6 thinkers, books, and ideas connected to this field.
George Orwell's 1945 allegorical novella — in which farm animals overthrow their farmer only to find the pigs establishing a new tyranny — the most widely read anti-Stalinist allegorical fiction.
General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party (1922–1953) — who industrialized the USSR at the cost of millions of lives (collectivization, Gulag, Terror), defeated Nazi Germany on the Eastern Front, and extended Soviet power to Eastern Europe — the most successful political survivor in modern history.
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1985–91) and last President of the USSR — who launched perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (openness), ended the Cold War, allowed Eastern European revolutions, and presided over the Soviet Union's dissolution — possibly the most consequential peaceful political choice in modern history.
American historian at Stanford and Hoover Institution — author of Fires of Hatred (on ethnic cleansing in 20th century Europe) and Stalin's Genocides — a leading scholar of 20th century European ethnic violence.
American historian at Princeton and Hoover Institution — author of the multi-volume Stalin biography (Paradoxes of Power, Waiting for Hitler, Tyrant) — the most comprehensive and analytically serious Stalin biography in English.
Soviet-American physicist and human rights activist — who was a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group — was denied emigration by Soviet authorities for 8 years — became a Reagan administration advisor on Soviet human rights after emigrating — founded the Center for Democracy in the USSR.