Mass Murder

Ryszard writes about the peoples of the Soviet Imperium to explain who they are and to document their suffering. The suffering comes in many forms and shockingly, mass murder was regularly imposed upon them. The theme of mass death pervades the book from descriptions of death in the gulag, to the forced famine in the Ukraine, to the repression of clergy, middle-class peasants, and anyone who opposed Stalin.

Perhaps the worst example of mass murder was the collectivization of farming in the Ukraine in the late 1930s. Stalin required that the Ukraine meet food production quotas that were wholly beyond their abilities. Consequently, many not only starved but were murdered by the Soviets when they failed to meet the quotas. The events of the Ukrainian genocide probably led to between three and five million deaths in a single year. Other examples of mass death occur in the...