Anne Appelbaum's work is a very readable and accessible story about the famine. In her own words, her objective was to tell ‘what actually happened. . . . What chain of events, and what mentality, led to the famine? Who was responsible?’ (xv). Right from the beginning she indicates that she thinks that the famine was the result of someone's mentality, and that her objective is to find who should be blamed for it. Her's is a very simple story. It conforms to an increasingly popular trend in Soviet history to ignore or oversimplify complex economic explanations and to reduce everything to moral judgements.

中文翻译：

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摆脱对苏联饥荒的经济解释

Anne Appelbaum 的作品是一个关于饥荒的可读性很强的故事。用她自己的话来说，她的目标是要讲述“实际发生了什么”。. . . 什么样的事件链和什么样的心态导致了饥荒？谁负责？（十五）。从一开始她就表明她认为饥荒是某人心态的结果，而她的目标是找到应该为此受到指责的人。 .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 她的故事很简单。它符合苏联历史上日益流行的趋势，即忽视或过度简化复杂的经济解释，并将一切归结为道德判断。