>Stalin was sent to Siberia by the czar, it was not an innovation of his. When he took power it was the turn of the car's supporters and Whites to go to Siberia

The Main Directorate of Correctional Labour Camps and its work-to-death policies were most certainly an innovation of Stalin's. Frenkel and Yagoda were Stalin's toadies and their recommendations were put into place by Stalin and the Communist Party, not the czar.

>Walter Duranty of the New York Times went to the Ukraine at the time and said stories of crop failures there were exaggerated. Only more recently have these old rumors been revived.

Walter Duranty was also a toady for Stalin that only wrote in response to Gareth Jones's reporting on the famine. Skepticism of his reporting dates back to the point of publication and has been repeatedly denounced.