Victor Kravchenko
Encyclopedia
Victor Andreevich Kravchenko (11 October 1905 Yekaterinoslav – 25 February 1966 New York
) was a Soviet defector who wrote of his life in the Soviet Union
as a Soviet official in his book I Chose Freedom published in 1946. He also wrote about his experience under American capitalism.
family with a non-party, revolutionary father, 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
. His disgust at the massive human cost of the policy increasingly alienated him from the Soviet regime. During the Second World War he served as a Captain in the Soviet Army
before being posted to the Soviet Purchasing Commission in Washington, D.C.
appealed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt
directly on behalf of Stalin to have Kravchenko returned. He was granted asylum but was forced to live under a pseudonym to avoid the danger of assassination by Soviet agents.
Kravchenko married an American woman, Cynthia Kuser-Earle, by whom he had two sons, Anthony and Andrew. Obliged to live under their mother's married name (Earle), they remained unaware of their father's identity until 1965.
When Kravchenko defected he left behind a son, Valentin, born in 1935 by his first wife, Zinaida Gorlova. In spite of changing his last name, Valentin was eventually discovered to be the son of a "traitor to the motherland" and was sent to a gulag
in 1953 for five years. The brutal conditions of the gulag drove him to the point where he tried to commit suicide in his cell. Valentin applied for political asylum in America after discovering that his half-brother Andrew lived there. (Anthony died in 1969.) The two brothers were reunited in Arizona in 1992 at an emotional press conference. Valentin died in 2001 from heart failure. He received his American citizenship on the day he died.
I Chose Freedom containing extensive revelations on collectivization, Soviet prison camps
and the use of penal labor
which 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 Communist parties. Kravchenko refused to give full credit for editorial assistance from respected journalist Eugene Lyons
, instead referring to Lyons as an anonymous "translator."
Kravchenko's lesser-known memoir, I Chose Justice (1950), mainly covered his "trial of the century" in France.
resulted in his 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. Kravchenko was awarded only symbolic damages. In the view of one close observer, Alexander Werth,
Les Lettres Françaises appealed the verdict. A higher French court upheld the verdict but reduced the fine from 50,000 francs to 3 francs, or less than US$1, on the grounds that trial publicity had helped Kravchenko sell books.
agents, notably Mark Zborowski
, and subsequently monitored very closely by the NKVD and later, the KGB special operations.
Kravchenko's 1966 death from a gunshot wound to his head at his desk in his apartment in Manhattan
was officially ruled a suicide. This view is widely accepted, including by author Gary Kern. FBI files obtained by Kern after a six-year lawsuit show that President Lyndon B. Johnson
had taken a strong interest in Kravchenko's suicide and had demanded that the FBI determine if his suicide note was authentic or a Soviet fabrication. The FBI ruled that it was authentic. Yet some details concerning Kravchenko's last days remain questionable, and his son Andrew believes he was the victim of a KGB assassination. Andrew Kravchenko produced a documentary film in 2008, The Defector, about his father.
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
) was a Soviet defector who wrote of his life in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
as a Soviet official in his book I Chose Freedom published in 1946. He also wrote about his experience under American capitalism.
Early life
Born into a UkrainianUkraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
family with a non-party, revolutionary father, Kravchenko became an engineer and worked in the Don basin region. He joined the Communist Party
Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the only legal, ruling political party in the Soviet Union and one of the largest communist organizations in the world...
in 1929. He witnessed the mass starvation
Holodomor
The Holodomor was a man-made famine in the Ukrainian SSR between 1932 and 1933. During the famine, which is also known as the "terror-famine in Ukraine" and "famine-genocide in Ukraine", millions of Ukrainians died of starvation in a peacetime catastrophe unprecedented in the history of...
of the Ukrainian peasantry as part of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...
's agricultural collectivization
Collective farming
Collective farming and communal farming are types of agricultural production in which the holdings of several farmers are run as a joint enterprise...
. His disgust at the massive human cost of the policy increasingly alienated him from the Soviet regime. During the Second World War he served as a Captain in the Soviet Army
Soviet Army
The Soviet Army is the name given to the main part of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union between 1946 and 1992. Previously, it had been known as the Red Army. Informally, Армия referred to all the MOD armed forces, except, in some cases, the Soviet Navy.This article covers the Soviet Ground...
before being posted to the Soviet Purchasing Commission in Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
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. DaviesJoseph E. Davies
Joseph Edward Davies was appointed by President Wilson to be Commissioner of Corporations in 1912, and First Chairman of the Federal Trade Commission in 1915. He was the second Ambassador to represent the United States in the Soviet Union and U.S. Ambassador to Belgium and Luxembourg...
appealed to President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
directly on behalf of Stalin to have Kravchenko returned. He was granted asylum but was forced to live under a pseudonym to avoid the danger of assassination by Soviet agents.
Kravchenko married an American woman, Cynthia Kuser-Earle, by whom he had two sons, Anthony and Andrew. Obliged to live under their mother's married name (Earle), they remained unaware of their father's identity until 1965.
When Kravchenko defected he left behind a son, Valentin, born in 1935 by his first wife, Zinaida Gorlova. In spite of changing his last name, Valentin was eventually discovered to be the son of a "traitor to the motherland" and was sent to a gulag
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
in 1953 for five years. The brutal conditions of the gulag drove him to the point where he tried to commit suicide in his cell. Valentin applied for political asylum in America after discovering that his half-brother Andrew lived there. (Anthony died in 1969.) The two brothers were reunited in Arizona in 1992 at an emotional press conference. Valentin died in 2001 from heart failure. He received his American citizenship on the day he died.
Author
Kravchenko wrote a memoirMemoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
I Chose Freedom containing extensive revelations on collectivization, Soviet prison camps
Gulag
The Gulag was the government agency that administered the main Soviet forced labor camp systems. While the camps housed a wide range of convicts, from petty criminals to political prisoners, large numbers were convicted by simplified procedures, such as NKVD troikas and other instruments of...
and the use of penal labor
Penal labour
Penal labour is a form of unfree labour in which prisoners perform work, typically manual labour. The work may be light or hard, depending on the context. Forms of sentence which involve penal labour include penal servitude and imprisonment with hard labour...
which came at a time of growing tension between the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and the West. Its publication was met with vocal attacks by the Soviet Union and by international Communist parties. Kravchenko refused to give full credit for editorial assistance from respected journalist Eugene Lyons
Eugene Lyons
Eugene Lyons was an American journalist and writer. A fellow traveler of the Communist Party in his younger years, Lyons became highly critical of the Soviet Union after having lived there for several years as a correspondent of United Press International...
, instead referring to Lyons as an anonymous "translator."
Kravchenko's lesser-known memoir, I Chose Justice (1950), mainly covered his "trial of the century" in France.
The Trial of the Century
An attack on Kravchenko's character by the French Communist weekly Les Lettres FrançaisesFrench Letters
Les Lettres Françaises is a French literary publication, founded in 1941 by writers Jacques Decour and Jean Paulhan. Originally a clandestine magazine of the French Resistance in German-occupied territory, it was one of the many publications of the National Front resistance movement...
resulted in his 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
Draft dodger
Draft evasion is a term that refers to an intentional failure to comply with the military conscription policies of the nation to which he or she is subject...
, and an embezzler. His ex-wife appeared as well, accusing him of being physically abusive and sexually impotent. When a KGB
KGB
The KGB was the commonly used acronym for the . It was the national security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 until 1991, and was the premier internal security, intelligence, and secret police organization during that time.The State Security Agency of the Republic of Belarus currently uses the...
officer alleged that he had been found mentally deficient, Kravchenko jumped to his feet and screamed, "We are not in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
! 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
Margarete Buber-Neumann
Margarete Buber-Neumann , was a leading member of the Communist Party of Germany during the years of the Weimar Republic. She survived imprisonment during World War II in both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany...
, the widow of German Communist Heinz Neumann, who had been shot during the Great Purge
Great Purge
The Great Purge was a series of campaigns of political repression and persecution in the Soviet Union orchestrated by Joseph Stalin from 1936 to 1938...
. 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. Kravchenko was awarded only symbolic damages. In the view of one close observer, Alexander Werth,
Technically, Kravchenko won his case.... But on balance the case caused more damage to Kravchenko than to the French Communists, and although the Soviet UnionSoviet UnionThe Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and its police system did not come too well out of it, the Kravchenko Affair did not in any way interfere with the vast Peace Campaign the French Communists were planning to launch upon the world.
Les Lettres Françaises appealed the verdict. A higher French court upheld the verdict but reduced the fine from 50,000 francs to 3 francs, or less than US$1, on the grounds that trial publicity had helped Kravchenko sell books.
Later years
A lifelong democratic socialist, Kravchenko felt increasingly alienated from American politics, both from the anti-socialist Right and a decreasingly anti-communist Left. He then chose different ways to counteract exploitation and Stalinist development by moving to Bolivia and Peru. These included investing his profits made from I Chose Freedom into an attempt to organize poor farmers into new collectives. His South American ventures failed, due to official obstruction and murky activities by business associates. Sympathetic biographer Gary Kern suspects the KGB played a role.Suicide or assassination
Kravchenko's decision to abandon the Soviet Union condemned family members he left behind to harassment, imprisonment and worse. It was alleged that some of his family were killed. It is known that Kravchenko's whereabouts, was discovered by 1944 by NKVDNKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
agents, notably Mark Zborowski
Mark Zborowski
Mark Zborowski was an anthropologist and an NKVD agent...
, and subsequently monitored very closely by the NKVD and later, the KGB special operations.
Kravchenko's 1966 death from a gunshot wound to his head at his desk in his apartment in Manhattan
Manhattan
Manhattan is the oldest and the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City. Located primarily on the island of Manhattan at the mouth of the Hudson River, the boundaries of the borough are identical to those of New York County, an original county of the state of New York...
was officially ruled a suicide. This view is widely accepted, including by author Gary Kern. FBI files obtained by Kern after a six-year lawsuit show that President Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon B. Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson , often referred to as LBJ, was the 36th President of the United States after his service as the 37th Vice President of the United States...
had taken a strong interest in Kravchenko's suicide and had demanded that the FBI determine if his suicide note was authentic or a Soviet fabrication. The FBI ruled that it was authentic. Yet some details concerning Kravchenko's last days remain questionable, and his son Andrew believes he was the victim of a KGB assassination. Andrew Kravchenko produced a documentary film in 2008, The Defector, about his father.
Books
- Kern, G. (2007) Kravchenko Case: One Man's War On Stalin, Enigma Books, ISBN 978-1-929631-73-5