Never trust anyone who self-identifies as a “historian” but whose background is in journalism. Not that academic historians are the only ones who can write about history, just that the people who don’t have that background who are trustworthy will always admit that upfront. Applebaum does everything she can to hide the fact that she is not an actual historian.

For her famine book, she just took what every Ukrainian historian told her about the famine uncritically and at face value, and repeated their bullshit. Her position and that of Ukrainian historians is so far against what even most mainstream, bourgeois understand as what happened, which is something along the lines of “the famine was naturally occurring; some Soviet policies likely made things worse but there was some intentional acts of sabotage are the part of the kulaks. Stalin may have dismissed early reports of famine and hardship but once Soviet leadership realized what was happening they took steps to alleviate it as best they could (but there was famine in other places going on at the same time so they could only do so much). Even Robert fucking Conquest says it wasn’t some intentional plot on the part of Stalin.