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Letter to the Editor, The Moscow Times, June 20, 2003
In response to "One Pulitzer That Should Shake the
World," a comment by Matt Bivens on June 16 [2003]
The Moscow Times, Moscow, Russia
Editor,
Matt Bivens is certainly correct that Walter Duranty
distorted the nature of the famine during Stalin's
collectivization drive. But Bivens perpetuates a
different set of myths by alleging that the famine was
"engineered" and that it "stopped precisely at the
Ukrainian-Russian internal border."
In fact, millions of peasants starved to death between
1932 and 1933 not only in Ukraine, but in southern
Russia and Kazakhstan as well. And although the
Stalinist leadership exacerbated famine conditions
through its neglect, incompetence and disdain for
rural culture, it is not at all clear that this was a
premeditated act of genocide directed against the
Ukrainian nation.
David Brandenberger, Cambridge, Massachusetts
The article by Matt Bivens that appeared in The Moscow
Times on June 16, 2003, that is referred to in the above
letter is posted in this Gallery under June 16, 2003.
The Moscow Times, Moscow, Russia, June 20, 2003
FOR PERSONAL AND ACADEMIC USE ONLY
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