Why The New York Times Believed A Stalin Show Trial 

There are many infamous stories about The New York Times and the infamous stories it published that later turned out to be false, not without first seriously influencing public opinion and the opinions of very powerful people in the U.S. government. WMDs, anyone? One of which is the story of Walter Duranty, a charismatic, careerist Times correspondent who served in the paper’s Moscow bureau in the 1930s during Josef Stalin’s rise to power. 

To borrow Gen Z slang, Duranty built up his career by glazing Stalin, which is to say, he showered praise on the ruthless dictator and debased himself as an unofficial mouthpiece for the Soviet regime. Duranty, in fact, is credited with coining the phrase “Stalinism” and popularizing the slogan often deployed by utopian radicals to justify political violence and coercion, “You can’t make an omelet without breaking eggs.”