Monday, Nov. 01, 1971

A New Indictment of Stalin

Among dissident Soviet intellectuals, the man who best embodies the spirit of loyal opposition to the Kremlin is Roy Medvedev, 46, an educator-turned-historian and a dedicated Marxist-Leninist. Last month a London publisher brought out a Russian-language edition of Who Is Mad? (to be published in the U.S. on Dec. 1 by Alfred A. Knopf under the title A Question of Madness), co-authored by Roy and his twin brother Zhores. a prominent biologist. It describes Zhores' 19-day confinement in a madhouse for his political behavior, and Roy's ultimately successful efforts to get his brother released (TIME, Sept. 27).

Last week reports were circulating in Russia that Roy Medvedev had left his job at the Academy of Pedagogical Sciences in Moscow after the KGB (the Soviet secret police) had searched his apartment, confiscated his private papers, and issued a summons for him to appear for questioning--which he refused to obey. The police raid had the unintended effect of focusing public attention in the West on a major new work by Medvedev. Among the papers that were seized by the KGB agents was a 1,500-page typescript of the first comprehensive study of the Stalin era ever to come out of the Soviet Union. A copy had already reached the West and will be published in the U.S. in January by Knopf as a 624-page volume titled Let History Judge: The Origin and Consequences of Stalinism.

English Kremlinologist Robert Conquest, author of The Great Terror, an exhaustive study of Stalin's purges of the '30s, says of the Medvedev history: "It is the first full attempt by a Russian to deal with the Stalin period, and gives by far the most detailed account yet of the errors and horrors of Stalinism."

Medvedev offers some new and intriguing evidence about Stalin's career, citing unpublished and previously unknown memoirs and monographs written by victims of the purges. Performing a delicate balancing act, he manages to deliver a scathing indictment of the Soviet regime during the quarter of a century that Stalin ruled, while at the same time endorsing the goals of the Bolshevik revolution and acquitting Lenin of responsibility for the crimes committed by his successor. In answer to the question of why Lenin permitted Stalin to contend for power in the early '20s, Medvedev writes: "Lenin's natural enthusiasm for people often led him into mistakes." He also criticizes Lenin for recommending in 1922 that "extralegal justice" be used against opponents of the regime.

Aberration. If he has an occasional bone to pick with Lenin, however, Medvedev has nothing but condemnation for Stalin. He sees Stalin as typical of the "unstable and dishonorable people who join a revolutionary movement and later degenerate into tyrants." Medvedev writes: "His political views were formed under the influence of Marx and Lenin, but they did not grow into convictions, into a system of Communist moral principles . . . He was only a fellow traveler of revolution." Medvedev's thesis is that Stalinism was an aberration of Communism and that the Marxist-Leninist system is still the best hope for Russia and all humanity.

Medvedev conceived Let History Judge at the time of Nikita Khrushchev's destalinization speech in 1956. He began researching and writing the book in 1962 and reportedly submitted it for publication to the Party Central Committee's Academy of Social Sciences in 1965. The book was rejected. He then revised and greatly expanded it, completing the work in 1968. Forty folders full of research material on the Stalin period were among the papers taken from his apartment by the KGB.

Last week Medvedev left his home and moved in with friends. He is said to be under constant police surveillance. At week's end, in an open letter circulating in Moscow, Medvedev strongly protested against the "absolutely arbitrary nature and illegality" of the police raid. Some fear that this new round of harassment may be a prelude to arrest, but there is hope that Medvedev's international stature may be sufficiently enhanced by Let History Judge to persuade the authorities to think twice before further persecuting him and thus touching off a worldwide protest.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.