Dmitri Antonovich Volkogonov (Дмитрий Антонович Волкогонов in Russian) (22 March 1928, Chita - 6 December 1995, Moscow) was a Russian historian, Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of History, Colonel General (1986). 1928 (MCMXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Chita may refer to one of the following. ... 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Location Position of Moscow in Europe Government Country District Subdivision Russia Central Federal District Federal City Mayor Yuriy Luzhkov Geographical characteristics Area  - City 1,081 km² Population  - City (2005)    - Density 10,415,400   8537. ... A historian is someone who writes history, and history is a written accounting of the past. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Colonel General is a senior military rank which is used in some of the world’s militaries. ... 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Volkogonov was the head of the Institute of Military History at the Ministry of Defense of the USSR between 1988 and 1991. He was director of the arm of the Soviet military concerned with "psychological warfare" writing a manual on this subject for Soviet forces (The Psychological War). He also presided over a number of governmental and presidential committees. 1988 (MCMLXXXVIII) was a leap year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1991 (MCMXCI) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Long known in Western military circles as one of the hardest of hard-liners, Volkogonov began, by the middle of Brezhnev's rule, to have serious doubts about the Soviet regime. At first these only concerned Stalin, whose purges led to the deaths of both of Volkogonov's parents. He spent nearly twenty years compiling a revisionist (by Soviet standards) biography. Though he forthrightly described Stalin's crimes, he remained an admirer of Lenin and (following the Khrushchev line) believed that Stalinism was a perversion of the true Leninism. That his book would be controversial was obvious to others, especially his superior, to whom he showed the book once it was completed. After reading "Joseph Stalin" he told Volkogonov that he was, in effect, attacking not just Stalin but Lenin. Volkogonov's wife also begged him not to publish the book and he did hold it back for a time, fearful of the consequences. Once the book was published, these consequences were not slow in coming. He was fired in 1991 from his job as director of the Institute of Military History at the Ministry of Defense of the USSR by Mikhail Gorbachev. Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev  listen? ( Russian: Леони́д Ильи́ч Бре́жнев) ( December 19, 1906 – November 10, 1982) was effective ruler of the Soviet Union from 1964 to 1982, though at first in partnership with... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვი&#4314... In history and political science, to purge is to remove undesirable people from a government, political party, profession, or from community/society as a whole, usually by violent means. ... Nikita Khrushchev in 1962 Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (Russian: Ники́та Серге́евич Хрущёв) (nih-KEE-tah khroo-SHCHYOFF) (April 17, 1894 – September 11, 1971) was the leader of the Soviet Union...   (Russian: , Mihail Sergeevič Gorbačëv, IPA: , commonly anglicized as Mikhail Gorbachev; born March 2, 1931) was leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 until 1991. ...

Once the Soviet Union's collapse was complete, Volkogonov combined his historical work with political activity in the newly established Russian state. Following the failed hardline 1991 coup, Volkogonov was appointed Defense Advisor to Russian leader Boris Yeltsin. By then he was already afflicted with the cancer that would kill him in 1995. Before he died, he contributed much to the so-called "liberal" strain of Russian thought that the Soviet period was itself an aberration in Russian history and thus "un-Russian." Volkogonov was one of the leaders of the movement to expose the crimes of the Soviet regime and exorcise its malignant influence from Russia. The independent streak that had come to the fore in the Eighties continued until the end of his life. He opposed the use of force in ethnic disputes and criticized Yeltsin for "having taken the advice of wrong-headed counselors" in the decision to invade Chechnya. (Editor's Preface, Autopsy for an Empire, Shukman, 1997) To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

Volkogonov is most famous for his trilogy Leaders (Вожди, or Vozhdi), which consists of the three books about Vladimir Lenin (Lenin: A New Biography), Leon Trotsky (Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary) and Joseph Stalin (Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy) and Autopsy for an Empire: the Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime (Russian title: Sem Vozhdei), 1998. Although his works have been attacked by critics in the West for various flaws of scholarship and writing, it should be noted that the English editions were essentially condensed versions of the much longer Russian originals (as acknowledged by their translator and editor Harold Shukman). Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, better known by the name   (b. ... (Russian: Лев Давидович Троцкий; also transliterated Leo, Lev, Trotskii, Trotski, Trotskij, Trockij and Trotzky) (November 7 [O.S. October 26] 1879 – August 21, 1940), born Lev Davidovich Bronstein (Лев Давидович Бронштейн), was a Bolshevik revolutionary and Marxist theorist. ... Stalin redirects here. ...

Volkogonov on Leon Trotsky's role in the Russian Civil War:

"His personal involvement in the use of military commissars on the front brought positive reults."

Sources

• Autopsy for an Empire: the Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime, and Editor's Preface, Harold Shukman