I Chose Freedom
| Victor Kravchenko | |
|---|---|
| Born |
Victor Andreevich Kravchenko October 11, 1905 Ekaterinoslav, Russian Empire |
| Died | February 25, 1966 (aged 60) Manhattan, New York, United States |
| Occupation | Writer, Engineer, |
| Years active | 1944 - 1966 |
| Notable work | I Chose Freedom |
Victor Andreevich Kravchenko (Ukrainian: Віктор Андрійович Кра́вченко, 11 October 1905 – 25 February 1966) was a Soviet defector, known for writing the best-selling book, I Chose Freedom, published in 1946, about the realities of life in the Soviet Union.
Kravchenko defected to the United States during World War II, and began writing about his experiences as an official in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and raising awareness of the Holodomor.
Kravchenko also wrote a lesser known book, that was the sequel to "I Chose Freedom", entitled "I Chose Justice" in 1950. His inspiration came from a paranoia stemming from his "Trial of the Century" and the McCarthy's, so-called,"anti-communist witch hunt". Kravchenko realized that the western world engaged in injustices against humanity resembling the regime he originally fled from.
Later in life he wrote about his experiences in America under capitalism, until his death under suspicious circumstances in 1966.
Victor Andreevich Kravchenko was born on 11 October, 1905, into a Ukrainian family in Ekaterinoslav, Russian Empire (now Dnipropetrovsk, Ukraine) with a non-party, revolutionary father. Kravchenko became an engineer specializing in metallurgy, and while studying at the Dneprodzerzhinsk Metallurgical Institute he became friends with future Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. An enthusiastic Communist Party of the Soviet Union member who joined the party in 1929, Kravchenko later became disillusioned by witnessing the effects of collectivization while working in the steel mills of the Donbass region in his native Ukraine, and his personal mistreatment during the Great Purge, although he ultimately managed to avoid arrest. During World War II, Kravchenko served as a Captain in the Soviet Army until 1943, when he was posted to the Soviet Purchasing Commission in Washington, DC, the capital of the United States.
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