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Duranty was born in Liverpool in 1884, spent a dissolute youth in France (in part as a disciple of Aleister Crowley), and then charmed his way onto the Times staff just as the Great War began. In 1921, he received the choice assignment to Moscow, where he remained for twenty years, winning a Pulitzer along the way.

He avoided reporting the famine in Ukraine as long as possible, discredited others’ reports (most notably Malcolm Muggeridge’s), and downplayed the extent of the catastrophe when he finally did report it. Why? Mrs. Taylor suggests that his Russian mistress and their son were in effect hostages to friendly coverage. But her account of Duranty’s character confirms that his instincts already leaned that way. Duranty was a charmer, a bit of a hedonist, and a confirmed elitist of the most insouciant sort. Given the choice between exposing the famine and losing the Soviet regime’s goodwill, and keeping the commissars happy so he could cover more “important” stories (the ongoing Communist experiment, the march to war), he chose the latter. Besides, far from thinking the regime’s role in the famine criminal (as he knew his readers in the West would), he thought the whole business a typical example of Slavic brutality—the fast track to industrialization.

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Duranty was born in Liverpool in 1884, spent a dissolute youth in France (in part as a disciple of Aleister Crowley), and then charmed his way onto the Times staff just as the Great War began. In 1921, he received the choice assignment to Moscow, where he remained for twenty years, winning a Pulitzer along the way.

He avoided reporting the famine in Ukraine as long as possible, discredited others’ reports (most notably Malcolm Muggeridge’s), and downplayed the extent of the catastrophe when he finally did report it. Why? Mrs. Taylor suggests that his Russian mistress and their son were in effect hostages to friendly coverage. But her account of Duranty’s character confirms that his instincts already leaned that way. Duranty was a charmer, a bit of a hedonist, and a confirmed elitist of the most insouciant sort. Given the choice between exposing the famine and losing the Soviet regime’s goodwill, and keeping the commissars happy so he could cover more “important” stories (the ongoing Communist experiment, the march to war), he chose the latter. Besides, far from thinking the regime’s role in the famine criminal (as he knew his readers in the West would), he thought the whole business a typical example of Slavic brutality—the fast track to industrialization.