[Grzegorz 246]

Eastern European ping list

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[SolidWood]

How telling that RUSSIA’s leaders identify themselves with Stalin and the Soviet Union... instead of saying, well, that Russia was a victim of Soviet Communism itself.

[pnh102]

So the russkies take the New York Times’ position on the Ukrainian Genocide.

[romanesq]

Once again, the descendants of Stalin can not bear to see the truth of his work brought out into the light.

This should be an annual event. So Russia can be shown to the world as not merely anti-democratic but insanely unforgiving of any attack put upon Uncle Joe.

At least Germany does not celebrate Hitler. But the KGB is not so readily open to condemnation for the acts of its henchmen.

[BroJoeK]

"In a letter to Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko released by the Kremlin on Friday, the Russian president accused Kyiv of using the Stalin-era famine, known as the Holodomor, to drive a wedge between Ukraine and Russia, and urged efforts to forge a common position on the tragedy."

"Holodomor"? Let me eat some humble pie here, and admit I have no clue -- what does the word mean? Yes, I've heard the basic facts of a Stalin imposed "famine" on Ukraine, somehow ignored or covered up by the Western press, where millions died, in what years, 1928?

Seems curious though, that Russians might want a "common position on the tragedy." How about the facts of history?

[Defiant]

I have a question, and hope that those who are interested in this thread can help me out. The first chapter of a novel about the Soviet Union was posted in the WSJ online, and I think it was here that I found it. The book opens with a heart-wrenching story about a boy in the Ukraine whose cat got out, and who has to find it before it is found and eaten. It is the only thing good he has left. The danger is not just that the cat will be eaten, but that if the boy gets caught in the woods by people crazed with hunger, they might never come home, either.

It was a very powerful first chapter. I think the book was about the boy after he grows up and goes to work for the Soviet state in the 50s. I was going to order the book but never did. That was a couple years ago. I was looking for that book on Amazon, and could not find it. Does anyone remember that book's title or the author? Hopefully, someone on this thread remembers it.