People of the Revolution and the USSR

Left critics of Bolshevism 1907–1982 ○ Natural causes

The writer who testified to Kolyma through prose

Kolyma Tales depicts the camps not as correction or heroism, but as the destruction of human beings.

Close to the Left Opposition in youth, he was arrested and imprisoned, spending many years in Kolyma from 1937. He recorded camp dehumanization in the compressed prose of Kolyma Tales, largely unpublished in the USSR during his lifetime.

Soviet Communist Party and Bolsheviks Left critics of Bolshevism 1939–1976 ✕ Executed

The naval officer who mutinied for Leninist principles against the Brezhnev regime

In his final letter to his son before execution: "Be strong and believe that life is beautiful. Be positive and believe that the Revolution always wins."

A Soviet Navy captain 3rd rank and political officer (zampolit) who, in November 1975, led a mutiny aboard the anti-submarine frigate Storozhevoy. Denouncing the corruption and stagnation of the Brezhnev era, Sablin aimed to sail from Riga to Leningrad and broadcast a call for a return to Leninist principles and a new communist revolution. The mutiny was crushed by Soviet air attacks before reaching its goal. Sablin was convicted of treason and executed by firing squad. His action, one of the most dramatic acts of Leninist dissent from within the late Soviet military, later inspired Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October.