Red Famine

Stalin's War on Ukraine

By: Anne Applebaum

Narrated by: Suzanne Toren

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 compulsive narrative recalls one of the worst crimes of the 20th century and shows how it may foreshadow a new threat to the political order in the 21st.

©2017 Anne Applebaum (P)2017 Random House Audio

A Masterpiece of Historical Work!

What an absolutely timely publication this was as we consider the tragic, yet typical in the history of Ukraine over the centuries, invasion by the Russian forces under the leadership of 'dictator' Putin. To be clear, the current invasion was not the focus of the book nor mentioned until the last chapter; however, the author weaves an incredibly well-researched and presented tome of materials that demonstrate that Ukraine has taken a beating through its tumultuous history by focusing on the period that eventually constituted the Holodomor of 1932-33 under the knuckles of Josef Stalin. True to form, the Soviet system had no room for nationalism or independent-thinking peoples within its realm directly after the Bolshevik Revolution (1917), nor under the reigns of Stalin who strong-armed and murdered his way to the top spot, and by his hand, single-handedly forced a famine of biblical nature upon the Ukrainian people that lead to one of the greatest human tragedies of all time.

This book should cement in the minds of readers why the ideology of Marxism has laid waste to more nations and peoples than at any other time in history through the abuse of power, reckless policies, and absolute inhumanity. To be fair, all governments are corrupt at some level, it's just that Marxism defines the term to a fine point. Any serious reader will come to vividly understand through this exceptional work the nature of how the 'State and Party' under Marxism will control all aspects of property, living standards, and who gets to live and die; there are no exceptions under the ideology...period! What is revealed within the pages is a horrific reflection of the worst of humanity in unabashed detail - and it is important to provide those details regardless of how provoking they may be taken. We must learn from these details the tell-tale signs of such madness and vow to limit the repetition of such atrocities even though we have signs and accounts that China is doing just that in the name of 'State and Party' against undesirables known as the Uighurs.

What's more, and of major concern for those that have ears to hear, the same language used by Stalin and his cohorts of destruction during this time, specific terms such as Nationalist/Nationalism to associate peasants with counter-revolutionary or treasonist activity, and even the use of Nazi and Fascist to identify undesirables within the peasantry, is in circulation today among Leftist elites and disciples of all stripes to control political narratives worldwide. We hear the exact same terminology used to describe Conservatives on the Right in the United States. (Note: let us remember that Nazis and Fascists were also on the Left even though modern interpretations put them on the Right, which is diametrically impossible as they were all based upon Socialist frameworks - it's just that each of these political entities was in direct conflict with each other within an ideological power struggle.)

Please, pick up the book or the audiobook, and learn from history!

Long but worth it.

if you are looking for a quick history of the Ukrainian famine that claimed upwards of 4 million people, this isn't your book. Rather. this is a well researched and detailed, with many primary sourced accounts of the man made 1930's disaster. My only issue is keeping straight all the key players, only due to the fact that i have no background in Russian or Ukrainian. but that shouldn't stop you from reading.

Very detailed description of a tragic event.

The Ukraine Genocide depicts how far human evil can go in order to sustain a bad idea, like Communism.

Important book!

This was very well written and researched. Such an important story to be told! We need to know the dangers of totalitarian attempts to silence such crimes against humanity.

history reviled,

I drew Many parallels to the common dahmedei tactics of Communist society. I'm adding words too meet these minimum requirements

Mass starvation of the Ukrainian Peasants

Thoroughly researched book on the Holodomor and the suffering and mass starvation of the Ukrainian peasants at the hands of Stalin and the Soviet cover up of this tragedy. I didn’t really know much about the Holodomor and Applebaum’s book uses survivors accounts, diaries, foreign witnesses to describe the horrors that were perpetrated against the Ukrainian peasants by the Soviet authorities. They knowingly starved to death millions of people and purposely sent grains that they harvested to the rest of the Soviet Union and even abroad to foreign countries.

A masterpiece for our age

Well written, well performed and an excellent account of only one chapter of Russian aggression against their neighbours.
I can highly recommend to those new to this era and region.

Compelling history

Applebaum is an excellent storyteller and here sje is at her best. Highly recommended reading.

interesting discussion

I was always curious about the nuances of communism and how it used the prejudices of others to ultimately kill off those whose prejudices were previously useful.

This is a good explanation of that.

So Much Terror!

Anyone that wants to learn why socialist Marksist ideas always lead to mass murder needs to read this book. Very well written.