13.3 THE TRIAL IN GORKY
The “Raskolnikov Letter” — This refers to the letter of the Bolshevik Raskolnikov (Ilyn), criticising Stalin. Dated August 17, 1939, it “was first published in the Paris émigré newspaper Novaya Rossiya on 1 October 1939,” writes its translator Brian Pearce. “According to Roy Medvedev (Let History Judge), in 1964 the author’s widow, a resident of France, brought the original of the letter to Moscow. It circulated widely through samizdat channels in the mid-1960s.” (JC)
13.9 SAMIZDAT UPDATE
item 6 — Count Arakcheyev (1769-1830) — one of Tsar Alexander I’s most ruthless administrators [UR].