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Victor Kravchenko
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from I Chose Freedom)
Victor Andreevich Kravchenko, (Russian: Викт&# 1086;р Андр&# 1077;евич Крав&# 1095;енк&#1086
(11 October 1905 Yekaterinoslav – 25 February 1966) was a Soviet defector who wrote up his experiences of life in the Soviet Union and as a Soviet official, especially in his book I Chose Freedom (1946). He also wrote about his experience under American Capitalism.
Contents [hide]
1 Early life
2 Defection
3 Author
4 The Trial of the Century
5 Death
6 Books
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
[edit]Early life
Born into a family of Old Bolsheviks, Kravchenko became an engineer and worked in the Don basin region. He joined the Communist Party in 1929. He witnessed the mass starvation of the Ukrainian peasantry as part of Joseph Stalin's agricultural collectivization (see Holodomor). His disgust for the large scale death toll made him feel increasingly alienated from the Soviet regime. During the Second World War he served as a Captain in the Soviet Army before being posted to the Soviet Trade Mission in Washington DC.
[edit]Defection
In 1944 he abandoned his post and requested political asylum in the United States. The Soviet authorities, however, demanded his immediate extradition, calling him a traitor. Ambassador Joseph E. Davies appealed to President Roosevelt directly on behalf of Stalin to have Kravchenko returned.[1] However, he was granted asylum and lived under a pseudonym to escape the death squads who had murdered a large number of prior defectors (see SMERSH). He married Cynthia Kusher and had two sons Andrew and Anthony who remained unaware of the identity of their father.
[edit]Author
Kravchenko remains widely known for his memoir I Chose Freedom containing extensive revelations on collectivization, Soviet prison camps and the use of slave labor came at a time of growing tension between the Soviet Union and the West. Its publication was met with vocal attacks by the Soviet Union and by international stalinist Communist parties.
Kravchenko also wrote a lesser known book, that was the sequel to I Chose Freedom, entitled I Chose Justice in 1950. His inspiration came from a paranoia stemming from his "Trial of the Century" and the McCarthy's, so-called,"anti-communist witch hunt". Kravchenko realized that the western world engaged in injustices against humanity resembling the regime he originally fled from. Upon this he then chose different ways to counter-act exploitation and Stalinist development by moving to Bolivia, the location of his apparent suicide. These ways included investing his profits made from I Chose Freedom into an attempt to organize poor farmers into new collectives.
[edit]The Trial of the Century
An especially nasty attack on his character by the French Communist weekly Les Lettres Françaises resulted in Kravchenko suing them for libel in a French court. The extended 1949 trial featuring hundreds of witnesses was dubbed 'The Trial of the Century.' The Soviet State flew in Kravchenko's former colleagues to denounce him, accusing him of being a traitor, a draft dodger, and an embezzler. His ex-wife appeared as well, accusing him of being physically abusive and sexually impotent. When a KGB officer alleged that he had been found mentally deficient, Kravchenko jumped to his feet and screamed, "We are not in Moscow! If you were not a witness, I'd tear your head off!"
In a convincing case, Kravchenko's lawyers presented witnesses who had survived the Soviet GULAG. Among them was Margarete Buber-Neumann, the widow of German Communist Heinz Neumann, who had been shot during the Great Purge. As a survivor of both Soviet and Nazi concentration camps, her testimony corroborated Kravchenko's allegations concerning the essential similarities between the two dictatorships. The court ultimately ruled that Kravchenko had been unfairly libeled. Although he was awarded only symbolic damages, he had struck a devastating blow against the regime and reputation of Joseph Stalin.
[edit]Death
Kravchenko's 1966 death from bullet wounds in his apartment was officially ruled a suicide. His son Andrew continues to believe he was the victim of a SMERSH assassination.
Victor Kravchenko
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from I Chose Freedom)
Victor Andreevich Kravchenko, (Russian: Викт&# 1086;р Андр&# 1077;евич Крав&# 1095;енк&#1086
(11 October 1905 Yekaterinoslav – 25 February 1966) was a Soviet defector who wrote up his experiences of life in the Soviet Union and as a Soviet official, especially in his book I Chose Freedom (1946). He also wrote about his experience under American Capitalism.Contents [hide]
1 Early life
2 Defection
3 Author
4 The Trial of the Century
5 Death
6 Books
7 See also
8 References
9 External links
[edit]Early life
Born into a family of Old Bolsheviks, Kravchenko became an engineer and worked in the Don basin region. He joined the Communist Party in 1929. He witnessed the mass starvation of the Ukrainian peasantry as part of Joseph Stalin's agricultural collectivization (see Holodomor). His disgust for the large scale death toll made him feel increasingly alienated from the Soviet regime. During the Second World War he served as a Captain in the Soviet Army before being posted to the Soviet Trade Mission in Washington DC.
[edit]Defection
In 1944 he abandoned his post and requested political asylum in the United States. The Soviet authorities, however, demanded his immediate extradition, calling him a traitor. Ambassador Joseph E. Davies appealed to President Roosevelt directly on behalf of Stalin to have Kravchenko returned.[1] However, he was granted asylum and lived under a pseudonym to escape the death squads who had murdered a large number of prior defectors (see SMERSH). He married Cynthia Kusher and had two sons Andrew and Anthony who remained unaware of the identity of their father.
[edit]Author
Kravchenko remains widely known for his memoir I Chose Freedom containing extensive revelations on collectivization, Soviet prison camps and the use of slave labor came at a time of growing tension between the Soviet Union and the West. Its publication was met with vocal attacks by the Soviet Union and by international stalinist Communist parties.
Kravchenko also wrote a lesser known book, that was the sequel to I Chose Freedom, entitled I Chose Justice in 1950. His inspiration came from a paranoia stemming from his "Trial of the Century" and the McCarthy's, so-called,"anti-communist witch hunt". Kravchenko realized that the western world engaged in injustices against humanity resembling the regime he originally fled from. Upon this he then chose different ways to counter-act exploitation and Stalinist development by moving to Bolivia, the location of his apparent suicide. These ways included investing his profits made from I Chose Freedom into an attempt to organize poor farmers into new collectives.
[edit]The Trial of the Century
An especially nasty attack on his character by the French Communist weekly Les Lettres Françaises resulted in Kravchenko suing them for libel in a French court. The extended 1949 trial featuring hundreds of witnesses was dubbed 'The Trial of the Century.' The Soviet State flew in Kravchenko's former colleagues to denounce him, accusing him of being a traitor, a draft dodger, and an embezzler. His ex-wife appeared as well, accusing him of being physically abusive and sexually impotent. When a KGB officer alleged that he had been found mentally deficient, Kravchenko jumped to his feet and screamed, "We are not in Moscow! If you were not a witness, I'd tear your head off!"
In a convincing case, Kravchenko's lawyers presented witnesses who had survived the Soviet GULAG. Among them was Margarete Buber-Neumann, the widow of German Communist Heinz Neumann, who had been shot during the Great Purge. As a survivor of both Soviet and Nazi concentration camps, her testimony corroborated Kravchenko's allegations concerning the essential similarities between the two dictatorships. The court ultimately ruled that Kravchenko had been unfairly libeled. Although he was awarded only symbolic damages, he had struck a devastating blow against the regime and reputation of Joseph Stalin.
[edit]Death
Kravchenko's 1966 death from bullet wounds in his apartment was officially ruled a suicide. His son Andrew continues to believe he was the victim of a SMERSH assassination.
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