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Taras Hunczak, a professor of history at Rutgers University, wrote
an article about the famous New York Times reporter, Walter Duranty,
that appeared in The Ukrainian Weekly newspaper, published in
Parsippany, New Jersey March 2, 2003. The article by Professor Taras
Hunczak follows:
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Reading about the tragic anniversary of Famine and about Duranty it occurred
to me that there had to be a reason for his duplicity in his reporting of
the tragic Famine-Genocide which claimed millions of innocent lives. To
learn more about him I read his book I WRITE AS I PLEASE, a book he
finished writing in 1935 and Simon and Schuster published it in the same
year.
Reading the book was like travelling with Duranty to Moscow, where he became
the New York Times Correspondent in 1920, and listening to his discussions
with his friends and various governmental representatives, one gets a clear
picture of who the man really was.
The book is a memoir of Duranty's experiences as a journalist beginning
with WW I and ending in 1935. His experiences deal primarily, though not
exclusively, with the Soviet Union, which for him, is Russia. He recounts
his numerous journeys to various countries, particularly to France where, as
a result of a train disaster in 1924 he lost his foot.
Duranty tells the reader that as a journalist he tried, from the very
beginning "to lean over backwards in being fair to the Bolsheviks." Indeed,
he pursued this line of reasoning so consistently as to become, ultimately,
the apologist for the crimes committed by the Communist Party. Duranty was
a great admirer of the first Five-Year Plan which, according to him,
"succeeded far better than anyone abroad expected." Discussing the plan, he
says that in "the final issue the crux of the struggle came in the villages
where an attempt was being made to socialize, virtually overnight, a hundred
million of the stubbornnest and most ignorant peasants in the world." One
should note that Duranty does not speak about collectivization. To him
"socialization" is a much more acceptable term. Also, in the best Bolshevik
tradition, Duranty refers to the peasants who resisted collectivization as
"kulaks".(pp.280-283).
A reader, who is familiar with the period, would note that there is not one
word about the 1931933 Famine in Ukraine. He reports that on his way to
Moscow he stopped in Ukraine where he observed " less evidence of
damage,[damage from what? T.H.] but there were empty cottages in the
villages that are usually so crowded, and marked scarcity of animals and
poultry". (p.324).
Surely, he knew why the cottages were empty. Talking with William Strang, a
British Representative of the Foreign Office, about the same trip to Ukraine
Duranty not only discussed the problems (privately) in some detail, but
expressed the opinion "that as many as 10 million people may have died
directly or indirectly from lack of food in the Soviet Union during the past
year".1 His report to the American readers, however, sounded considerably
differently. Obviously, responding to a request for a clarification of the
situation, Duranty responded that "there is no actual starvation or deaths
from starvation, but there is widespread mortality from diseases due to
malnutrition".2
No wonder Stalin, whom Duranty met on Christmas day in 1933, expressed his
approval of Duranty's performance when he said to Duranty "You have done a
good job in your reporting of the U.S.S.R."(p.166). Was that kind of
reporting the basis of the Pulitzer Prize or was it the close relation of
Duranty with Herbert Pulitzer, the son of Joseph Pulitzer, in whose name the
Award was established in 1917? (pp. 74,140-44,148).
What explains Duranty's attitude, and therefore his reporting to the
American people, is his obsession with the question of "whether the Soviet
drive to Socialism is or is not successful irrespective of costs. I say to
myself, he continued, I saw the War and that cost was worse and greater and
the result in terms of human happiness was nil..Here at least it seems the
results are better in that the Russian peasant who.will within five years or
less benefit enormously from being forced to accept a modern form of
agriculture instead of the wasteful clumsy methods which he and grandfather
and great-grandfather have followed since the days of Ham".(p301)
What we see is the frequently recurring theme in Duranty's writing, that
"the end justifies the means"(pp.167,287,314, 315). But what is important
to note is that the "end", which met with Duranty's approval, represented,
for the most part, the policies of the Bolshevik regime. He was very
enthusiastic about the Five-Year Plan (which launched collectivization),
referring to those who implemented it as "the most determined and vital
elements of the Soviet people united in support of their strong and resolute
leadership."(pp.315-316) In Duranty's narrative there is an understated
recognition that there were some problems in agriculture, but he says that
what impressed him most was the fact "that there was no sign of faltering
on the part of the Kremlin".(p.322)
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So, who was this man, who was invited in July 1933 by Governor Franklin D.
Roosevelt, a Democratic candidate for President to a luncheon? The question
is not irrelevant when we consider that only four months later, on November
16, 1933, Roosevelt, the newly elected President, recognized the Soviet
Union. Was Duranty, as some Britishers thought,. "in the pay of the Soviet
Government"3 or was he a willing convert? At the end of his book Duranty
reveals his true political and moral identity when he says:
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"Looking backwards over the fourteen years I have spent in Russia, I cannot
escape the conclusion that this period has been a heroic chapter in the life
of Humanity. During these years the first true Socialist State, with all
that that implies in planned economy, in the ownership of production and
means of production, in communal effort and in communal pride and interest
in everything that the community rather than the individual accomplished,
was constructed and set moving despite incredible difficulties. I am
profoundly convinced that the U.S.S.R. is only just beginning to exercise
its tremendous potentialities."(340)
With such political CREDO there could not have been any room in the reports
of Duranty about the Famine-Genocide of 1932-1933, about political
terrorism, concentration camps and mass murder. Practicing what he believed
in, Duranty reported from Moscow about "progress" under communism, deceiving
the American people about the tragedy of millions who perished under the
totalitarian system and, perhaps, misleading the Roosevelt Administration
into recognizing the Communist regime in 1933-the worst possible time. If
that was the case, Duranty achieved his objective, having created and
successfully propagated the image of progressive Soviet society, and for
that he received his Pulitzer Prize.
After all, he was a liar for a cause.
1 For details of the conversation see, Marco Carynnyk, Lubomyr Y. Luciuk
and Bohdan S. Kordan, Eds., THE FOREIGN OFFICE AND THE FAMINE:
British Documents on Ukraine and the Great Famine of 1932-1933. Kingston,
Ontario, 1988, pp.309--313
2 Walter Duranty, "Russians Hungry, But Not Starving," The New York Times,
March 31, 1933.
3 THE FOREIGN OFFICE AND THE FAMINE, p.204.
The Ukrainian Weekly, March 2, 2003, Roma Hadzewycz, Editor-In-Chief,
The Ukrainian National Association, Parsippany, New Jersey
The Ukrainian Weekly Archive: www.ukrweekly.com
For personal and academic use only.
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