There is no such thing as a famine "caused solely by external factors". The wording is misleading because it implies there is such a thing as a famine that isn't man made and therefore the one that occurred in the Soviet Union being called "man-made" is already a deliberate attempt at drawing a distinction between it another famines. It is a fact that in all famines there is a human factor necessary to compound on environmental factors in order to cause a famine. You don't get famines that occur due to nature alone. The problem with this article is that by starting out with such language the myth is reinforced that there was something exceptionally malicious about this famine.
There is no such thing as a famine "caused solely by external factors". The wording is misleading because it implies there is such a thing as a famine that isn't man made and therefore the one that occurred in the Soviet Union being called "man-made" is already a deliberate attempt at drawing a distinction between it another famines. It is a fact that in all famines there is a human factor necessary to compound on environmental factors in order to cause a famine. You don't get famines that occur due to nature alone. The problem with this article is that by starting out with such language the myth is reinforced that there was something exceptionally malicious about this famine.