Dmitri Volkogonov

Dmitri Antonovich Volkogonov (??????? ????????? ?????????? in Russian) (1928 - 1995) was a Russian historian, Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of History, Colonel General (1986).

Related Topics:
Russian - 1928 - 1995 - Russia - Historian - Doctor of Philosophy - Doctor of History - Colonel General - 1986

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Volkogonov was the head of the Institute of Military History at the Ministry of Defense of the USSR between 1988 and 1991. He was director of the arm of the Soviet military that was charged with what the Americans and the British call "psychological warfare; he wrote manual on this subject for Soviet forces (The Psychological War) . He also presided over a number of governmental and presidential committees.

Related Topics:
USSR - 1988 - 1991

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Long known in Western military circles as one of the hardest of hard-liners, Volkogonov--both whose parents were "liquidated" during Stalin's purges--began, by the middle of Brezhnev's tenure, to have serious doubts about the Soviet regime. At first these coalesced only around Stalin. He spent nearly twenty years compiling a blistering, revisionist (by Soviet standards) biography of that dictator. Though he forthrightly describes Stalin's crimes, he never-the-less clings stubbornly to worship of Lenin and the Khruschev "line" that the Stalinism was an "aberration" of the "true" Leninism. This was obvious to others, especially his superior, to whom he showed the book once it was completed. That same man, after reading Joseph Stalin (titled Stalin in its American edition) told Volkonov that he was, in effect, attacking not just Stalin but Lenin. Volkogonov's wife begged him not to publish the book and he did in fact keep it in the drawer for a time, fearful of the consequences. Once the book was published, the consequences were not slow in coming. He was fired (1991) from his job as director of the Institute of Military History at the Ministry of Defense of the USSR by Mikhail Gorbachev. Even with the Soviet edifice crumbling around his ears, the Soviet leader stubbornly clung the Lenin cult.

Related Topics:
Joseph Stalin - USSR - Mikhail Gorbachev

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Once the Soviet Union's collapse was all but formal, Volkogonov combined his historical work, producing a number of devastating works (see below), with political activity in the newly established Russian state. Following the failed coup against Boris Yeltsin, Volkogonov was appointed Defense Advisor to Yeltsin. Sadly, by then he was already afflicted with the cancer that would kill him. He fought bravely against the disease but lost that battle in 1995. Before he died, he contributed much to the so-called "Liberal" strain of Russian thought that Soviet period was itself an aberration in Russian history and thus "un-Russian." Whatever the merits of this, Volkogonov was one of the leaders of the movement to expose the crimes of the Soviet regime and exorcise its malignant influence from Russia. The independent streak that had come to the fore in the Eighties continued until the end of his life. He opposed the use of force in ethnic disputes and criticized Yeltsin for "having taken the advice of wrong-headed councellors" in the decision to invade Chechnya." (Editor's Preface, Autopsy for an Empire, Shukman, 1997)

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Although his works have been attacked by critics in the West for various flaws of scholarship and writing, it should be noted that the English editions were essentially condensed versions of the much longer Russian originals (as acknowledged by their translator and editor Harold Shukman).

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He is most famous for his trilogy Leaders (?????, or Vozhdi), which consists of the three books about Vladimir Lenin ('), Leon Trotsky (') and Joseph Stalin (') and Autopsy for an Empire: the Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime (Russian title: Sem Vozhdei), 1998.

Related Topics:
Leaders - Vladimir Lenin - Leon Trotsky - Joseph Stalin

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• Autopsy for an Empire: the Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime, and Editor's Preface, Harold Shukman