The International Newsletter of Communist Studies Online XVI (2010), no. 23

 Grigorij Grigorov: Povoroty sud'by i proizvol. Vospominanija. 1905-1927 gody,

Moskva, OGI, 2005. 536 p. (Častnyj archiv). ISBN 5-94282-281-6; Grigorij

Grigorov: Povoroty sud’by i proizvol. Vospominanija. 1928-1972, s.p., [2008]. 682 p. No ISBN. 

 Not many members of the Left Opposition in the Soviet Union survived Stalin's terror regime. Those who wrote about their experiences of struggle and repression constitute even a lesser quantity.  In 2005, the OGI  publishing  house  released  such  a  rare  document  –  the  first  volume  of  the  memoirs  of  Grigorii  Isaevich  Grigorov  (1900-1994),  revolutionary,  scientist,  dissident  and  Gulag  inmate.  Born into  a  Jewish  craftsman  family,  Grigorov  joins  the revolutionary movement as a teenager, takes part in the revolutions of February and October 1917, fights on the side of the Reds in the Civil War, becomes imprisoned by Denikin and is freed  again  by  Nestor  Makhno.  After  the  war,  Grigorov  succeeds  in  obtaining  a  proper  education through rabfak institutions, specializes himself in philosophy and becomes a "red professor",  obtaining  a  doctoral  degree  with  a  monograph  on  Spinoza  and  being  close  to  Abram  Deborin,  Evgenii  Preobrazhenskii  and  David  Riazanov.  Having an  independent  mindset  and  not  being  content  with  the  bureaucratization  of  the  party,  Grigorov  associates himself  with  the  Opposition  from  1923  on,  and  is  forced  to  move  to  Siberia,  where  he  can  work  relatively  freely  due  to  his  friendship  with  Vladimir  Kosior.  From 1926  on,  when  the  struggle between the United (Communist) Opposition and Stalin's circle reaches a new level, Grigorov takes part in the work of clandestine circles, crossing paths with Lev Trotsky, Karl Radek,  Victor  Serge  and  other  prominent  oppositionists.  The first volume ends with the author's expulsion from the party in 1927. 

A planned 2nd volume did not see the light in Russia for unknown reasons.  Instead, Grigorov's son, who lives in Israel, has put out an extremely limited print run of the 2nd volume in 2008.  Dealing with the period between 1928 and 1972, it proves to be a fascinating and highly valuable source on the Stalin era.  In  1928,  after  the  “capitulation”  of  Radek,  Preobrazhenskii and Smilga, Grigorov is more than ever active for the Opposition - yet in a way  that  fails to please  him: Carrying  out  the  controversial  tactical  decision of the Left Opposition’s  leadership  to  disband on  oppositionist groups in order to be able to operate within the party, he goes on  a  liquidator  mission into the Soviet province, including the Caucasus, and is confronted with frustration of rank-and-file oppositionists who are not at all willing  to  give up the  organized struggle. In the same year, Grigorov faces arrest and deportation to a village in the Ural, where he spends the next two years together with Desist leader Vladimir Smirnov, first-hand experiencing the brutal peasant collectivization.  After a brief period of freedom back in Leningrad, Grigorov and his wife (an old Bolshevik revolutionary herself) get arrested straight after the Kirov murder in 1934. What follows is an odyssey through several Gulag camps, where the couple manages to stay together for most of the time. Grigorov  experiences  the  Trotskyist  prisoners'  famous hunger strike in Vorkuta (in which he does not take part) and the massacre that followed thereafter – and it is striking that the information on these events, which he brought to paper in the 1970s-1980s without access to any sources, corresponds with the findings of recent research. 

After being released in 1939, again his freedom does not last long: he is mobilized into the army for the war against Finland, captured by enemy troops and spends the following (comparably easy) years as a POW in Finland. In 1944, after the Soviet Union made peace with Finland, Grigorov is arrested again by the infamous SMERSh counter-intelligence, and another period of Gulag imprisonment begins, ending only in March 1955. During the times of Khrushchev and Brezhnev, Grigorov works as a schoolteacher and succeeds to get back into science, shifting to geology (using the experience he gained participating as forced laborer in geological expeditions during his imprisonment). His monograph on the entanglements of philosophy and geography gets published in Kiev in 1983, while his memoirs, which he has been secretly writing from the mid-1960s until 1983, of course remain unpublished during Soviet times. During late perestroika, in 1988, Grigorov writes a letter to Soviet historian Vladimir Billik where he shares his memories on the encounters with Trotsky. 

Shortly after, in 1989, he immigrated to Israel together with his son's family, where he dies in 1994. 

The memoirs of Grigorii Grigorov, contemporary of the 20th century in a literal sense, have an immense historical value for scholars of the Left Opposition, but also they are fruitful as a source for several aspects of the Russian Revolution, the early Soviet Union and the times of Stalinism. And, above all, they are a highly fascinating read.

 Gleb J. Albert, Bielefeld

Source: https://incs.ub.rub.de/index.php/INCS/article/view/361/319