Customer Reviews

I Chose Freedom

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This book is the most important description of the soviet terror that stroke the whole society in communist countries much before Soljenistin. When published, all communist parties in Europe, continued to refuse to see the horrible reality for decades, showing that communism equal nazism. This book should be reprinted and advertised as a piece of XX century History

I had been looking forward to reading this book for sometime since it has been out of print. This was a seminal book in the process of deglamorizing Joe Stalin and the Soviet Union. The brutality of the Soviets as manifested by the genocidal famines, purges, persecution of religion, and overt aggression and occupation of neighboring countries was known to the West. However, due to the outright denials and other obfuscations by leftists of all sorts, and FDR's administration, presumably to get Stalin to side with them against Hitler, this knowledge was suppressed and did not influence public opinion.

Well, the book is an expose of communism written by a communist. The author makes it clear that he realizes that he dedicated his life to a system that was essentially terroristic, and no effort on his part to instill or elicit decency from the rulers and their underlings was going to work inside the system. That is why he comes to the conviction that the only way to save his people is to write this expose, hoping that outside world could influence the Kremlin, so that they would finally feel some fear for what they were doing. The author was correct, and subsequantly other exposes influenced forces, both externally and internally, and brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union. However, the author did pay a terrible price for his actions, as I am sure he knew he would, his family and freinds in the Soviet Union were severely persecuted.

I dissagree with a earlier reviewer's point that the author was not a confirmed advocate of Western style democracy. Considering the time that the author had after he entered the country, defected and wrote the book, it is unlikely that he could do a reasonable comparative analysis of political systems. The author was convinced that the Soviet system was evil, and that it was much worse than Czarist Russia. Also consider how devastating it must have been to him to abandon this ideology to which he had devoted his life to. I am curious about what his further convictions were.

Overall, this is a very well written book, a credit to the author's ability and his translators. I just wish that the publisher had included a little on the author's biography post the release of the book.

This book is probably the best book written about the extremes to which a government can systematically abuse it citizens, and how one individual can live through the horror and document the story first hand. Takes place in Stalinist Russia, but the back drop could be any totalitarian regime.

I was given this book to read by someone who escaped the "workers' paradise" in Europe. For those who underestimate the evil of the Communist Party, you will quickly be awakened.

Despite the banal title, this somewhat forgotten book is a harrowing journey through Stalinist Russia. Possibly my all-time favorite autobiography.

While I read this book many years ago, the story told has stayed with me. Written by a man who's father fought the Russian Revolution, and was himself a worked for the state, detailed to help nt he collectivization of the farms, the author documents the many problems of a centralized economy, that also shows no compassion for the farmers. Later, as an engineer is a pipe making factory, Victor tells of the priority of politics over engineering konwledge, when many are accused of sabotaging the machinery, when it breaks down due to the improper hardness of the steel being delivered as raw materail. Factory workers are sent to prison, rather than blaming the problems on the process that puts a mindset of "meeting a quota" over meeting required quality specifications to ensure you can make what is needed.

When he travels to the US during WWII for an engineering exchange program, he defects as soon as he is able, having long known he is a part of a broken system.

Excellent book, if you want to know what life was like as the Soviet Union came into being, through the eyes of a young man with an analytical mind.

Victor Kravchenko made a stunning defection to the USA in 1944, while working as a Soviet purchasing agent on the lend-lease program. He was 38 years old. Kravchenko grew up as an idealist and a zealous communist. His father even served prison time for revolting against the Czar in 1905. Kravchenko fought with the Reds in the civil war and joined the communist party.

He began to sour on communism as a witness to the ghastly collectivization efforts in the Ukraine in the mid 1930's. He was sent to organize a harvest but forbidden to feed the starving workers. Kravchenko broke the rules then, and many times as manager of various pipe factories. Nevertheless he witnessed widespread starvation. His communist resolve began to crack when his family adopted a young girl, a wandering orphan, who cried herself to sleep every night because her parents had been shipped to Siberia. And further, when he finally delivered the grain to a warehouse only to find the previous year's harvest safely stored there while thousands perished nearby.

His communist devotion was finally destroyed by numerouse 'purges', endless questionings, tortures, and beatings. His knack for rallying factories seems to be the only reason he survived. Kravchenko vividly describes the human condition of the workers and farmers, the lush perks of party members, and the omnipresent informer culture of a police state.

He eventually achieved a high post in the Kremlin after the Nazi invasion, working under Stalin's top lieutenants. Then deftly maneueverd himself into a position where he might be posted abroad to defect. After his defection, he wrote this book and lived in constant fear of assassination in the US. He died under suspicious circumstances in New York in 1966.

This all too human book shimmers with truth and the realism of genuine witness. Written in rugged prose (translated from Russian) it is the memoir of a great soul. A compelling read for anyone who wants to understand Russia, communism, Stalin, Evil.

For anyone who still thinks that Communism is an attractive alternative to Capitalism, to those who wear Che Guevara tshirts, take a bit and read this book. Sorry, the argument that it was individuals that were bad and not the system just does not hold up. Unfortunatley we do not teach history as much as we should and thus we are easily fooled by others with an agenda as we cannot put their claims in context. This book makes one think and that alone makes it worth the effort.

A great historical book on the Russian Communist Revolution and how it was viewed from the point of view of an ardent Communist. By reading this book, a good comparison can be made with other famous revolutions in history.

This is one of the best books I've read in a very long time, a fact which caught me completely by surprise as I purchased it on a whim after seeing it referenced in a 20th century social history of Russia textbook I was assigned in college. I was hoping to get a personal account of life under Stalin; Kravchenko certainly delivers, not only from the perspective of an ordinary citizen who began his career with deep hopefulness about the Soviet system, but also later as a profoundly disillusioned, high-ranking official who miraculously manages to survive every major calamity of the period -- collectivization, purges, the Nazi invasion, etc. Kravchenko's writing (or at least the English translation) is a delight, his narrative riveting, and the implication of what the Russian people went through in this period is absolutely mind-boggling. As an insider's account it is first rate.

While this edition of the book (purchased through Amazon) appears to have been republished by a conservative group as a means to promote "conservatism," Kravchenko's own motivations were quite different: his commitment was to seeing the totalitarian regime replaced with a democratic one, whatever form that democracy might eventually take. Even in his defection to the US, he does not endorse any particular ideology, choosing intead to acknowledge injustice where he sees it (the US and Britain included).