It was Duranty who in 1921 had insisted that “In a country rotten with corruption the communists are honest.”[cxxxvii] In 1923, after Lenin’s famine that also killed millions, Duranty wrote that “Lenin has often been called the ‘Red dictator.’ This designation is wrong; Lenin never had the right to dictate, although in practice his opinion generally carried the day.”[cxxxviii] Lenin earned his position because of his greatness, insisted Duranty: “The secret of Lenin’s authority, which did in fact amount to dictatorship, was that long experience had proved him right far oftener than his
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