Conquest states in his book that for every letter (not word) in it 20 people died. It's 411 pages long.
From FR member Parity
“Interesting sidenote: When Robert Conquest first published “Harvest of Sorrow” in the 1980’s, it was initially dismissed as being too “over the top.” Many of his primary sources were survivor interviews, and he was accused of cherry-picking the most sensational, most exaggerated accounts.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, as many of the records cited for Beck’s account began to be available, Conquest’s book was re-issued in 2002 (I believe). The publisher went to Conquest (who was still at Stanford’s Hoover Institute) and asked if he wanted to write a new foreward for this edition.
His initial response? “How about,’See, you f**ks, I told you so!’”
The chapter on Walter Duranty and the NYT complicity in cover-up are devastating.”