Walter Duranty

Walter Duranty (1884–October 3, 1957) was a Liverpool-born British journalist who served as the New York Times Moscow bureau chief from 1922 through 1936. Year 1884 ( MDCCCLXXXIV) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year Events 42 BC - First Battle of Philippi: Triumvirs Mark Antony and Octavian fight an indecisive battle with Caesar's Year 1957 ( MCMLVII) was a Common year starting on Tuesday (link displays the 1957 Gregorian calendar) Liverpool ( is a City and Metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK or Britain,is a Sovereign state located Moscow (Москва́ romanised: Moskvá, IPA: see also other names) is the Capital and the largest city of Duranty won a Pulitzer Prize in 1932 for a set of stories written in 1931 on Joseph Stalin's Five-Year Plan to industrialize the Soviet Union. The Pulitzer Prize, ˈpʊlɨtsɚ PULL-it-sər is an American award regarded as the highest national honor in Newspaper journalism, Year 1932 ( MCMXXXII) was a Leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 Duranty's reporting has fallen into disrepute because of his highly favorable portrayal of Stalin, his denial of the Ukranian famine, and his uncritical coverage of Stalin's show trials. The Holodomor (Голодомор is the famine that took place in Soviet Ukraine during the 1932-1933 agricultural season The term show trial is a pejorative description of a type of highly Public trial.

Most recently, a 2003 report recommended that Duranty's Pulitzer Prize be revoked, and the Times itself has distanced itself from Duranty's work. ^[1] The Pulitzer Board ultimately declined to revoke the Prize, concluding that while Duranty's work fell far short of "today's standards for foreign reporting," there was "no clear and convincing evidence of deliberate deception. "^[2] This unsubstantiated claim has been disproven. ^[3]

Early career

After finishing college, Duranty moved to Paris. Paris (ˈpærɨs in English; in French) is the Capital of France and the country's largest city During the First World War, he avoided military service through his job as a reporter. World War I (abbreviated WWI; also known as the First World War, the Great War, and the War to End All In 1919, he gained initial notice from a story about the Paris Peace Conference. He then moved to Riga to cover events in the newly independent Baltic States. Riga (Rīga riːga) the Capital of Latvia, is situated on the Baltic Sea coast on the mouth of the river Daugava.

Career in Moscow

Duranty moved to the Soviet Union in 1921. He was sent there to revive the reputation of the Times in Moscow; the paper had erroneously reported the regime's collapse or imminent collapse on several occasions.

Travelling by train from Paris to Le Harve in 1924, the train wrecked and Duranty's left leg was injured. After he was initially operated on, the surgeon discovered gangrene in the leg, and the leg was removed. Please do not add warnings to this page about the pictures Wikipedia is not censored for taste and has a guideline preventing such warnings - WikipediaNo disclaimers in articles After recovery Duranty continued his career as a journalist in the Soviet Union. In 1929, he was granted an exclusive interview with Joseph Stalin which enhanced his reputation. Duranty was to remain in Moscow for twelve years, returning to the United States in 1934.

Views on the Soviet Union

In the reporting that won him the Pulitzer Prize, Duranty held that the Russian people were "Asiatic" in thought. That meant to him that they valued communal effort and required autocratic government. In his view, individuality and private enterprise were alien concepts to the Russian people which only led to social disruption, and were unacceptable to them just as tyranny and Communism were unacceptable to Westerners. Attempts since the time of Peter the Great to apply Western ideals in Russia were a failed form of European Colonialism that had been finally swept away by the 1917 Revolution. Russia (Россия Rossiya) or the Russian Federation ( Rossiyskaya Federatsiya) is a transcontinental Country extending See Colony and Colonization for examples of colonialism which do not refer to Western colonialism See also Russian Revolution (1905 The Russian Revolution of 1916 refers to a series of popular revolutions in Russia, and the events surrounding them Lenin and his New Economic Policy were both failures tainted by western thought. For the Malaysian New Economic Policy see Malaysian New Economic Policy. Duranty saw Stalin as getting rid of the New Economic Policy because he had no political competition. The famine demonstrated the lack of organized opposition to Stalin, because his position was never truly threatened by the catastrophe; Stalin's purges surely contributed to this political vacuum. Stalin did what Lenin could only try to do, “re-established a dictator of the imperial idea and put himself in charge” with means of intimidation. “Stalin didn’t look upon himself as a dictator, but as a ‘guardian of a sacred flame’ that he called Stalinism for lack of a better name. ” (Walter Duranty, Duranty Reports Russia (New York: Viking Press, 1934). Stalin’s five-year plan was an attempt to effect a new way of life for the Russian people.

Duranty argued that the Soviet Union’s mentality in 1931 greatly differed from the perception created by Marxist ideas. Duranty claimed “It would be more proper to refer to the principle present during the period of Stalin’s reign as Stalinism. ” (Walter Duranty, Duranty Reports Russia (New York: Viking Press, 1934),238. Stalinism in Duranty’s view is a progression and integration of Marxism combined with Leninism. In a June 24, 1931 article in the New York Times, Duranty gives his views of the Soviet actions in the countryside that eventually led to the famine in Ukraine. Events 972 - Battle of Cedynia, the first documented victory of Polish forces takes place Year 1931 ( MCMXXXI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1931 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Ukraine (Україна Ukrayina, /ukrɑˈjinɑ/ is a country in Eastern Europe. He described those who opposed collectivization of farming as an "almost privileged class" that had been created by mistake by Lenin. He said that the same logic that led to the overthrow of the Czarist regime must inevitably lead to the destruction of these people, whom he numbered at 5,000,000. Tsar csar and tzar redirect here For other uses see Tsar (disambiguation. He compared Stalin's logic in the matter to that of the Biblical Prophet Samuel or Tamerlane. Samuel ( Hebrew: שְׁמוּאֵל, Standard Šəmuʼel Tiberian Šəmûʼēl) is an important Timur also written Emir Timur or Amir Temur ( Chagatai: تیمور - Tēmōr " Iron " (1336 – 19 February 1405 among He said that these people had to be "liquidated or melted in the hot fire of exile and labor into the proletarian mass". Duranty claimed that the Siberian labor camps were a means of giving individuals a chance to rejoin Soviet society but also said that for those who could not accept the system, "the final fate of such enemies is death. A soviet (сове́т, "council" originally was a workers' local council in late Imperial Russia. ". Duranty, though describing the system as cruel, says he has "no brief for or against it, nor any purpose save to try to tell the truth". He ends the article with the claim that the brutal collectivization campaign which led to the famine was motivated by the "hope or promise of a subsequent raising up" of Asian-minded masses in the Soviet Union which only history could judge.

Rather than just repeating the Stalinist viewpoint, Duranty often admitted the brutality of the Stalinist system and then proceeded to both explain and defend why dictatorship or brutality were necessary. In addition, he repeated Soviet views as his own opinion, as if his 'observations' from Moscow had given him deeper insights into the country as a whole.

Stalin himself praised Duranty in 1933, saying that Duranty "(tried) to tell the truth about our country. "^[4]

Reporting the famine

Main articles: Holodomor and Denial of the Holodomor

In 1932, reports of famine in Ukraine started appearing from journalists such as Gareth Jones of The Times and Malcolm Muggeridge of The Guardian. The Holodomor (Голодомор is the famine that took place in Soviet Ukraine during the 1932-1933 agricultural season Denial of the Holodomor is the assertion that the 1933 famine claiming millions of lives in Soviet Ukraine, known today as the Holodomor, did not occur Gareth Richard Vaughan Jones (13 August 1905 Barry &ndash 12 August 1935, Inner Mongolia) was a Welsh Journalist who The Times is a daily national Newspaper published in the United Kingdom since 1785 when it was known as The Daily Universal Register. Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge ( Croydon, England 24 March 1903 &ndash 14 November 1990) was a British Journalist The Guardian (until 1959 The Manchester Guardian) is a British Newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. Both men defied travel restrictions and secretly went to view conditions in Ukraine. In the spring of 1933, Jones left the Soviet Union and reported the famine under his own name in the Manchester Guardian. Around the same time, six British citizens were arrested on charges of industrial espionage. On March 31, 1933, Walter Duranty denounced the famine stories and Gareth Jones in the New York Times. Events 307 - After divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine marries Fausta, the daughter of the retired Roman Emperor Year 1933 ( MCMXXXIII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. In the piece, he described the situation under the title "Russians Hungry, But Not Starving" as follows: "In the middle of the diplomatic duel between Great Britain and the Soviet Union over the accused British engineers, there appears from a British source a big scare story in the American press about famine in the Soviet Union, with 'thousands already dead and millions menaced by death from starvation. "

English journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, who had secretly been in Ukraine for The Guardian, later called Duranty "the greatest liar I have met in journalism. Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge ( Croydon, England 24 March 1903 &ndash 14 November 1990) was a British Journalist The Guardian (until 1959 The Manchester Guardian) is a British Newspaper owned by the Guardian Media Group. " But while Gareth Jones had published his articles under his own name, the Muggeridge articles were published in the Guardian without Muggeridge's name on them. Neither Muggeridge nor any other member of the press establishment covering the Soviet Union came to the public defense of Gareth Jones. And while Jones wrote letters supporting the unattributed articles in the Guardian, Muggeridge did not write similar articles to the New York Times supporting Jones.

In his New York Times articles (including one published on March 31, 1933), Duranty repeatedly denied the existence of a Ukrainian famine in 1932–33. Events 307 - After divorcing his wife Minervina, Constantine marries Fausta, the daughter of the retired Roman Emperor Year 1933 ( MCMXXXIII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. The Holodomor (Голодомор is the famine that took place in Soviet Ukraine during the 1932-1933 agricultural season In a August 24, 1933 article in NYT, he claimed "any report of a famine is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda", but admitted privately to William Strang (in the British Embassy in Moscow on September 26, 1933) that "it is quite possible that as many as ten million people may have died directly or indirectly from lack of food in the Soviet Union during the past year. Events 49 BC - Julius Caesar 's General Gaius Scribonius Curio is defeated in the Second Battle of the Bagradas River Year 1933 ( MCMXXXIII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Events 46 BC - Julius Caesar dedicates a Year 1933 ( MCMXXXIII) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. " [1]

The duel in the press over the famine stories came at the same time as sensitive negotiations over establishing diplomatic relations between the United States and the Soviet Union. After relations were established in November 1933, a dinner was given for Soviet Foreign Minister Maxim Litvinov in New York's Waldorf Astoria Hotel. Maxim Maximovich Litvinov (Макси́м Макси́мович Литви́нов) ( July 17, 1876 &ndash December 31, 1951) was a Russian Walter Duranty was given such a prominent role in the dinner that Alexander Woollcott wrote, "Indeed, one quite got the impression that America, in a spasm of discernment, was recognizing both Russia and Walter Duranty. Alexander Humphreys Woollcott ( January 19, 1887 &ndash January 23, 1943) was an American critic and commentator for The New Yorker "

Later career

Duranty left Moscow in 1934. Later in that same year, he visited the White House in the company of Soviet Officials including Litvinov. He continued as a special correspondent for the New York Times through 1940.

He wrote several books on the Soviet Union after 1940. He died in Florida in 1957.

Scholarship on Duranty's work

Duranty's work on the Soviet Union was done at a time when many respected it and its leadership. The Soviet Union's participation in the League of Nations was viewed optimistically. Even into WWII Joseph E. World War II, or the Second World War, (often abbreviated WWII) was a global military conflict which involved a majority of the world's nations, including Davies, U. S. ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1936—1941, positively represented both "Russia and its people in their gallant struggle to preserve the peace until ruthless aggression made war inevitable" and Stalin as a "decent and clean-living" man and "a great leader. Year 1936 ( MCMXXXVI) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar. Year 1941 ( MCMXLI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (the link will display 1941 calendar of the Gregorian calendar. "^[5]

Many reporters of Duranty's time slanted their coverage of the Soviet Union, either because the capitalist world was sinking under the weight of the Great Depression or out of fear of expulsion. Also, many editors found it hard to believe a state would deliberately starve millions of its own people. However, even with this to consider, Duranty's reports were the source of much frustration from Times readers during 1932, as his reports directly contradicted the paper's own editorial page. ^[4]

While Duranty has been criticized more generally for defering to Joseph Stalin's and the Soviet Union's official propaganda rather than reporting news from Moscow, the major controversy regarding his work is his reporting on the the great famine of 1932—1933. Joseph Stalin ( ნამდვილი გვარი ჯუღაშვილი|Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; March 5 1953 was General Secretary of the Communist Party The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR was a constitutionally Socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991 Propaganda is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of large numbers of people Since the 1970's, Duranty's work has come under increasingly harsh fire for reporting there was no famine even while it was clear from his personal exchanges that he was fully aware of the scale of the calamity.

• Robert Conquest has written several books, starting in the 1970s including The Great Terror and Harvest of Sorrow which have been critical of Duranty's reporting from the Soviet Union. Dr George Robert Ackworth Conquest (born July 15 1917) British Historian, became a well known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union

• Sally J. Taylor wrote a book in 1990 called Stalin's Apologist: Walter Duranty: The New York Times's Man in Moscow (ISBN 0-19-505700-7). In a review of Taylor's book, Mark Y. Herring characterized Duranty as "the number one Useful Idiot for Lenin first, and later or Stalin. In political Jargon, the term " useful idiot " was used to describe Soviet sympathizers in western countries and the alleged attitude ^[6]

• Political commentators such as Joe Alsop and Andrew Stuttaford have criticized Duranty. Joseph Wright Alsop V ( October 11, 1910 &ndash August 28, 1989) was an American journalist and syndicated newspaper columnist from ^[7]

• American engineer Zara Witkin (who worked in the USSR from 1932 to 1934) and UK intelligence have shown that Duranty knowingly misrepresented the famine.

Duranty has also been retrospectively criticized for defending Stalin's notorious show trials. The Moscow Trials were a series of trials of political opponents of Joseph Stalin during the Great Purge.

Calls for revocation of Pulitzer Prize

Criticism of Duranty's reporting on the famine led to a move to posthumously and symbolically strip him of his Pulitzer award he garnered in 1932, the year of the famine. (The Pulitzer in question did not involve the famine. ) In response to Taylor's book, the Times assigned a member of its editorial board, Karl Meyer, to write a signed editorial regarding Duranty's work. In a scathing piece, Meyer said that Duranty's articles were "some of the worst reporting to appear in this newspaper. " Duranty, Meyer said, had bet his career on Stalin's rise and "strove to preserve it by ignoring or excusing Stalin's crimes. "^[4] Four years earlier, in a review of Robert Conquest's The Harvest of Sorrow, former Moscow bureau reporter Craig Whitney wrote that Duranty all but ignored the famine until it was almost over. Dr George Robert Ackworth Conquest (born July 15 1917) British Historian, became a well known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union ^[1]

In 2003, after the Pulitzer Board began a renewed inquiry, the Times hired Mark Von Hagen, professor of Russian history at Columbia University, to review Duranty's work. Columbia University is a private University in the United States and a member of the Ivy League. Von Hagen found Duranty's reports to be unbalanced and uncritical, and that they far too often gave voice to Stalinist propaganda. Stalinism is the political regime named after Joseph Stalin, leader of the Soviet Union from 1929–1953 Propaganda is a concerted set of messages aimed at influencing the opinions or behaviors of large numbers of people In comments to the press he stated, "For the sake of The New York Times' honor, they should take the prize away. "^[8] The Times sent Von Hagen's report to the Pulitzer Board and left it to the Board to take whatever action they considered appropriate. ^[9] In a letter accompanying the report, Times publisher Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr. called Duranty's work "slovenly" and said it "should have been recognized for what it was by his editors and by his Pulitzer judges seven decades ago. Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr (born 22 September 1951) became the Publisher of The New York Times in 1992 and Chairman of " However, he said that revoking the award would be reminiscent of the Soviet practice of "airbrushing" history. ^[1]

Ultimately, the board decided not to rescind the award. In order to take such a step after so many years, the board said, there would have to be evidence of deliberate malpractice and deception on Duranty's part.

See also

• Lion Feuchtwanger
• Louis Fischer
• Gareth Jones (journalist)
• Malcolm Muggeridge

External links

Pulitzer Prize Articles by Walter Duranty

• "Red Russia of Today Ruled by Stalinism, Not Communism"
• "Socialism First Aim in Soviet's Program; Trade Gains Second"
• "Stalinism Shelves World Revolt Idea; To Win Russia First"
• "Industrial Success Emboldens Soviet in New World Policy"
• "Trade Equilibrium is New Soviet Goal"
• "Soviet Fixes Opinion by Widest Control"
• "Soviet Censorship Hurts Russia Most"
• "Stalinism Smashes Foes in Marx's Name"
• "Red Army is Held No Menace to Peace"
• "Stalinism Solving Minorities Problem"
• "Stalinism's Mark is Party Discipline"
• "The Russian Looks at the World"
• "Stalin's Russia Is An Echo of Iron Ivan's"

Books

(chronological)

• The Curious Lottery and Other Tales of Russian Justice. Lion Feuchtwanger (pseudonym JL Wetcheek) ( 7 July 1884 - 21 December 1958) was a German - Jewish Novelist Louis Fischer ( 29 February 1896 &ndash 15 January 1970) was a Jewish-American journalist Gareth Richard Vaughan Jones (13 August 1905 Barry &ndash 12 August 1935, Inner Mongolia) was a Welsh Journalist who Thomas Malcolm Muggeridge ( Croydon, England 24 March 1903 &ndash 14 November 1990) was a British Journalist New York: Coward-McCann, 1929
• Red Economics. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1932
• Duranty Reports Russia. New York: The Viking Press, 1934
• I Write As I Please. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1935
• Europe—War or Peace? World Affairs Pamphlets No. 7. New York: Foreign Policy Association and Boston: World Peace Foundation, 1935.
• One Life, One Kopeck—A Novel. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1937
• Babies Without Tails, Stories by Walter Duranty. New York: Modern Age Books, 1937
• The Kremlin and the People. New York: Reynal & Hitchcock, 1941
• USSR: The Story of Soviet Russia. New York: J. B. Lippincott Company, 1944
• Stalin & Co. : The Politburo, The Men Who Run Russia. New York: W. Sloane Associates, 1949

Periodicals

(contributor)

• ASIA Magazine, Volume XXXV, Number 11; November, 1935
• ASIA Magazine, Volume XXXVI, Number 2; February, 1936
• Redbook; March, 1928

Literary Awards

(other than Pulitzer)

• O. Henry Awards, First Prize, 1928, for "The Parrot", appearing in Redbook, March 1928

References

• Muggeridge, Malcolm Winter in Moscow (1934)
• Conquest, Robert The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties (1968)
• Conquest, Robert, The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine (1986)
• Crowl, James W. Angels in Stalin's Paradise: Western Reporters in Soviet Russia, 1917-1937; A Case Study of Louis Fischer and Walter Duranty. Washington, D. C. : The University of America Press (1981), ISBN 0-8191-2185-1
• Taylor, Sally J. Stalin's Apologist: Walter Duranty : The New York Times Man in Moscow. Oxford University Press (1990), ISBN 0-19-505700-7

The Pulitzer Prize Controversy

• The section of articles regarding the campaign to revoke Walter Duranty's 1932 Pulitzer Prize
• The Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain — Duranty Protest Site
• The Ukrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association (UCCLA) - W.Duranty Protest
• Ukrainian Congress Committee of America official site about Walter Duranty and Holodomor
• Zara Witkin's memoir of Soviet Russia, see pages 208-210
• Pulitzer Prize Board Statement on Walter Duranty's 1932 Prize
• Markian Pelech, "Critique of Sigvard Gissler's Statement on Walter Duranty's 1932 Pulitzer Prize"
• New York Times Statement About 1932 Pulitzer Prize Awarded to Walter Duranty
• Markian Pelech, "Walter Duranty's 1932 Pulitzer Prize Invalidated. The Pulitzer Board set the Standard"
• 2003 Observer article, "Ukrainians want pro-Stalin writer stripped of Pulitzer".

Notes