Author Talks: Red Famine: Anne Applebaum with John Podhoretz

October 25, 2017

Viewing videos on NYPL.org requires Adobe Flash Player 9 or higher.

Get the Flash plugin from adobe.com

Embed

Copy the embed code below to add this video to your site, blog, or profile.

Pulitzer Prize–winning historian and Washington Post columnist Anne Applebaum returns with a revelatory history of one of Joseph Stalin's greatest crimes—the consequences of which still resonate today.

Red Famine CoverBetween 1931 and 1934, at least 5 million people died of hunger all across the Soviet Union. Over 3 million of them were Ukrainians. The grand humanitarian tragedy followed in the wake of Stalin’s launching in 1929 his policy of agricultural collectivization, which forced millions of peasants across the Soviet Union off of their land and onto collective farms.  The peasants resisted, producing less food, and then a drought piled on to the misery. The result was a catastrophic famine—the most lethal in European history.

Instead of sending relief, the Soviet state used the catastrophe as an opportunity to rid itself of a political problem. A series of rebellions in Ukraine had unsettled Stalin’s control over the region, and so he capitalized on the famine to eradicate the fractious peasantry and replace them with more cooperative Russian peasants. The state sealed the borders and seized all available food. Starvation set in, and people ate anything, in some cases killing one another for food.

Applebaum will speak with Commentary magazine editor John Podhoretz to detail this recently unearthed true story behind the millions of Ukrainian deaths, one not of bad policy but of deliberate murder. As the struggle between Russia and Ukraine over the latter’s independence remains in the global spotlight, this story of Stalin’s greatest, most heartless, and least known crimes against humanity takes on renewed significance.

Watch the live stream here.

FIRST COME, FIRST SEATED
For free events, we generally overbook to ensure a full house. Priority will be given to those who have registered in advance, but registration does not guarantee admission. All registered seats are released 15 minutes before start time, and seats may become available at that time. A stand by line will form one hour before the program.