Walter Duranty

Walter Duranty
1919 photo
Born	(1884-05-25)25 May 1884 Liverpool,England
Died	3 October 1957(1957-10-03)(aged 73) Orlando, Florida,U.S.
Alma mater	Emmanuel College, Cambridge
Occupation	Journalist

Walter Duranty(25 May 1884 – 3 October 1957) was an Anglo-American journalist who served asMoscowbureau chief ofThe New York Timesfor fourteen years (1922–1936) following theBolshevikvictory in theRussian Civil War(1917–1923).

In 1932, Duranty received aPulitzer Prizefor a series of reports about theSoviet Union,eleven of which were published in June 1931. He was later criticized for his subsequentdenial ofthewidespread famine (1930–1933) in the USSR,most particularly theHolodomor.Beginning in 1990, there were calls for the Pulitzer board to revoke Duranty's prize. The Pulitzer Board declined to revoke the award and in 2003 said the articles which it examined in making the award did not contain "clear and convincing evidence of deliberate deception".

Early life and career

Duranty was born in a middle-classMerseysidefamily to Emmeline (née Hutchins) and William Steel Duranty. His grandparents had moved toBirkenhead,on theWirral PeninsulainCheshire,from theWest Indiesin 1842 and established a successful merchant business in which his father worked. He studied atHarrow,one of Britain's most prestigious public schools, but a sudden collapse in the family business led to a transfer toBedford School.Nevertheless, he gained a scholarship to study atEmmanuel College, Cambridge,where he graduated with afirst-class degree.

After completing his education, Duranty moved toParis,where he metAleister Crowleyand participated in magic rituals with him. Duranty became involved in a relationship with Crowley's mistress, Jane Cheron, and eventually married her.

InMagick Without Tears,Crowley terms Duranty "my old friend" and quotes from Duranty's book,I Write as I Please.

DuringWorld War I,Duranty worked as a reporter forThe New York Times.A story Duranty filed about theParis Peace Conference of 1919gained him wider notice as a journalist. He moved toRiga,Latvia,to cover events in the newly independentBaltic states.

Career in Moscow

Duranty moved to theSoviet Unionin 1921. On holiday in France in 1924, his left leg was injured in a train wreck. After an operation, the surgeon discoveredgangreneand amputated the leg.Once he had recovered, Duranty returned to the Soviet Union.

During theNew Economic Policy,which implemented amixed economy,Duranty's articles failed to draw widespread attention. After the advent of thefirst five-year plan(1928–1933), which aimed to transform Soviet industry and agriculture, however, he was granted an exclusive interview withJoseph Stalinthat greatly enhanced his reputation as a journalist. Duranty remained in Moscow for twelve years.

After settling in the United States in 1934, Duranty was placed onretainerwithThe New York Times,the terms of which required him to spend several months a year inMoscow.In this capacity, he reported on theshow trialsof Stalin's political opponents in 1936–1938.

Views on the Soviet Union

In the 1931 series of reports for which he received the 1932Pulitzer Prize for Correspondence,Duranty argued that the Russian people were "Asiatic"in thought, valuing communal effort and requiringautocratic government.He claimed that they viewedindividualityandprivate enterpriseas alien concepts that led to social disruption and were just as unacceptable to them astyrannyandcommunismwere unacceptable to theWestern world.

Failed attempts since the time ofPeter the Greatto apply Western ideals inRussiawere a form of Europeancolonialism,he wrote, that had been finally swept away by the1917 Revolution.Vladimir Leninand his New Economic Policy were both failures tainted by Western thought. Duranty believed that Stalin scrapped the New Economic Policy because he had no political competition. The famine inUkrainedemonstrated the lack of organized opposition to Stalin because his position was never truly threatened by the catastrophe. Stalin succeeded where Lenin had failed: he "re-established a dictator of theimperialidea and put himself in charge "through intimidation." Stalin didn't look upon himself as a dictator, but as a 'guardian of a sacred flame' that he calledStalinismfor lack of a better name. "Stalin's five-year planwas an attempt to affect 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 the ideas ofKarl Marx;he viewed Stalinism as an integration ofMarxismwithLeninism.In one of his articles submitted for the Pulitzer Prize, Duranty opineson the Soviet actions that led to the famine.

Duranty sometimes claimed that individuals being sent to thelabor campsin theRussian North,Siberia, or Kazakhstan were given a choice between rejoining Soviet society or becoming underprivileged outsiders. However, he admitted that for those who could not accept the system, "the final fate of such enemies is death". Though describing the system as cruel, he stated that he had "no brief for or against it, nor any purpose save to try to tell the truth". He argued that the brutal collectivization campaign was motivated by the "hope or promise of a subsequent raising up" of Asian-minded masses in the Soviet Union that only history could judge.

Duranty both admitted the Stalinist system's brutality and defended its necessity.

Duranty's motivations have been hotly debated, and his reporting is faulted for being too uncritical of the USSR, presenting Soviet propaganda as legitimate reporting.

In his praise of Joseph Stalin as an imperial, national, "authentically Russian" dictator to be compared toIvan the Terrible,Duranty was expressing views similar to those of someWhite (Russian) émigrésduring the same period,namely theSmenovekhovtsy movement,echoing still earlier hopes by theEurasianism movementand theMladorossi groupcurrents in the 1920s. (Of course, Stalin was notRussian,butGeorgian,with distantOssetianancestry – his paternal great-grandfather was an Ossetian– a fact that he downplayed during his lifetime.)

In 1933, Stalin rewarded this praise and appreciation by saying that Duranty tried "to tell the truth about our country".

Reporting the 1932–1933 famine

InThe New York Timeson 31 March 1933, Walter Duranty denounced reports of famine and, in particular, he attackedGareth Jones,a Welsh journalist who had witnessed the starving in Ukraine and issued a widely published press release about their plight two days earlier in Berlin. (Jones' release was itself immediately preceded by three unsigned articles byMalcolm Muggeridgedescribing the famine in theManchester Guardian.)

Under the title "Russians Hungry, But Not Starving", Duranty's article described the situation 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".

The "diplomatic duel" was a reference to thearrest of engineersfrom theMetropolitan-Vickerscompany who were working in the USSR. Accused with Soviet citizens of "wrecking" (sabotaging) the plant they were building, they were the subjects of one in a series of show trials presided over byAndrey Vyshinskyduring the First Five Year Plan.

Five months later (23 August 1933), in anotherNew York Timesarticle, Duranty wrote:

Any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda. The food shortage, however, which has affected the whole population in the last year and particularly in the grain-producing provinces – the Ukraine,North Caucasus[i.e. Kuban Region], and theLower Volga– has, however, caused heavy loss of life.

Duranty concluded, "it is conservative to suppose" that, in certain provinces with a total population of over 40 million, mortality had "at least trebled."The duel in the press over the famine stories did not damage the esteem of Duranty.The Nationthen described his reporting as "the most enlightened, dispassionate dispatches from a great nation in the making which appeared in any newspaper in the world."

Following sensitive negotiations in November 1933 that resulted in the establishment of relations between the U.S. and theU.S.S.R.,a dinner was given for Soviet Foreign MinisterMaxim Litvinovin New York City'sWaldorf-Astoria Hotel.Each of the attendees' names was read in turn, politely applauded by the guests, until Duranty's. Whereupon,Alexander Woollcottwrote, "the one really prolonged pandemonium was evoked... Indeed, one quite got the impression that America, in a spasm of discernment, was recognizing both Russia and Walter Duranty."

Sally J. Taylor, author of the critical Duranty biographyStalin's Apologist,argues that his reporting from the USSR was a key factor in U.S. PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt's 1933 decision to grant official recognition to the Soviet Union.

Later career

In 1934, Duranty left Moscow and visited theWhite Housein the company of Soviet officials, including Litvinov. He continued as a Special Correspondent forThe New York Timesuntil 1940.

He wrote several books on the Soviet Union after 1940. His name was on alist maintained by writer George Orwellof those Orwell considered to be unsuitable as possible writers for the BritishForeign Office'sInformation Research Department,owing to the possibility of them being too sympathetic to communism or possibly paid communist agents.

Death

Duranty died in 1957 inOrlando,Florida, aged 73.

Scholarship on Duranty's work

Duranty reported when opinions were strongly divided on the Soviet Union and its leadership.

The admission of the USSR to theLeague of Nationsin 1934 was viewed optimistically by some. Others saw an inevitable confrontation betweenfascismandcommunismas requiring individuals to take one side or the other.

Many reporters of Duranty's time slanted their coverage in favor of the Soviet Union. Some drew a contrast with the capitalist world, going through theGreat Depression;others wrote out of a genuine belief in Communism; some acted out of fear of being expelled fromMoscow,which would result in a loss of livelihood. At home, many of their editors found it hard to believe a state would starve millions of its people deliberately. Duranty's reports forThe New York Timeswere a source of much frustration for the paper's readers in 1932 because they directly contradicted the line taken on the paper's owneditorialpage.

The Ukrainian Famine (1932–1933) and the 1938 Moscow Show Trials

Duranty has been criticized for deferring toStalinand theSoviet Union's officialpropagandarather than reporting news, both when he was living in Moscow and later. For example, he later defended Stalin'sMoscow Trials of 1938,which were staged to eliminate potential challengers to Stalin's authority.

The major controversy regarding his work remains his reporting on thegreat famine of 1930–33that struck certain parts of the USSR after agriculture was forcibly and rapidly "collectivised". He published reports stating "there is no famine or actual starvation nor is there likely to be" and "any report of a famine in Russia is today an exaggeration or malignant propaganda".In Ukraine, the region most affected, this state-sponsored disaster is today known as theHolodomor.

Since the late 1960s, Duranty's work has come increasingly under fire for failing to report the famine.Robert Conquestwas critical of Duranty's reporting inThe Great Terror(1968),The Harvest of Sorrow(1986) and, most recently, inReflections on a Ravaged Century(1990).Joseph Alsopand Andrew Stuttaford spoke out against Duranty during the Pulitzer Prize controversy."Lying was Duranty's stock in trade," commented Alsop. In his memoirs, British journalistMalcolm Muggeridge,thenThe Manchester Guardian's correspondent in Moscow, talked of Duranty's "persistent lying"and elsewhere called him "the greatest liar I ever knew".

What Duranty knew and when

It was clear, meanwhile, from Duranty's comments to others that he was fully aware of the scale of the calamity. In 1934, he privately reported to the British embassy in Moscow that as many as 10 million people might have died, directly or indirectly, from famine in the Soviet Union in the previous year.

BothBritish intelligenceand American engineer Zara Witkin, who worked in the USSR from 1932 to 1934,confirmed that Duranty knowingly misrepresented information about the nature and scale of the famine.

There are some indications that Duranty's deliberate misdirection concerning the famine resulted from duress. Conquest believed Duranty was being blackmailed over his sexual proclivities.

In his 1944 book, Duranty wrote in a chastened tone about his 1932–34 reporting, but he offered only a Stalinist defense.He admits that people starved, including not just "class enemies" but also loyal communists,but he says that Stalin was forced to order the requisitions to equip the Red Army enough to deter an imminent Japanese invasion(a reprise of theSiberian Interventionof a decade earlier)—in other words, to save the Soviet Union from impending military doom, not because Stalin wanted to collectivize the population at gunpoint, on pain of death.Although it is likely that Stalin did expect a Japanese invasion (expecting foreign attacks all the time), most historians today do not accept the view that it was his sole motivation.

Calls for revocation of Pulitzer Prize, 1990–2003

Controversy and concern over Duranty's reporting on the famine in Soviet Ukraine led to a move to posthumously and symbolically strip him of the Pulitzer Prize he received in 1932.

In response toStalin's Apologist(1990), the critical biography by Sally J. Taylor,The New York Timesassigned a member of its editorial board, Karl Meyer, to write a signed editorial about Duranty's work for theTimes.In a scathing piece on 24 June 1990, Meyer wrote 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."The Pulitzer Board in 1990 reconsidered the prize but decided to preserve it as awarded.Four years earlier, in a 1986New York Timesreview ofRobert Conquest'sThe Harvest of Sorrow(1986), former Moscow bureau reporter Craig Whitney wrote that Duranty effectively ignored the famine until it was almost over.

In 2003, following an international campaign by theUkrainian Canadian Civil Liberties Association,the Pulitzer Board began a renewed inquiry, andThe New York TimeshiredMark von Hagen,a professor of Russian history atColumbia University,to review Duranty's work as a whole. Von Hagen found Duranty's reports to be unbalanced and uncritical, which far too often gave voice toStalinistpropaganda.In comments to the press, he stated, "For the sake ofThe New York Times'honor, they should take the prize away. "TheTimessent Von Hagen's report to the Pulitzer Board and left it to the Board to take whatever action they considered appropriate.

In a letter accompanying the report,The New York TimespublisherArthur 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."

Ultimately,Sig Gissler,administrator of the Pulitzer Prize board, declined to revoke the award. In a 21 November 2003 press release, he stated that, with regard to the 13 articles by Duranty from 1931 submitted for the award, "there was not clear and convincing evidence of deliberate deception, the relevant standard in this case."

The2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine,part of theRusso-Ukrainian War,led to renewed attention on this decision.New York Timesexecutive editorBill Kellerpublicly expressed remorse that he did not do more to return the award in 2003, saying, "A Pulitzer Prize is not just an accolade for an isolated piece of work. It at least implies an accolade for the reporter's performance, and Duranty's performance was shameful."

Literary awards

(other than Pulitzer)

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

In popular culture

Duranty is portrayed byPeter Sarsgaardin the filmMr. Jones(2019). The film depicts the story of journalistGareth Jonesas he seeks to find the truth about what was happening in Ukraine and then to have that story reported to the world in the face of opposition and denials from Stalin'sKremlinand Duranty.

Works

Books

(chronological)

• The Curious Lottery and Other Tales of Russian Justice.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.
• Solomans Cat.Grand Rapids: Mayhew Press, 1937.
• 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)

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

Articles submitted for 1932 Pulitzer Prize

Eleven-part series inThe New York Times:

• "Red Russia of Today Ruled by Stalinism, Not Communism" (14 June 1931)
• "Socialism First Aim in Soviet's Program; Trade Gains Second" (16 June 1931)
• "Stalinism Shelves World Revolt Idea; To Win Russia First" (18 June 1931)
• "Industrial Success Emboldens Soviet in New World Policy" (19 June 1931)
• "Trade Equilibrium is New Soviet Goal" (20 June 1931)
• "Soviet Fixes Opinion by Widest Control" (22 June 1931)
• "Soviet Censorship Hurts Russia Most" (23 June 1931)
• "Stalinism Smashes Foes in Marx's Name" (24 June 1931)
• "Red Army is Held No Menace to Peace" (25 June 1931)
• "Stalinism Solving Minorities Problem" (26 June 1931)
• "Stalinism's Mark is Party Discipline" (27 June 1931)

Two articles inThe New York Timesmagazine:

• "The Russian Looks at the World" (29 March 1931)
• "Stalin's Russia Is An Echo of Iron Ivan's" (20 December 1931)

Translations

• The Story of the Lafayette Escadrille,told by its Commander, Captain Georges Thenault. Translated by Walter Duranty. Boston: Small, Maynard & Company (1921).

See also

• Gareth Jones (journalist)
• Journalistic scandal
• Lion Feuchtwanger
• Louis Fischer
• Malcolm Muggeridge
• Soviet famine of 1932–33
• Mission to Moscow

References

Sources

in chronological order

• Muggeridge, Malcolm (1934) –Winter in Moscow
• Conquest, Robert (1968) –The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties
• Crowl, James W. (1981) –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),ISBN0-8191-2185-1
• Conquest, Robert (1986) –The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine
• M. Carynnyk, B.S. Kordan and L.Y. Luciuk, eds. (1988) –The Foreign Office and the Famine: British Documents on the Great Famine of 1932–1933 in Soviet Ukraine.Limestone Press
• Taylor, Sally J. (1990) –Stalin's Apologist, Walter Duranty: The New York Times's Man in Moscow.New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.ISBN0-19-505700-7
• Luciuk, Lubomyr Y. (2004) –Not Worthy: Walter Duranty's Pulitzer Prize and the New York Times,Kashtan PressISBN1-896354-34-3

External links

Defence of Stalin's purges

• "The Moscow Trials"
• "Stalin's Apologist" by S.J.Taylor

Pulitzer Prize articles by Walter Duranty

• "Red Russia of Today Ruled by Stalinism, Not Communism"Archived19 August 2006 at theWayback Machine
• "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"

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, "The New York Times Admits the Invalidation of Walter Duranty's 1932 Pulitzer Prize"
• "Ukrainians want pro-Stalin writer stripped of Pulitzer",The Guardian,4 May 2003.