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I CHOSE JUSTICE by Victor Kravohenko

I CHOSE JUSTICE

By

Pub Date: May 22nd, 1950
Publisher: Scribner

The book which precipitated the trial reported herein was a dark horse sensation. I Freedom one of the first of the confession stories of a disillusioned citizen of the Soviet. Hostage of the USA, Kravhenko risked his life to return to the Continent, and, in Paris, to go through the grim ordeal of a libel suit against a Soviet controlled French journal, and a writer who had attacked him and who himself never marlaized. An unusual handling of courtroom material, this is a blend of charge and countercharge, stories of the witnesses, personal experience and interpretation directly related to the issues, and a Conclusion which challenges the United States to bring the peoples of the globe into warmer relations in preparation for the inevitable conflict with the Soviet. Through these media, the reader's eyes are opened to the facts Kravchenko proves, facts as to the oppression exercised against the Kulaks, the violent measures and procedures, annihilation, deportation -- and the proved existence of ""hundreds of Dahaus, hundreds of henvalds"". The background of the purges, designed to railroad all who might bear witness against Soviet crimes, false charges, false confessions, blasted lives. The camps prison camps, labor camps, made notable by their achievements, and the public works widely heralded; actually grim replicas of the Nazi camps. Even the liberated, who looked on the Russians as saviors suffer in DP camps, their families torn apart, children cast adrift as wanderers, and the NKVD reaping material profits. Against these charges of tested witnesses, supporting Karvchenko's claims, the Soviet sent a few to bring personal charges against him, Le Lettres Francais' testimony petered out into bullying, setting traps for his witnesses, and shouting nationalist cliches. Kravchenko was vindicated but accomplished more than that. He proved- to the court of world opinion an indictment of the Soviet regime, not of Russia, and the existence of justice in a free country. There's lots of interesting and revealing material here, which takes some digging, because of the shifts in approach and presentation. Not as easy reading as I Chose Freedom but an important corollary.