Book Review

Book Review Red Famine

By ANNE APPLEBAUM Reviewed by Eric J. Taylor, Esquire

When Russia attacked Ukraine in February 2022, I was largely uninformed about that country. Although I have traveled and lived abroad, including different countries in Europe and Asia, I regrettably knew little about Ukraine. I could not have located the Baltic nation on an unlabeled map before February 2022.

But following the invasion, I tried to learn more about Ukraine. In doing so, I read the 2017 book Red Famine by Anne Applebaum. The book’s focus is on a famine in the early 1930s that was worsened by the USSR and caused millions of deaths in Ukraine. I learned about the Holodomor, which is similar, both in spelling and tragedy, to the Holocaust. Holodomor comes from the Ukrainian language: ‘holod’ means ‘hunger’ and ‘mor’ means ‘extermination’. At first glance, the word instantly reminded me of ‘Holocaust’. Sadly, the two tragedies are similar in that both saw millions of people killed by government action and/or inaction. As the Holocaust was a genocide, Ms. Applebaum argues that the Holodomor was a genocide against the Ukrainian people.

Red Famine focuses on the Holodomor and how Russia, with Joseph Stalin as its leader, exacerbated the famine, which resulted in millions of Ukrainian deaths. She concedes that this same famine affected other areas of Russia, which also resulted in many deaths.1 However, Ms. Applebaum contends that those in Ukraine suffered far more than the rest of Russia and that there were more casualties within Ukraine because of conscious decisions made by the Kremlin. The book also dealt with Russia’s animosity towards an independent Ukraine during the 20th Century.

Prior to the 1900s, Ukraine primarily had been a part of larger empires – mostly Russian, but at times Poland as well. Shortly after the downfall of the Russian Czars, the Ukrainians had a brief period where the country was finally autonomous and free of foreign powers. However, this did not last long, as Russia again forcibly brought Ukraine back under its yoke.

In the 1920s, Ukraine suffered through a famine, though it was not nearly as severe as the one that followed. In part, this was because the Russians allowed word of the famine to spread beyond Ukraine’s borders. When foreign nations responded with aid to ease the famine, Russia permitted the assistance from other countries.

Ten years later, the Russia government, led by Stalin, learned from its handling of this first famine. The author’s premise is that the Russian government took deliberate actions that worsened the suffering and increased the death toll. Applebaum contends Stalin weaponized starvation to snuff out any viable effort to restore Ukrainian independence. Some of these decisions included seizing Ukrainian food and exporting it abroad, leaving Ukrainians to starve.2 Id. at 161-63, 177, 191. Other government decisions included requisitioning food to fill its quotas of food exports, prohibiting collective farms, and even entire towns, from trading and receiving supplies, and sealing Ukraine’s border, so that those seeking to escape the famine could not migrate out of the country. Id. at 191, 194-95, 202-03.

Fortunately, I have never experienced not knowing where my next meal would come from, but I have witnessed and worked with hungry people. Through the Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in my church, I have volunteered in soup kitchens in Reading to distribute food. Over 20 years ago, when I lived in Thailand, I worked in refugee camps for people from Myanmar fleeing their country. In one of these refugee camps, the non-governmental organization I worked for was responsible for distributing food to the refugees. This food was dispensed in weekly portions, which were modest enough that they could be given in small containers.

But I have never seen, and can’t recall even reading about, hunger and starvation to the degree depicted in Red Famine. Survivors of the Holodomor related that there were so many human corpses that they laid along roads, as there were more dead bodies than living people to move them. Id. at 243. There were multiple reports of parents murdering their children because the parents could not feed them. Id. at 249. One episode was of children who refused to provide their father some of the scant food they had scavenged, and their father died. Id. at 252-53. The most appalling accounts were of cannibalism – including parents and grandparents killing and eating their own descendants. Id. at 256-57, 259.

While these horrifying narratives of food deprivation are personally disturbing, as a magisterial district judge, the reports of the USSR’s many ‘show trials’ were professionally troubling. One of the checks and balances in our democratic government is an independent and free judiciary. However, in dictatorial governments, the courts are often just a tool of the governing regime. Red Famine provided several examples of how judges were just an extension of Stalin and his cronies. One example was when the government decided to blame certain people for the country’s insufficient industrial progress. Id. at 96-97. These defendants were accused of collaborating with foreign powers and working against the USSR. Id. at 97. Five of them were sentenced to death, and the other 44 were imprisoned. Id. A few years later, the government once again blamed its policy failures, including its failure to meet its own quotas of grain exports, on a group of scapegoats, accusing them of, inter alia, sabotage. Id. at 166-67. These ‘trials’ and predetermined convictions are anathema to a free society, and as a magisterial district judge, I have thankfully never experienced our government dictating how I am to decide any cases.

RED FAMINE’S FOREWARNING

Although written five years before Russian President Vladimir Putin launched his invasion, in some ways Ms. Applebaum anticipated Russia’s aggression in Ukraine. Near the end of Red Famine, she wrote that “today’s Russian government uses disinformation, corruption, and miliary force to undermine Ukrainian sovereignty just as Soviet governments did in the past.” Id. at 359. Vladimir Putin claimed that he attacked Ukraine because Russia’s security was compromised and to “de-Nazify Ukraine” 3, which has resulted in the displacement of millions of people. Paul Kirby, Why has Russia invaded Ukraine and what does Putin want?, British Broadcasting Corporation News, (May 9, 2022).

This military invasion has also disrupted Ukraine’s ability to export food, triggering startling food shortages and skyrocketing food prices. Kelvin Chan & Paul Wiseman, EXPLAINER: How did Russia-Ukraine war trigger a food crisis?, Associated Press News, (June 18, 2022). Even worse, Russia has confiscated food from Ukrainians and brought it back into Russia. Nick Beake et al., Tracking where Russia is taking Ukraine’s stolen grain, British Broadcasting Corporation News.

Russia seizing Ukraine’s food supply is exactly what happened in Red Famine, where 90 years ago a Russian, communist dictator took food from Ukraine to maintain political power and crush dissent. Once again, history is repeating itself. I foresee that there will continue to be food shortages and famines in countries because of Putin’s war in Ukraine. I also think that, a few months from now, Ukrainians will go hungry because the Russian government has once more deprived Ukrainians of food grown in Ukrainian soil. Hopefully the rest of the world will continue to assist Ukraine so that the nation will not needlessly suffer through another Holodomor.

Mr. Taylor is a Magisterial District Judge serving West Reading and Wyomissing.

1 The Great Depression happened during the same time and affected many, if not every, country. 2 This reminded me of the Irish Potato Famine in the mid-19th Century, where the English shipped food out of Ireland while the Irish were starving. 3 For a more thorough look at Russia’s reasons for its current war with Ukraine, see Douglas S. Wortman, Esquire, Putin’s Delusions, Ambitions Driving War with Ukraine, THE BERKS BARRISTER, Summer 2022, at 10-15.