From Library Journal
Conquest has a terrible story to tell. He examines Stalin's assault on the Soviet peasantry at the end of the 1920s and, in particular, his genocideno other word will doof the Ukrainian people in the human-made famine of 1932-33. His horrific details, drawn from Soviet as well as Western sources, lead Conquest to conclude that as many as 14.5 million died in the years 1930-37 as a result of Stalin's terror against the peasantry: five million came from the Ukraine alone. These facts, and the ghastly details behind them, are not widely known in the West. In addition, they are officially denied by the Soviets to this day. This account by a leading scholar should help to make the story better known. R.H. Johnston, History Dept., McMaster Univ . , Hamilton, OntarioCopyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
The Harvest of Sorrow is the first full history of one of the most horrendous human tragedies of the 20th century. Between 1929 and 1932 the Soviet Communist Party struck a double blow at the Russian peasantry: dekulakization, the dispossession and deportation of millions of peasant families, and collectivization, the abolition of private ownership of land and the concentration of the remaining peasants in party-controlled "collective" farms. This was followed in 1932-33 by a "terror-famine," inflicted by the State on the collectivized peasants of the Ukraine and certain other areas by setting impossibly high grain quotas, removing every other source of food, and preventing help from outside--even from other areas of the Soviet Union--from reaching the starving populace. The death toll resulting from the actions described in this book was an estimated 14.5 million--more than the total number of deaths for all countries in World War I. Ambitious, meticulously researched, and lucidly written, The Harvest of Sorrow is a deeply moving testament to those who died, and will register in the Western consciousness a sense of the dark side of this century's history.

ANNOTATION

Harvest of Sorrow sheds new light on a tragic episode in human history, and is essential for understanding the inner workings of the Soviet Union.

FROM THE PUBLISHER