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4.33 AVERAGE
4.33 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
sad
slow-paced
challenging
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
Content Warnings
Moderate: Ableism, Alcoholism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Child death, Death, Genocide, Rape, Blood, Antisemitism, Cannibalism, Abandonment, War, Classism
A very difficult subject to read about; very well written with deep and wide research.
challenging
dark
informative
fast-paced
challenging
dark
informative
sad
slow-paced
Uses accessible language to tell the story of a gruesome history
informative
reflective
sad
medium-paced
In this well written, though incredibly depressing and disturbing book, Applebaum tells the little told story of the Holodomor, the story of Stalin's man made famine in the Ukraine to break the will and spirit of the Ukrainian people and destroy their heritage and culture and force Sovietization on them.
(Judging by the news, that didn't work out!)
This book is heartbreaking as the world turned a blind eye to the Ukraine largely for political reasons during the 1930's and Western journalists willingly covered up the atrocities in the Ukraine. While the Holodomor does not reach the 'technical' definition of genocide, it was clearly an act of cultural genocide as Russia has for centuries tried to destroy Ukraine's cultural heritage and sense of nationhood.
This book isn't an easy read, as Applebaum does not hold back on just how bad the Holodomor was. And she shouldn't, this story needs to be told to the West in it's rawest and more uncensored form. She really got into how the Soviet state under Stalin allowed this to happen to Ukraine and the reasons why, and the larger view of the Soviet political and social climate on the famine at the time.
This book broke my heart, but in many ways it raised my view of the Ukrainian people. I already admired them for how they've fought off Putin for the last several years, but now knowing how long this has been going on, and how long their heritage and sovereignty has been at war, it made me admire the Ukrainian people more than I already thought I could at just seeing how determined they are to keep their sovereignty and heritage in face of centuries of aggression and brutality.
I highly recommend this to anyone who has any interest in the Ukraine. I will end it with this.
"Long live Ukraine!"
(Judging by the news, that didn't work out!)
This book is heartbreaking as the world turned a blind eye to the Ukraine largely for political reasons during the 1930's and Western journalists willingly covered up the atrocities in the Ukraine. While the Holodomor does not reach the 'technical' definition of genocide, it was clearly an act of cultural genocide as Russia has for centuries tried to destroy Ukraine's cultural heritage and sense of nationhood.
This book isn't an easy read, as Applebaum does not hold back on just how bad the Holodomor was. And she shouldn't, this story needs to be told to the West in it's rawest and more uncensored form. She really got into how the Soviet state under Stalin allowed this to happen to Ukraine and the reasons why, and the larger view of the Soviet political and social climate on the famine at the time.
This book broke my heart, but in many ways it raised my view of the Ukrainian people. I already admired them for how they've fought off Putin for the last several years, but now knowing how long this has been going on, and how long their heritage and sovereignty has been at war, it made me admire the Ukrainian people more than I already thought I could at just seeing how determined they are to keep their sovereignty and heritage in face of centuries of aggression and brutality.
I highly recommend this to anyone who has any interest in the Ukraine. I will end it with this.
"Long live Ukraine!"
The central thesis of Red Famine is one I am quite sympathetic to. Famine as a political tool and as a result of state policy is common across the world, Ireland in the 1800s, the other Late Victorian Holocausts (to use Mike Davis' terms), and Bengal to name a few. I have no real affinity towards a Soviet analysis of the 1930s and do not see what value could be gained in defending Stalin (indeed, what person with anarchist leanings could support Stalin?). Ukraine suffered greatly during the Holodomor and, like many of these famines, suffering could have been signficantly reduced if the State had not enacted policies which, by intent or poor management, made everything worse. However, Applebaum's clear strong conservative anti-communist stance pervades this book, not to mention her ideological (and entirely unexamined) commitment to a kind of primordial nationhood, which makes no more sense for Ukraine than it does for any other place in the world. For example, it is "rational" for farmers to hold on to grain until prices rise is a statement that can only make sense within a conservative moral economy which sees individuals making rational economic choices as the height of true freedom and moral good, but I think it is easy to see how those who are going hungry or those who believe in a moral economy where everyone supports the collective may not see price speculation on grain as a moral good or a rational choice. There are countless examples of this throughout the book, collectivisation creating larger farms which people labour on is bad (but did not cause the famine...) because the state owns everything and smaller farmers don't keep land, but collective farms were becoming a global standard albeit through corporate capital and not the state.
This leads to a second issue, the focus on Ukraine and Ukrainian diaspora obscures a lot of the global picture. I do not doubt Ukraine was suffering uniquely under Stalin, but reviews by historians have pointed out there were global and USSR-wide trends with food production and Stalin's paranoid distrust of everyone who wasn't currently in front of him, which provide context for certain actions throughout.
The third, and possibly the biggest issue for me, is the treatment of antisemitism throughout the book. In the chapters on the Civil War, Ukranian People's Republic antisemitism is minimised while the antisemitism of the Red and White Armies, and those exploiting the chaos, is taken to be a fundamental criticism of them. Consistently, antisemitic remarks are mentioned, oral histories link the Bolsheiviks to the "Jews", and general conspiracy about foreign and Jewish threats are mentioned, but never addressed sufficently. This trend continues into the post-Famine chapters, where Applebaum highlights an article titled "Celebrate a year without the Jew Bolshevik" written during the Ukrainian Riechscommassariat, followed by a statement that Nazi (anti-Soviet) propaganda was accepted because some of it was true - this generosity is not applied to Soviet propaganda which is equally distasteful. There is brief mention of the antisemitism that existed before occupation but that there was not an ideological commitment like that within Nazism - is this not an important point for European and Russian antisemitism generally? It did not need an ideological commitment to flurish. A lot of nuance is lost, in general discourse and in this book, over the impact of the Nazi occupation - for example "fascists and Nazis" was used across Soviet Republics against their opposition, not uniquely to Ukraine - and the connections some of the diaspora have to Nazi elements who fled post war (there are, after all, Ukrainian Waffen SS memorials in Canada) and how both some diaspora Ukrainians and former Nazis from across Europe became part of a strong US anti-communist movement. In fact, the impact of the Nazi occupation on memory and history in Ukraine and of the famine is really lacking, you almost come away with the impression that the only impact was that it gave the Soviet Government and their apologists an excuse to deflect any criticism of their policy in Ukraine. Buckley hosting a film and debate around issues in Ukraine is something that should have been examined a lot more in depth and her dismissal of Hitchens comments about antisemitism is equally telling. The motivations of pro-Soviet forces are always questioned (rightly) but the anti-communist voices are never question (wrongly) - beyond saying "the acknowledgement and recognition of the famine should not have been a partisan issue" (again, rightly).
Finally, a review in The Guardian came away with the conclusion that Applebaum is not definitive about the Holodomor being a genocide. I think this is incorrect, she is conclusive on it, but her last chapter is just not very clear. If I'd not read a few different reviews just before the last chapter, I'd have been very confused about what her conclusion was as well.
The chapters dealing with the oral history of the famine are by far the strongest part of the book (and what saves it from 1 star). It is more grounded and very emotionally effective. Anyone not moved by this section of the book has a heart of stone. The stories are recognisable across different famine situations and really show the hardships individuals faced.
Overall, Applebaum's inability to recognise or acknowledge her own ideological commitments, and her haphazard handling of the issues of antisemitism (which, except to point out that she believed Hitchens, influenced by the Soviets calling all critics Nazis, used it to derail the Ukraine debate with Buckley, it is unclear why she included it so often in discussions anyway), and her selective scepticism really call the whole work into question. This is a great shame because the horrors inflicted on the Ukrainian people throughout the Holodomor should be more widely known and should not be used to further the agendas of the old school cold warriors and their disciples in the culture wars.
This leads to a second issue, the focus on Ukraine and Ukrainian diaspora obscures a lot of the global picture. I do not doubt Ukraine was suffering uniquely under Stalin, but reviews by historians have pointed out there were global and USSR-wide trends with food production and Stalin's paranoid distrust of everyone who wasn't currently in front of him, which provide context for certain actions throughout.
The third, and possibly the biggest issue for me, is the treatment of antisemitism throughout the book. In the chapters on the Civil War, Ukranian People's Republic antisemitism is minimised while the antisemitism of the Red and White Armies, and those exploiting the chaos, is taken to be a fundamental criticism of them. Consistently, antisemitic remarks are mentioned, oral histories link the Bolsheiviks to the "Jews", and general conspiracy about foreign and Jewish threats are mentioned, but never addressed sufficently. This trend continues into the post-Famine chapters, where Applebaum highlights an article titled "Celebrate a year without the Jew Bolshevik" written during the Ukrainian Riechscommassariat, followed by a statement that Nazi (anti-Soviet) propaganda was accepted because some of it was true - this generosity is not applied to Soviet propaganda which is equally distasteful. There is brief mention of the antisemitism that existed before occupation but that there was not an ideological commitment like that within Nazism - is this not an important point for European and Russian antisemitism generally? It did not need an ideological commitment to flurish. A lot of nuance is lost, in general discourse and in this book, over the impact of the Nazi occupation - for example "fascists and Nazis" was used across Soviet Republics against their opposition, not uniquely to Ukraine - and the connections some of the diaspora have to Nazi elements who fled post war (there are, after all, Ukrainian Waffen SS memorials in Canada) and how both some diaspora Ukrainians and former Nazis from across Europe became part of a strong US anti-communist movement. In fact, the impact of the Nazi occupation on memory and history in Ukraine and of the famine is really lacking, you almost come away with the impression that the only impact was that it gave the Soviet Government and their apologists an excuse to deflect any criticism of their policy in Ukraine. Buckley hosting a film and debate around issues in Ukraine is something that should have been examined a lot more in depth and her dismissal of Hitchens comments about antisemitism is equally telling. The motivations of pro-Soviet forces are always questioned (rightly) but the anti-communist voices are never question (wrongly) - beyond saying "the acknowledgement and recognition of the famine should not have been a partisan issue" (again, rightly).
Finally, a review in The Guardian came away with the conclusion that Applebaum is not definitive about the Holodomor being a genocide. I think this is incorrect, she is conclusive on it, but her last chapter is just not very clear. If I'd not read a few different reviews just before the last chapter, I'd have been very confused about what her conclusion was as well.
The chapters dealing with the oral history of the famine are by far the strongest part of the book (and what saves it from 1 star). It is more grounded and very emotionally effective. Anyone not moved by this section of the book has a heart of stone. The stories are recognisable across different famine situations and really show the hardships individuals faced.
Overall, Applebaum's inability to recognise or acknowledge her own ideological commitments, and her haphazard handling of the issues of antisemitism (which, except to point out that she believed Hitchens, influenced by the Soviets calling all critics Nazis, used it to derail the Ukraine debate with Buckley, it is unclear why she included it so often in discussions anyway), and her selective scepticism really call the whole work into question. This is a great shame because the horrors inflicted on the Ukrainian people throughout the Holodomor should be more widely known and should not be used to further the agendas of the old school cold warriors and their disciples in the culture wars.