lands long after they had been lost, making them the subject of romantic poetry and fiction.
Yet even while acknowledging the differences, both Poles and Russians also sought at times to undermine or deny the existence of a Ukrainian nation. “The history of Little Russia is like a tributary entering the main river of Russian history,” wrote Vissarion Belinsky, a leading theorist of nineteenth-century Russian nationalism. “Little Russians were always a tribe and never a people and still less—a state.” Russian scholars and bureaucrats treated the Ukrainian language as “a dialect, or half a dialect, or a mode of speech of the all-Russian language, in one word a patois, and as such had no right to an independent existence.” Unofficially, Russian writers used it to indicate colloquial or peasant speech. Polish writers, meanwhile, tended to stress the “emptiness” of the territory to the east, often describing the Ukrainian lands as an “uncivilized frontier, into which they brought culture and state formations.” The Poles used the expression dzikie pola, “wild fields,” to describe the empty lands of eastern Ukraine, a region that functioned, in their national imagination, much as the Wild West did in America.
Solid economic reasons lay behind these attitudes. The Greek historian Herodotus himself wrote about Ukraine’s famous “black earth,” the rich soil that is especially fertile in the lower part of the Dnieper River basin: “No better crops grow anywhere than along its banks, and where grain is not sown, the grass is the most luxuriant in the world.” The black-earth district encompasses about two-thirds of modern Ukraine—spreading from there into Russia and Kazakhstan—and, along with a relatively mild climate, makes it possible for Ukraine to produce two harvests every year. “Winter wheat” is planted in the autumn, and harvested in July and August; spring grains are planted in April and May, and harvested in October and November. The crops yielded by Ukraine’s exceptionally fertile land have long inspired ambitious traders. From the late Middle Ages, Polish merchants had brought Ukrainian grain northwards into the trade routes of the Baltic Sea. Polish princes and nobles set up what were, in modern parlance, early enterprise zones, offering exemptions from tax and military service to peasants who were willing to farm and develop Ukrainian land. The desire to hold on to such valuable property often lay behind the colonialist arguments: neither the Poles nor the Russians wanted to concedethat their agricultural breadbasket had an independent identity.
Nevertheless, quite apart from what their neighbours thought, a separate and distinct Ukrainian identity did take shape in the territories that now form modern Ukraine. From the end of the Middle Ages onwards, the people of this region shared a sense of who they were, often, though not always, defining themselves in opposition to occupying foreigners, whether Polish or Russian. Like the Russians and the Belarusians, they traced their history back to the kings and queens of Kyivan Rus’, and many felt themselves to be part of a great East Slavic civilization. Others identified themselves as underdogs or rebels, particularly admiring the great revolts of the Zaporozhian Cossacks, led by Bohdan Khmelnytsky, against Polish rule in the seventeenth century, and by Ivan Mazepa against Russian rule at the beginning of the eighteenth century. The Ukrainian Cossacks—self-governing, semi-military communities with their own internal laws—were the first Ukrainians to transform that sense of identity and grievance into concrete political projects, winning unusual privileges and a degree of autonomy from the tsars. Memorably (certainly later generations of Russian and Soviet leaders never forgot it), Ukrainian Cossacks joined the Polish army in its march on Moscow in 1610 and again in 1618, taking part in a siege of the city and helping ensure that the Polish-Russian conflict of that era ended, at least for a time, advantageously for Poland. Later, the tsars gave both the Ukrainian Cossacks and Russian-speaking Don Cossacks special status in order to keep them loyal to the Russian empire, with which they were allowed to preserve a particular identity. Their privileges guaranteed that they did not revolt. But Khmelnytsky and Mazepa left their mark on Polish and Russian memory, and on European history and literature too. “L’Ukraine a toujours aspiré à être libre,” wrote Voltaire after news of Mazepa’s rebellion spread to France: “Ukraine has always aspired to be free.”
During the centuries of colonial rule different regions of Ukraine did acquire different characters. The inhabitants of eastern Ukraine, who were longer under Russian control, spoke a version of Ukrainian that was slightly closer to Russian; they were also more likely to be Russian Orthodox Christians, following rites that descended from Byzantium, under a hierarchy led by Moscow. The inhabitants of Galicia, as well as Volhynia and Podolia, lived longer under Polish control and, after the partitions of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century, that of Austria-Hungary. They spoke a more “Polish” version of the language and were more likely to be Roman Catholics or Greek Catholics, a faith that uses rites similar to the Orthodox Church yet respects the authority of the Roman pope.
But because the borders between all of the regional powers shifted many times, members of both faiths lived, and still live, on both sides of the dividing line between former Russian and former Polish territories. By the nineteenth century, when Italians, Germans and other Europeans also began to identify themselves as peoples of modern nations, the intellectuals debating “Ukrainianness” in Ukraine were both Orthodox and Catholic, and lived in both “eastern” and “western” Ukraine. Despite differences in grammar and orthography, language unified Ukrainians across the region too. The use of the Cyrillic alphabet kept Ukrainian distinct from Polish, which is written in the Latin alphabet. (At one point the Habsburgs tried to impose a Latin script, but it failed to take hold.) The Ukrainian version of Cyrillic also kept it distinct from Russian, retaining enough differences, including some extra letters, to prevent the languages from becoming too close.
For much of Ukraine’s history, Ukrainian was spoken mostly in the countryside. As Ukraine was a colony of Poland, and then Russia and Austria-Hungary, Ukraine’s major cities—as Trotsky once observed—became centres of colonial control, islands of Russian, Polish or Jewish culture in a sea of Ukrainian peasantry. Well into the twentieth century, the cities and the countryside were thus divided by language: most urban Ukrainians spoke Russian, Polish or Yiddish, whereas rural Ukrainians spoke Ukrainian. Jews, if they did not speak Yiddish, often preferred Russian, the language of the state and of commerce. The peasants identified the cities with wealth, capitalism and “foreign”—mostly Russian—influence. Urban Ukraine, by contrast, thought of the countryside as backward and primitive.
These divisions also meant the promotion of “Ukrainianness” created conflict with Ukraine’s colonial rulers, as well as with the inhabitants of the Jewish shtetls who had made their home in the territory of the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth since the Middle Ages. Khmelnytsky’s uprising included a mass pogrom, during which thousands—perhaps tens of thousands—of Jews were murdered. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, Ukrainians rarely saw the Jews as their most important rivals—Ukrainian poets and intellectuals mostly reserved their anger for Russians and Poles—but the widespread anti-semitism of the Russian empire inevitably affected Ukrainian-Jewish relations too.
The link between the language and the countryside also meant that the Ukrainian national movement always had a strong “peasant” flavour. As in other parts of Europe, the intellectuals who led Ukraine’s national awakening often began by rediscovering the language and customs of the countryside. Folklorists and linguists recorded the art, poetry and everyday speech of the Ukrainian peasantry. Although not taught in state schools, Ukrainian became the language of choice for a certain kind of rebellious, anti-establishment Ukrainian writer or artist. Patriotic private Sunday schools began to teach it too. It was never employed in official transactions, yet the language was used in private correspondence, and in poetry. In 1840, Taras Shevchenko, born an orphaned serf in 1814, published Kobzar—the word means “minstrel”—the first truly outstanding collection of Ukrainian verse. Shevchenko’s poetry combined romantic nationalism and an idealized picture of the countryside with anger at social injustice, and it set the tone for many of the arguments that were to come. In one of his most famous poems, “Zapovit” (“Testament”), he asked to be buried on the banks of the Dnieper River:
Oh bury me, then rise ye up
And break your heavy chains
And water with the tyrants’ blood
The freedom you have gained . . .
The importance of the peasantry also meant that from the very beginning the Ukrainian national awakening was synonymous with populist and what would later be called “left wing” opposition to the Russian and Polish-speaking merchants, landowners and aristocracy. For that reason, it rapidly gathered strength following the emancipation of the serfs across imperial Russia under Tsar Alexander II in1861. Freedom for the peasants was, in effect, freedom for Ukrainians, and a blow to their Russian and Polish masters. The pressure for a more powerful Ukrainian identity was, even then, also pressure for greater political and economic equality, as the imperial ruling class well understood.
Because it was never linked to state institutions, the Ukrainian national awakening was also, from its earliest days, expressed through the formation of a wide range of autonomous voluntary and charitable organizations, early examples of what we now call “civil society.” For a brief few years following the serfs’ emancipation, “Ukrainophiles” inspired younger Ukrainians to form self-help and study groups, to organize the publication of periodicals and newspapers, to found schools and Sunday schools and to spread literacy among the peasantry. National aspirations manifested themselves in calls for intellectual freedom, mass education, and upward mobility for the peasantry. In this sense, the Ukrainian national movement was from the earliest days influenced by similar movements in the West, containing strands of Western socialism as well as Western liberalism and conservatism.
This brief moment did not last. As soon as it began to gather strength, the Ukrainian national movement, alongside other national movements, was perceived by Moscow as a potential threat to the unity of imperial Russia. Like the Georgians, the Chechens and other groups who sought autonomy within the empire, the Ukrainians challenged the supremacy of the Russian language and a Russian interpretation of history that described Ukraine as “southwest Russia,” a mere province without any national identity. They also threatened to empower the peasants further at a time when they were already gaining economic influence. A wealthier, more literate and better-organized Ukrainian peasantry might also demand greater political rights.
Product details
- Publisher : Doubleday (October 10, 2017)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 496 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0385538855
- ISBN-13 : 978-0385538855
- Item Weight : 3.5 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.49 x 1.65 x 9.54 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #706,295 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,560 in Russian History (Books)
- #14,010 in Engineering (Books)
- #19,092 in World History (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Anne Applebaum is a historian and journalist. She is a staff writer for the Atlantic as well as a Senior Fellow at the Agora Institute, Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of several history books, including GULAG: A HISTORY which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction; IRON CURTAIN, on the Sovietization of Eastern Europe after the war, which won the 2013 Cundill Prize for Historical Literature; and RED FAMINE, on the Ukrainian famine of 1932-33, which provides the background to today's Russian-Ukrainian conflict. In 2020 she published the bestselling TWILIGHT OF DEMOCRACY, which analyzed the appeal of autocracy to Western intellectuals and politicians.
Her newest book, AUTOCRACY, INC, published in July 2024, examines the network of dictatorships - Russia, China, Iran, Norht Korea, Venezuela, Zimbabwe and others - who now work together to support one another, preserve their power and undermine the democratic world.
Anne has been writing about Eastern Europe and Russia since 1989, when she covered the collapse of communism in Poland for the Economist magazine. She has also covered US, UK and European politics for a wide range of American and British publications. She is a former Washington Post columnist and a former deputy editor of the Spectator magazine. She is married to Radoslaw Sikorski, a Polish politician and writer, and lives in Poland and the U.S.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book informative and interesting. They describe it as a great, enjoyable read with an accessible writing style. The writing style is described as authoritative and well-crafted, providing a comprehensive depiction of events surrounding the forced famine. Many readers find the story relevant to today's events. However, some find the subject matter too difficult to get interested in and the pacing disturbing and heartbreaking.
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Customers find the book informative and well-researched. It provides new insights into a period of history they previously knew nothing about. The book is described as detailed, accurate, and definitive.
"...It offers detailed records and moving oral histories of life in the Ukraine from 1918 to 1935...." Read more
"Definitely “like new”. Detailed discussion of the numerous times the lands now known as “Ukraine” have changed hands & been overrun & occupied by..." Read more
"...This book seems very good with presenting a solid historical overview of the Ukrainian nationalist movement of a century ago, and the years up to..." Read more
"A jewel to understand a part of ukraine- russia dynamics. It is well researched and detailed, full of quotes, historical documents and analysis." Read more
Customers find the book easy to read and engaging. They say it's a great book for beginners, enjoyable, and educational.
"...This is an excellent book which analyzes how the 1932 – 1933 drought in Ukraine was the result of Soviet policies...." Read more
"...An excellent and well researched book. A must-read for those who want a better understanding of Ukraine & their current motives." Read more
"...This book seems very good with presenting a solid historical overview of the Ukrainian nationalist movement of a century ago, and the years up to..." Read more
"...sources not available to Conquest, tells the story again in another great book...." Read more
Customers find the writing style accessible and authoritative. They appreciate the author's thorough research and synthesis of archival materials. The book provides a realistic insight into the individual suffering, as well as an understanding of Stalin's thinking and motivation. Readers describe it as a workmanlike account of Ukraine's 20th century, centering on the famine.
"...It is well written and so important for anyone who wants to understand today's struggles the Ukrainians are going through...." Read more
"I beg you to read this long, beautifully written but very difficult book. Why is it difficult?..." Read more
"...Anne Applebaum does an excellent job of outlining the events that led to the famine, as well as the impact that it had on the people of Ukraine...." Read more
"...The book is extremely readable...." Read more
Customers find the book interesting and pertinent to today's events. They appreciate the well-researched depiction of the events surrounding the forced famine. The book provides a true history of the mindless atrocities, with an interesting first chapter and comments at the end. Readers find the story coherent, with details on the unfolding of the famines and how the world responded.
"...of all peasant food stuffs in the winter of 32-33, the story is stunning in its brutality...." Read more
"Truly enjoyed this book which gives the reader a true history of the mindless atrocities of the soviet regime towards their " Ukrainian cousins"...." Read more
"In spite of my disagreement with the author’s politics, her first chapter is interesting and her comments at the end about trying not to weaponize..." Read more
"...Stalin refused aid for everyone, there were also issues with Ukrainian nationalism and states that there were fears that Ukraine wanted to somehow..." Read more
Customers find the book's pacing good. They describe it as heart-breaking, infuriating, and fascinating. The account sheds light on horror and is not for the faint-hearted.
"...This book is not for th faint-hearted, describing the historical background & awful ways many millions of countrymen died at the hands of occupiers...." Read more
"...up to the famine, as well as the famine itself, are detailed and harrowing...." Read more
"...And the reader feels that indifference in graphic and disturbing detail that stuck with me for hours and days after I finished reading...." Read more
"...Stalin proves them wrong. Readable and horrific." Read more
Customers find the book difficult to read and uninteresting. They mention it's repetitive, academically stiff, and rigorous.
"I beg you to read this long, beautifully written but very difficult book. Why is it difficult?..." Read more
"...and researched but somehow much too depressing and tedious to really get interested in...." Read more
"Good writer, difficult subject, possibly better suited for a Ph.D thesis" Read more
"Hvery hard to stay interested" Read more
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Shocking Famine
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on September 5, 2018Detailed history of the brutal communist imposed artificial famine which decimated Ukraine
This is an excellent book which analyzes how the 1932 – 1933 drought in Ukraine was the result of Soviet policies. It offers detailed records and moving oral histories of life in the Ukraine from 1918 to 1935. The first third of the book is a little dry as it is dealing with places, names and events that I wasn’t familiar with. However, by the time the book starts to describe the campaign against the “kulaks” (small landowners who employed 2 or 3 farmhands) to the brutal collectivization of the early 30s to the forced confiscation of all peasant food stuffs in the winter of 32-33, the story is stunning in its brutality.
The Ukraine famine is rarely mentioned in the retelling of brutal 20th century genocides (20th century should probably be known as the “death century”) as the retelling of it would go against the prevailing leftist cultural stranglehold which propagates the idea that socialist/communist societies are magical wonderlands where humanity flourishes. As AOC and Bernie Sanders and a generation of university educated morons assure us that this time the promise of socialism (now rebranded as “democratic “) will magically meet the needs of mankind, this book is a brutal reminder of what power in the hands of ideologically inspired, class conscious, “do gooders” actually looks like.
The demonization campaign against the Kulaks reminded me so much of the current cultural currents surrounding straight white CIS men that it was eerie. (From chapter 4 )
"public shaming played an important role in the campaign ……. to who knew them. Silence and terrify everyone. In the atmosphere of hysteria and hatred any criticism of the Communist Party (prevailing liberal ethos) could be used as evidence that the critic was a nationalist, a fascist (or the catch all racist)”
Ever wonder why comedians aren’t so funny anymore?
“The official dislike of the kobzar and he bandura was no surprise, like court jesters in Shakespeare’s day, they had always expressed impolitic (politically incorrect) thoughts and ideas, sometimes singing of things that could not be spoken. In the heated atmosphere of collectivization, when everyone was in search of enemies, this form of humor—along with the nostalgia was intolerable”
After 5 million dead in just over a year, the Soviets yielded and stopped the confiscation of grains. By this time any resistance to the Soviet way was long evaporated. The only thing that remained was to insure the genocide was lost to history. Aided and abetted by such liberal luminaries of our “free” press such as NY Times journalist Walter Duranty, the real facts of this genocide lay hidden for 40 years.
The history of the Ukrainian people is tragic and reverberates today. I have a co worker in his mid-20s at work whose family emigrated from Ukraine in the 90s. The other day he happened to ask me if I had read any good books lately. I said I’m reading “Red Famine”. He asked what that was about and I told him it was about the collectivization of the farms in Ukraine and subsequent famine. He said “Oh the famine of 32-33.” For a young kid, born in America to know the dates of that famine, when the typical millennial couldn’t tell you the date of Pearl Harbor, I thought was remarkable. It shows the psychic effect of Socialism 3 generations later.
Read this book for the knowledge you will game, your humanity it will touch and use it to inspire you to resist the false promises of state run economies which a segment of our naïve, woefully mis-educated electorate is pushing.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 27, 2024Definitely “like new”. Detailed discussion of the numerous times the lands now known as “Ukraine” have changed hands & been overrun & occupied by other armies & their people subjected to the whims & tortures of the occupiers. Stalin considered Ukraine his “breadbasket” & subjected the people to the cruel & inhuman torture of famine to cover for his own poor management policies.
I had to take frequent breaks from reading because the facts & torture were so disturbing. This book is not for th faint-hearted, describing the historical background & awful ways many millions of countrymen died at the hands of occupiers. But it helps to understand the current history & determination of the Ukrainians in their present struggle, for self-determination, freedom & democracy.
An excellent and well researched book. A must-read for those who want a better understanding of Ukraine & their current motives.
- Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2019I read this book looking for history about Ukraine and the Holodomor. As someone very ignorant of the subject matter, I wanted unbiased information as to what happened.
This book seems very good with presenting a solid historical overview of the Ukrainian nationalist movement of a century ago, and the years up to the famine of the early 1930s. Although I did not check all of the author's sources, her facts were footnoted and seemed to be backed up by other sources.
What I did not like was that the book overall gave me a sense of one-sided approach, not the neutral approach of someone relating historical fact and letting the reader make a decision as to the motives of the characters. I have read enough history (and written some myself) to see through the author's bias, but did notice that she included historical facts that went against her bias, which is admirable. However, these tended to be smoothed over and rushed through, and the other side well combed and orderly. For example, while the author openly acknowledged that no direct evidence was found in her research that Stalin directly ordered the destruction of the Ukrainian people (nationalists, yes, but the people in general, no), that one sentence is soon buried under many others that use incrimatory remarks against Stalin for "purposely" murdering the Ukrainians.
I would wish for more information, likewise, on the positive efforts made by the Stalin regime to alleviate the famine. These, again, are alluded to, but are not given much positive space. For example, surely there is archival evidence for the help given to the orphans, and for the distribution of the emergency aid. But these aspects are never detailed, only mentioned in passing. (I am not trying to say Stalin was a hero by any means, but simply want to see the whole picture, unbiased by present political sentiments.)
If you can see through the author's obvious bias, this book has much good historical information. If you are looking for a neutral presentation of the information, you will have to look elsewhere. If anyone knows of such a neutral book (probably as rare as a stag with gold horns in the present political climate in Ukrainse), I would like to be informed of such. (I give only four stars, knocking one off for the biased presentation.)
- Reviewed in the United States on November 9, 2024A jewel to understand a part of ukraine- russia dynamics. It is well researched and detailed, full of quotes, historical documents and analysis.
- Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2024Truly enjoyed this book which gives the reader a true history of the mindless atrocities of the soviet regime towards their " Ukrainian cousins". In this book one will understand why Ukraine suffered so much at the hands of the soviets and Germans. This is a book that is so valuable in order to understand today's conflicts between the two countries. It is well written and so important for anyone who wants to understand today's struggles the Ukrainians are going through. It is a sad historical account but one that needs to be remembered. Highly recommended
Top reviews from other countries
- Michael JonesReviewed in Canada on May 13, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Things we should all know especially now
This book has reaffirmed my knowledge about Russia. I know there will be some that say this is only one person’s opinion, but after reading how the author gets her information by actually interviewing people that went through this hell I believe it will make you question what you think you know.We all have heard the stories about Stalins Russia and his heavy hand. This book gives you a new perspective on what happened in Russia and Ukraine 🇺🇦 between 1900 and 1960. This shows me that we need to be very careful when dealing with Russia going forward. History is replaying itself right now. I am so into the history of Europe and Russia a family of countries trying to live next door to each other and get along. Russia continues to show aggression to its neighbours and has no value of life. Not only other peoples but there own citizens. Maybe there is nothing we in Canada are able to do about what’s going on in Ukraine right now, but we are able to educate ourselves and see the world for what it really is. My hope is the more people know the more people talk which helps to bring on change . I decided to read the book after I read her book about gulag, fascinating account of the repression of peoples and just outright genocide. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read true accounts of what has happened in years past and what is happening right now. Great read, lots of reference points to confirm accuracy of testimony. By it read it and remember it May all happen again. Just my humble opinion though….
- David WReviewed in the United Kingdom on March 15, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Ukraine's Holocaust
Applebaum's forensic analysis of Russia's calculated starvation of nearly 4 million Ukranians is a damning indictment of Soviet Communism, Stalin and his apparatchniks.
She writes powerfully, combining a wealth of detail with individual human accounts to produce a horrific examination of the origins and reasons for a State-orchestrated genocide.
It is another masterful work from a great writer.
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OrsoReviewed in Italy on August 3, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Che prima di parlare si dovrebbe sempre studiare.
Molto bello nella sua tragicità. Per me dovrebbe essere obbligatorio lo studio nelle scuole.
- Carlos Vivanco PastoreReviewed in Spain on September 11, 2022
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant book
Although it was difficult for me to follow some of the historical characters, it gave me a much better understating of today's events in Ucrania.
Whilst reading the book I started to comprehend Russia's aggressive strategy towards the Ucrania as a nation.
I hace certainly enjoyed and highly recommend to anyone who whish to know more about Ucrania history.
- Marcos LuzReviewed in Brazil on May 13, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars OMG
A friend of mine has read this book and told me how disturbed he got because of it. Since Crimea episode(Russia invasion), I have been looking for some book that would bring in information about the relationship that connects Russians and Ukrainians and the barrier among then. The famine of 1932 to 1935 is a huge brick. Ukrainians starved to death by the millions not because they did not produce plenty of food but because of a stubborn (to not say radical and genocide) vision of Stalin and his peers towards the proletariat and communism doctrine. Like Chernobyl, the Communist Party also tried to cover it up and failed. Five stars for sure