COMMENTARY: Walter Duranty: liar for a cause (03/02/03)

COMMENTARY

Walter Duranty: liar for a cause

by Taras Hunczak

Reading about the tragic anniversary of the Great Famine and about Walter Duranty, it occurred to me that there had to be a reason for the duplicity in his reporting of the tragic Famine-Genocide that 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 that same year.

Reading the book was like travelling with Duranty to Moscow, where he became The New York Times correspondent in 1920. 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 World War 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 (adopted in 1929) 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 1932-1933 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 representative of the British 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 American readers, however, was considerably different. 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 USSR." (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, 140-144, 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." (p. 301)

What we see is a 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 (that 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)

So, who was this man, who was invited in July 1933 by Gov. 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: "Looking backwards over the 14 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 USSR is only just beginning to exercise its tremendous potentialities." (p. 340)

With such a political credo there could not have been any room in the reports filed by 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.

Dr. Taras Hunczak is professor of history at Rutgers University.

1. For details of the conversation see, Marco Carynnyk, Lubomyr Y. Luciuk and Bohdan s. Koradan, Eds., "The Foreign Office and the Famine: British Documents on Ukraine and the Great Famine of 1932-1933." Kingston, Ontario, 1988, pp. 309-313. [Back to Text]

2. Walter Duranty, "Russians Hungry, But Not Starving," The New York Times, March 31, 1933. [Back to Text]

3. The Foreign Office and the Famine." p. 204. [Back to Text]

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