Dmitri Volkogonov | |
|---|---|
| Personal details | |
| Born | Dmitri Antonovich Volkogonov 22 March 1928 Chita, RSFSR, USSR |
| Died | 6 December 1995 (aged 67) Moscow, Russia |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Occupation | Historian |
| Military service | |
| Branch/service | Army |
| Years of service | 1945–1991 |
| Rank | Colonel-General |
Dmitri Antonovich Volkogonov (Russian: Дми́трий Анто́нович Волкого́нов; 22 March 1928 – 6 December 1995) was a Soviet and Russian historian and colonel general who was head of the Soviet military's psychological warfare department. After research in secret Soviet archives (both before and after the dissolution of the union), he published a biography of Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin, among others such as Leon Trotsky. Despite being a committed Stalinist and Marxist–Leninist for most of his career, Volkogonov came to repudiate communism and the Soviet system within the last decade of his life before his death from cancer in 1995.[1]
Through his research in the restricted archives of the Soviet Central Committee, Volkogonov discovered facts that contradicted the official Soviet version of events, and the cult of personality that had been built up around Lenin and Stalin. Volkogonov published books that contributed to the strain of liberal Russian thought that emerged during Glasnost in the late 1980s and the post-Soviet era of the early 1990s.