Victor Krasin
| Victor Aleksandrovich Krasin | |
|---|---|
Victor Krasin in 1968, when he was active in the human rights movement
|
|
| Native name | Виктор Александрович Красин |
| Born |
August 4, 1929 Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union |
| Nationality | Russian |
| Citizenship |
 Soviet Union (1929–1991) →  Russian Federation (1991–present),  United States
|
| Alma mater | Moscow State University |
| Occupation | economist |
| Employer | Central Economic Mathematical Institute |
| Known for | human rights activism with participation in Initiative Group for the Defense of Human Rights in the USSR |
| Movement | dissident movement in the Soviet Union |
Victor Aleksandrovich Krasin (also spelled Viktor Krasin, Russian: Ви́ктор Алекса́ндрович Кра́син, born 4 August 1929, Kiev) is a Russian human rights activist, economist, a former Soviet dissident and a political prisoner. Krasin is currently a US citizen.
In 1947 Krasin entered the Moscow University's Psychology Department of the Philosophical Faculty.
In January 1949, Krasin and some friends were arrested by the KGB and sentenced to eight years in labor camps for criticizing Marxism–Leninism. Krasin was sent to the Ozerlag labor camp along the Tayshet railway. In September 1949, Krasin escaped with four others from the Taishet transit camp. They disarmed two of the guards when working in the sand carrier in the forest. They were re-captured on the third day and sentenced to 10 years for counter-revolutionary sabotage. Krasin spent the first winter working in the logging camp.
In 1950 Krasin was transferred to the Kolyma region in the USSR Ear east, in the Berlag labor camp. Ozerlag and Berlag were special camps for political prisoners. The prisoners worked 10 hours a day, usually with one rest day in a month, and had the right to send only two letters per year. In the Magadan transit camp Krasin learned how to work on a lathe machine. He was transferred to the uranium mines and this skill saved his life. Many miners became deadly sick in one year because of silicosis, but Krasin was registered as a turner and worked the rest of his term in the mechanical shops. After Stalin's death, in October 1954, Krasin and the others who were arrested in 1949 were brought back to Moscow, released and rehabilitated.
In 1963 Krasin graduated from the Economic Faculty of Moscow State University. He worked as a truck and taxi driver. Krasin completed postgraduate studies in 1966 in the Department of Statistics. He was unable to defend his thesis because it did not correspond to Marxist standards. From 1966 to 1968 Krasin worked as a researcher at the Central Economics and Mathematics Institute (CEMI).
...
Wikipedia