Viktor Andreevich Kravchenko (diplomat)

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Viktor Andreevich Kravchenko ( Russian Виктор Андреевич Кравченко, English Victor Kravchenko ; born October 11, 1905 in Yekaterinoslav , Russian Empire ; died February 25, 1966 in Manhattan ) was a Soviet engineer and later a trade diplomat in Washington, DC , who sought political asylum there in 1944 would have. His book I Chose Freedom , published in 1946, caused quite a stir.

Life

Kravchenko, a member of the CPSU since 1929, witnessed the famine in Ukraine . His book describes in detail the system of the gulag . The Cold War had just started, and Kravchenko's revelations were massively opposed by the Western Communist Parties and their media. The weekly magazine Les Lettres françaises accused him of being a liar and western spy. Kravchenko sued the magazine for defamation - as did Alexander Weißberg-Cybulski , whom the Lettres Françaises made similar accusations. The sensational trial in Paris in 1949 led to the questioning of dozens of witnesses. Former colleagues from the Soviet Union, General Sergei I. Rudenko and his ex-wife testified against Kravchenko, while Kravchenko's lawyers called survivors of the Gulag, including Margarete Buber-Neumann, as witnesses . Kravchenko won the case but received minimal compensation.

In his second book, I Chose Justice , he dealt with the Paris Trial and recommended that the United States fight world communism at its roots, i.e. by improving the living conditions of people, especially in the underdeveloped countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. He distanced himself from the circles around Senator McCarthy . In 2011, the Slovenian philosopher Slavoj Žižek praised Kravchenko's protest against Stalinism in the Soviet Union as “a real act of protest against injustice” in his book The Evil Spirits of Heavenly Realm. Kravchenko warned that fighting Stalinism should not lead to this that one "increasingly assimilates oneself to the enemy." In this sense he criticized the persecution of "un-American activities" directed by US Senator McCarthy .

From 1951, Kravchenko worked in Peru and had at times considerable success as a prospector and mining entrepreneur. He had two sons with his American partner. Kravchenko was found shot dead in a New York hotel, an English-language letter in the typewriter. His death is considered a suicide, but his son Andrew continues to believe in an execution by the KGB .

Fonts

  • I chose freedom: the personal and political life of a Soviet official . New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1946.
    • I chose freedom: the private and political life of a Soviet official. Translated from the American by Albert Hess. Thomas , Zurich 1947.
  • Questioned before the Committee on Un-American Activities in the United States July 22, 1947. House of Representatives - 80th Congress, First Session . Thomas Verlag, Zurich 1947. Political series of publications.
  • I chose justice . New York: Scribner, 1950

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Margarete Buber-Neumann: "Freedom, you are mine again ..." The power to survive , Georg Müller Verlag, 1978, p. 231ff.
  2. ↑ In many fine words . In: Der Spiegel . No. 15 , 1949 ( online - Apr. 9, 1949 ).
  3. ↑ Slavoj Zizek: The evil spirits of the heavenly realm (Frankfurt am Main 2011) p. 334
personal data
SURNAME Kravchenko, Viktor Andreevich
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Кравченко, Виктор Андреевич (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Soviet engineer and trade diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Ekaterinoslav
DATE OF DEATH February 25, 1966
Place of death Manhattan