Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism

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Roy Aleksandrovich Medvedev (b. 11/14/25, Tbilisi, Georgia) is a Russian political writer renowned as the author of a dissident history of Stalinism. He became a prominent Russian public figure & was a consultant to Mikhail Gorbachev. From a Marxist viewpoint, Medvedev criticized former Russian General Secretary Joseph Stalin & Stalinism in general. In the early '60s, Medvedev was engaged in samizdat publications. In '69, Medvedev was expelled from the Communist Party after the publication of his Let History Judge, which criticized Stalin & Stalinism at a time when official Soviet propagandists were trying to partially rehabilitate the former dictator. The book reflected the dissident thinking that emerged in the 60s among Soviet intellectuals who sought a reformed, democratic socialism & a return to Leninism. He announced his position, along with Andrei Sakharov & others, in an open letter to the Soviet leadership in 1970. He was often subject to house arrest & KGB harassment under Leonid Brezhnev, but managed to publish numerous critical writings on Soviet history & politics abroad. He was oppressed for his active support of democracy after he successfully published Let History Judge abroad in the late 60s.