I Chose Freedom

Book excerpt: I Chose Freedom is melodramatic in title only. It is the work of an average communist party member during the Stalin era. Kravchenko was a technocrat who miraculously cut through the totalitarian fabric of Stalinist ideology to demonstrate the bureaucratization of Soviet life and the annihilation of genuine intermediate social structures, such as families, trade unions, professional and religious organizations. If one is to acquire a real appreciation of the magnitude of changes underway in the Soviet Union, one must first review the actual character of the totalitarian inheritance.