Winner of the Duff Cooper and Lionel Gelber prizesIn 1932-33, nearly four million Ukrainians died of starvation, havingbeen deliberately deprived of food. It is one of the most devastatingepisodes in the history of the twentieth century. With unprecedentedauthority and detail, Red Famine investigates how this happened,who was responsible, and what the consequences were. It is the fullestaccount yet published of these terrible events.The book draws ona mass of archival material and first-hand testimony only availablesince the end of the Soviet Union, as well as the work of Ukrainianscholars all over the world. It includes accounts of the famine by thosewho survived it, describing what human beings can do when driven mad byhunger. It shows how the Soviet state ruthlessly used propaganda toturn neighbours against each other in order to expunge supposedly'anti-revolutionary' elements. It also records the actions ofextraordinary individuals who did all they could to relieve thesuffering.The famine was rapidly followed by an attack onUkraine's cultural and political leadership - and then by a denial thatit had ever happened at all. Census reports were falsified and memorysuppressed. Some western journalists shamelessly swallowed the Sovietline; others bravely rejected it, and were undermined and harassed. TheSoviet authorities were determined not only that Ukraine should abandonits national aspirations, but that the country's true history should beburied along with its millions of victims. Red Famine, a triumphof scholarship and human sympathy, is a milestone in the recovery ofthose memories and that history. At a moment of crisis between Russiaand Ukraine, it also shows how far the present is shaped by the past.