While we’re on the topic of Communism and mass murder, it’s worth noting that the House of Representatives yesterday passed a resolution yesterday marking the 70th anniversary of Stalin’s famine in the Ukraine, correctly noting that “this man-made famine was designed and implemented by the Soviet regime as a deliberate act of terror and mass murder against the Ukrainian people.” The preamble notes that “New York Times correspondent Walter Duranty, who was awarded a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for his reporting from the Soviet Union, knowingly and deliberately falsified their reports to cover up and refute evidence of the famine in order to suppress criticism of the Soviet regime.”
So he did – and yet he still has his Pulitzer.
There’s praise by implication for the non-Durantys, “the Western observers and scholars who reported accurately on the existence of the famine [and]were subjected to disparagement and criticism in the West for their reporting of the famine.” Malcolm Muggeridge is perhaps the best known of these, but it’s also worth remembering the efforts of another, too long neglected figure, the Welsh journalist Gareth Jones.