Vladimir Nikolayevich Petrov (1915 in
Ekaterinodar
Krasnodar (; rus, Краснода́р, p=krəsnɐˈdar; ady, Краснодар), formerly Yekaterinodar (until 1920), is the largest city and the administrative centre of Krasnodar Krai, Russia. The city stands on the Kuban River in southern ...
oblast
An oblast (; ; Cyrillic (in most languages, including Russian and Ukrainian): , Bulgarian: ) is a type of administrative division of Belarus, Bulgaria, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Ukraine, as well as the Soviet Union and the Kingdom of ...
,
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
– March 17, 1999 in
Kensington, Maryland
Kensington is a town in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. The population was 2,213 at the 2010 United States Census. Greater Kensington encompasses the entire 20895 ZIP code, with a population of 19,054.
History
The area around th ...
) was at various times an
academic
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
,
philatelist
Philately (; ) is the study of postage stamps and postal history. It also refers to the collection and appreciation of stamps and other philatelic products. Philately involves more than just stamp collecting or the study of postage; it is possi ...
, prisoner,
forced labor
Forced labour, or unfree labour, is any work relation, especially in modern or early modern history, in which people are employed against their will with the threat of destitution, detention, violence including death, or other forms of ex ...
er,
political prisoner
A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention.
There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although n ...
,
adventurer
An adventure is an exciting experience or undertaking that is typically bold, sometimes risky. Adventures may be activities with danger such as traveling, exploring, skydiving, mountain climbing, scuba diving, river rafting, or other extreme spo ...
, factory worker, chess player and writer of short stories and autobiographies. He was at various times a Russian, American, and man of no country, though he was brought up in the
USSR
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...
and died in the United States. Most of the information concerning his life originates from his personal memoirs, entitled ''Soviet Gold'' and ''My Retreat from Russia'' and collected in the published work ''Escape from the Future''.
Early life
Petrov was born in Russia in 1915 during the last days of the
Tsar
Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East Slavs, East and South Slavs, South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''Caesar (title), caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" i ...
. His parents were from the petit bourgeoisie, his mother a teacher in an experimental school, his father a
free-thinker
Freethought (sometimes spelled free thought) is an epistemological viewpoint which holds that beliefs should not be formed on the basis of authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma, and that beliefs should instead be reached by other methods ...
, banker and lay philosopher (follower of
Ernest Renan
Joseph Ernest Renan (; 27 February 18232 October 1892) was a French Orientalist and Semitic scholar, expert of Semitic languages and civilizations, historian of religion, philologist, philosopher, biblical scholar, and critic. He wrote influe ...
, among others). His father was part of a group socially-minded associates who organized a farmer's credit union, thus enabling farmers to own their means of production during the early years of socialism. The success of the farmers' bank (in its heyday the farmers collectively owned several trucks and even a river steamship for transporting their produce directly to city markets) brought trouble from the Bolshevik authorities. Petrov's father was imprisoned for the first time when young Volodya was 7 years old, for allegedly exploiting the working classes. Upon his release, Petrov's father called him up to
Leningrad
Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
to continue his studies at a technical high school. Petrov was 14 and wished to study history, but his father's prison record excluded his son from this potentially political subject. Petrov later entered the department of civil engineering at the
University of Leningrad, living in his words "the meager existence of a young student" where he was arrested on the night of February 17, 1935 by the
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (russian: Наро́дный комиссариа́т вну́тренних дел, Naródnyy komissariát vnútrennikh del, ), abbreviated NKVD ( ), was the interior ministry of the Soviet Union.
...
. He was arrested at age 19 as part of the mass
purges
In history, religion and political science, a purge is a position removal or execution of people who are considered undesirable by those in power from a government, another organization, their team leaders, or society as a whole. A group undertak ...
which followed in the wake of the assassination of
Sergey Kirov
Sergei Mironovich Kirov (né Kostrikov; 27 March 1886 – 1 December 1934) was a Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary whose assassination led to the first Great Purge.
Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and membe ...
.
[''Soviet Gold'', "Prisons of the City of Lenin" (p. 31)] He was imprisoned and tortured for months before being formally charged with a crime.
Petrov's namesake son summarizes the reason for his father's arrest as "for coming to the defense of a rape victim."
The crimes he was charged with were, as related in his autobiography:
1. Writing of anti-soviet character (my diaries).
2. Possession of counter-revolutionary literature (the diaries...)
3. Espionage (correspondence with philatelists in the United States of America and
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
)
4. Anti-Soviet propaganda abroad (ditto).
5. Fomenting an armed uprising among the
Cossacks
The Cossacks , es, cosaco , et, Kasakad, cazacii , fi, Kasakat, cazacii , french: cosaques , hu, kozákok, cazacii , it, cosacchi , orv, коза́ки, pl, Kozacy , pt, cossacos , ro, cazaci , russian: казаки́ or ...
...
6. Preparations for robbing savings banks and co-operatives...
7. Organization of
counter-revolution
A counter-revolutionary or an anti-revolutionary is anyone who opposes or resists a revolution, particularly one who acts after a revolution in order to try to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part. The adjective "counter-revoluti ...
ary group among the student of my institute...
8. Anti-Soviet propaganda among the population
[''Soviet Gold'', "Prisons of the City of Lenin" (p. 63)]
An
NKVD Troika
NKVD troika or Special troika (russian: особая тройка, osobaya troyka), in Soviet history, were the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD which would later be the beginning of the KGB) made up of three officials who issued ...
convicted him of charges 1, 5, and 7 as given above. The only evidence presented was a personal diary he had written when he was 16. Without being able to consult counsel or view the evidence against him, he was sentenced to six years hard labor in the gold fields of the
Kolyma
Kolyma (russian: Колыма́, ) is a region located in the Russian Far East. It is bounded to the north by the East Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean, and by the Sea of Okhotsk to the south. The region gets its name from the Kolyma River an ...
.
[''Soviet Gold'', "Prisons of the City of Lenin" (p. 67)] Due to their association with him, multiple of his colleagues were arrested on similar charges of
counter-revolutionary
A counter-revolutionary or an anti-revolutionary is anyone who opposes or resists a revolution, particularly one who acts after a revolution in order to try to overturn it or reverse its course, in full or in part. The adjective "counter-revoluti ...
activity.
He was sentenced under Article 58, Paragraphs 10 and 14 of the
Soviet legal code. This made him a "contra" or "counter-revolutionary political prisoner," a resident of the
Gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
archipelago.
[''Soviet Gold'', "Prisons of the City of Lenin" (p. 71)]
Prison term
During his internment, Petrov's life was one of complex vacillations. He at times had more freedom than many prisoners, including freedom of movement, sufficient food, medical care, private housing, and female companionship. At times he was one of the worst-treated of all prisoners in the GULAG system, living on a bread ration of less than half a kilogram per day and working near-naked in sub-zero waters to mine gold for the NKVD.
[''Soviet Gold'', "At The Bottom" (p.225)] He constantly lived in hope of having his sentence commuted, and constantly lived in fear of
Serpantinnaya, a 'truck stop' north of Magadan which Petrov charges was used by the NKVD to perform
summary execution
A summary execution is an execution in which a person is accused of a crime and immediately killed without the benefit of a full and fair trial. Executions as the result of summary justice (such as a drumhead court-martial) are sometimes include ...
s.
[''Soviet Gold'', "Black Times" (p.195)]
He attempted escape numerous times,
[''Soviet Gold'', "On The Way To Freedom" (p.250)] some of which attempts were only routed based upon lack of provisions and
protective clothing
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is protective clothing, helmets, goggles, or other garments or equipment designed to protect the wearer's body from injury or infection. The hazards addressed by protective equipment include physical, ele ...
to combat the
Russian Winter
Russian Winter, sometimes personified as "General Frost" or "General Winter", is an aspect of the climate of Russia that has contributed to military failures of several invasions of Russia. Mud is a related contributing factor that impairs milit ...
. He traded in camp vodka and performed electrical repairs for fees and favors. He liaised with the wives of camp leaders. He became exposed to political dissidence, meeting
Trotskyites
Trotskyism is the political ideology and branch of Marxism developed by Ukrainian-Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky and some other members of the Left Opposition and Fourth International. Trotsky self-identified as an orthodox Marxist, a rev ...
,
anarchists
Anarchism is a political philosophy and movement that is skeptical of all justifications for authority and seeks to abolish the institutions it claims maintain unnecessary coercion and hierarchy, typically including, though not necessari ...
, as well as doctrinaire
Bolsheviks
The Bolsheviks (russian: Большевики́, from большинство́ ''bol'shinstvó'', 'majority'),; derived from ''bol'shinstvó'' (большинство́), "majority", literally meaning "one of the majority". also known in English ...
and informants for the
Cheka
The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission ( rus, Всероссийская чрезвычайная комиссия, r=Vserossiyskaya chrezvychaynaya komissiya, p=fsʲɪrɐˈsʲijskəjə tɕrʲɪzvɨˈtɕæjnəjə kɐˈmʲisʲɪjə), abbreviated ...
.
[''Soviet Gold'', "Magadan: Capital of the Kolyma" (p. 108)] During his term he also discovered the largest ever gold nugget in the history of the
Kolyma
Kolyma (russian: Колыма́, ) is a region located in the Russian Far East. It is bounded to the north by the East Siberian Sea and the Arctic Ocean, and by the Sea of Okhotsk to the south. The region gets its name from the Kolyma River an ...
gold fields. He was severely wounded by ammonal explosions in a mine, he was often beaten by guards and interrogators, and many times he existed on starvation rations for extended periods of time.
[''Soviet Gold'', "Hard Time" (p. 225)]
Petrov's earthy wit, chess skills and relative youth were keys to his survival of Kolyma. He became friends with many people during his prison term. Among them was a red-haired man known as Prostoserdov, a
Menshevik
The Mensheviks (russian: меньшевики́, from меньшинство 'minority') were one of the three dominant factions in the Russian socialist movement, the others being the Bolsheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries.
The factions eme ...
and vocal opponent of
Stalinism
Stalinism is the means of governing and Marxist-Leninist policies implemented in the Soviet Union from 1927 to 1953 by Joseph Stalin. It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state, rapid industrialization, the theory ...
. It is assumed that Prostoserdov's execution would have made him a martyr; as a result, he was among the most elect prisoners in terms of treatment and privileges. Petrov's run-ins with Prostoserdov serve as one of the work's most poignant refrain; each encounter shows how each man has changed, and how they have struggled to remain themselves.
Once, by his own admission, he murdered a cruel camp official in cold blood using a pickaxe.
[''Soviet Gold'', "Black Times" (p. 196)] On many other occasions he conspired with fellow prisoners or in other ways violated the rules of
Dalstroy
Dalstroy (russian: Дальстро́й, ), also known as Far North Construction Trust, was an organization set up in 1931 in order to manage road construction and the mining of gold in the Russian Far East, including the Magadan Region, Chukotka ...
. Sometimes he was placed on a lower bread ration, but rarely as a direct result of his actual transgressions. He was never severely punished, nor was his prison term lengthened.
[''Soviet Gold'', general] He at times went on hunger strikes to protest camp conditions, though he like other prisoners, was chronically mal-nourished and afflicted by scurvy.
It has been claimed that much of his account bears similarities to the later semi-fictional account of
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn. (11 December 1918 – 3 August 2008) was a Russian novelist. One of the most famous Soviet dissidents, Solzhenitsyn was an outspoken critic of communism and helped to raise global awareness of political repress ...
in ''
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
''One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich'' (russian: links=no, italics=yes, Один день Ивана Денисовича, Odin den' Ivana Denisovicha, ) is a short novel by the Russian writer and Nobel laureate Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, first p ...
''.
[''Soviet Gold'', "Introduction" (p. vi)] It has also been compared to ''
Papillon'' by
Henri Charrière
Henri Charrière (; 16 November 1906 – 29 July 1973) was a French writer, convicted in 1931 as a murderer by the French courts and pardoned in 1970. He wrote the novel '' Papillon'', a memoir of his incarceration in and escape from a pena ...
. It is possible that Petrov's internment overlapped with that of
Varlam Shalamov
Varlam Tikhonovich Shalamov (russian: Варла́м Ти́хонович Шала́мов; 18 June 1907 – 17 January 1982), baptized as Varlaam, was a Russian writer, journalist, poet and Gulag survivor. He spent much of the period from 1 ...
, the Russian writer, whose ''
Kolyma Tales
''Kolyma Tales'' or ''Kolyma Stories'' (russian: Колымские рассказы, ''Kolymskiye rasskazy'') is the name given to six collections of short stories by Russian author Varlam Shalamov, about labour camp life in the Soviet Union. He ...
'' depict the brutality of human nature laid bare in this remote camp of the archipelago.
After prison
Released from prison in the week that
Nazi Germany invaded the USSR
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during World War II, the Second World War. The operation, code ...
in
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, Petrov made his way across Russia on the
Trans-Siberian Railroad
The Trans-Siberian Railway (TSR; , , ) connects European Russia to the Russian Far East. Spanning a length of over , it is the longest railway line in the world. It runs from the city of Moscow in the west to the city of Vladivostok in the eas ...
. He avoided Soviet
mobilization
Mobilization is the act of assembling and readying military troops and supplies for war. The word ''mobilization'' was first used in a military context in the 1850s to describe the preparation of the Prussian Army. Mobilization theories and ...
; as an ex-convict he would have been placed in a
mine-clearing
Demining or mine clearance is the process of removing land mines from an area. In military operations, the object is to rapidly clear a path through a minefield, and this is often done with devices such as mine plows and blast waves. By contra ...
battalion. The German front established by
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa (german: link=no, Unternehmen Barbarossa; ) was the invasion of the Soviet Union by Nazi Germany and many of its Axis allies, starting on Sunday, 22 June 1941, during the Second World War. The operation, code-named after ...
passed by his town and thus came under control of the
Third Reich
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. He managed, over two years, to work his way across Eastern Europe, into Germany and then Italy.
In
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, he contacted and played a role in the anti-stalinist operations of General
Andrey Vlasov
Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov (russian: Андрéй Андрéевич Влáсов, – August 1, 1946) was a Soviet Red Army general and Nazi collaborator. During World War II, he fought in the Battle of Moscow and later was captured att ...
.
His memoirs give markedly less information concerning his association with Vlasov than they do about almost all his other associations, even those with minor convicts. This has fueled speculation as to how he managed to secure passage to America at the end of the war.
After the war
In 1947 he managed to secure transportation to America through the good offices of the
Tolstoy Foundation The Tolstoy Foundation is a non-profit charitable and philanthropic organization. It was established on April 26, 1939, by Alexandra Tolstaya, the youngest daughter of the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, and her friend Tatiana Schaufuss. Its headquarter ...
, an organization that helped numerous Russians reach the US. Here, after a stint as a factory-worker, he became an academic and taught at such schools as
Yale University
Yale University is a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. Established in 1701 as the Collegiate School, it is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and among the most prestigious in the wo ...
and
George Washington University
, mottoeng = "God is Our Trust"
, established =
, type = Private federally chartered research university
, academic_affiliations =
, endowment = $2.8 billion (2022)
, preside ...
while raising a family. In 1955 and 1956 Petrov worked at Radio Liberty in Munich. Prof. Petrov's academic works included the books 'Money and Conquest', 'A Study in Diplomacy', 'What China Policy?', 'June 22, 1941' as well as various academic monographs. His later work in
Sino-Soviet affairs led him to study the controversial relationship between
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secreta ...
and
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong pronounced ; also romanised traditionally as Mao Tse-tung. (26 December 1893 – 9 September 1976), also known as Chairman Mao, was a Chinese communist revolutionary who was the founder of the People's Republic of China (PRC) ...
, and to openly question American foreign policy regarding what he considered to be an absurd non-recognition of China. True to his childhood passion for history, he was averse to all forms of historical re-writing, and his academic approach could be described as journalistic, as he much preferred eyewitness interviews to second-hand accounts.
In the 1950s Petrov participated in emigre politics and was a regular contributor to the newspaper Novoye Russkoye Slovo under a pseudonym. His connections included people as diverse as
Alexander Kerensky
Alexander Fyodorovich Kerensky, ; Reforms of Russian orthography, original spelling: ( – 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and revolutionary who led the Russian Provisional Government and the short-lived Russian Republic for three months ...
and
Max Eastman
Max Forrester Eastman (January 4, 1883 – March 25, 1969) was an American writer on literature, philosophy and society, a poet and a prominent political activist. Moving to New York City for graduate school, Eastman became involved with radical ...
. He published the first volume of his memoirs, ''Soviet Gold'', in 1949, and ''My Retreat from Russia'' a couple of years later. ''Soviet Gold'' was the first published memoir of a Gulag prisoner in the West, and received a favorable review from
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 Winston Churchill in the Second World War, dur ...
. In 1947, he and
Henry A. Wallace
Henry Agard Wallace (October 7, 1888 – November 18, 1965) was an American politician, journalist, farmer, and businessman who served as the 33rd vice president of the United States, the 11th U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, and the 10th U.S. S ...
met, and Wallace publicly apologized for having misrepresented reality when he visited
Magadan
Magadan ( rus, Магадан, p=məɡɐˈdan) is a port town and the administrative center of Magadan Oblast, Russia, located on the Sea of Okhotsk in Nagayev Bay (within Taui Bay) and serving as a gateway to the Kolyma region.
History
Maga ...
in 1944.
During the
McCarthy trials Petrov was called upon to describe the conditions in the
Soviet concentration camps. Petrov was published by William I Nichols, editor of the popular ''
This Week'' syndicated magazine. Nichols published excerpts of Petrov's memoirs and encouraged the publication of his humorous short stories, fondly calling Petrov "a poor-man's
Tchekov".
Vladimir Petrov died March 17, 1999 at age 83 at his home in
Kensington, Maryland
Kensington is a town in Montgomery County, Maryland, United States. The population was 2,213 at the 2010 United States Census. Greater Kensington encompasses the entire 20895 ZIP code, with a population of 19,054.
History
The area around th ...
, after a brief illness. Among those who doted upon him during those last months was daughter-in-law Patty who had only recently married Vladimir, Jr. but very quickly came to "adore" and form a close bond with the elder Petrov. He was survived by his wife, Jean MacNab, nine children—George, Susie, Lili, Vlad, Sasha, Jane, Anne, Andre and Carol—and seven grandchildren, many of whom work in science, technology, medicine, and the arts. "Live for today, never mind tomorrow", was one of his favorite sayings.
See also
*
Gulag
The Gulag, an acronym for , , "chief administration of the camps". The original name given to the system of camps controlled by the GPU was the Main Administration of Corrective Labor Camps (, )., name=, group= was the government agency in ...
*
Dalstroy
Dalstroy (russian: Дальстро́й, ), also known as Far North Construction Trust, was an organization set up in 1931 in order to manage road construction and the mining of gold in the Russian Far East, including the Magadan Region, Chukotka ...
*
Great Purge
The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Nikolay Yezhov, Yezhov'), was General ...
*
Moscow Trials
The Moscow trials were a series of show trials held by the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938 at the instigation of Joseph Stalin. They were nominally directed against "Trotskyists" and members of "Right Opposition" of the Communist Party of th ...
*
Andrey Vlasov
Andrey Andreyevich Vlasov (russian: Андрéй Андрéевич Влáсов, – August 1, 1946) was a Soviet Red Army general and Nazi collaborator. During World War II, he fought in the Battle of Moscow and later was captured att ...
References
Sources
* Petrov, Vladimir (1949). ''Soviet Gold'',
Farrar Straus, New York.
* Petrov, Vladimir (1950). ''My Retreat from Russia'',
Yale University Press
Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous.
, Yale Universi ...
, New Haven
* Petrov, Vladimir (1973). ''Escape from the Future: The Incredible Adventures of a Young Russian'',
Indiana University Press
Indiana University Press, also known as IU Press, is an academic publisher founded in 1950 at Indiana University that specializes in the humanities and social sciences. Its headquarters are located in Bloomington, Indiana. IU Press publishes 140 ...
, Bloomington, .
''Note:'' Escape from the Future ''is a single-volume combination of the stories '' Soviet Gold ''and'' My Retreat from Russia. ''Apart from a short preface, it contains no new material.''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Petrov, Vladimir
1915 births
1999 deaths
Soviet people of World War II
Soviet memoirists
Soviet emigrants to the United States
George Washington University faculty
Gulag detainees
Prisoners and detainees of the Soviet Union
20th-century memoirists