Mikhail Sergeyevich Voslensky () (December 6, 1920, Berdyansk,

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...

– February 8, 1997,

Bonn Bonn () is a federal city in the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia, located on the banks of the Rhine. With a population exceeding 300,000, it lies about south-southeast of Cologne, in the southernmost part of the Rhine-Ruhr region. This ...

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

) was a

Soviet The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles, genres and techniques to communicate ideas, to inspire feelings and emotions, or to entertain. Writers may develop different forms of writing such as novels, short sto ...

scientist A scientist is a person who Scientific method, researches to advance knowledge in an Branches of science, area of the natural sciences. In classical antiquity, there was no real ancient analog of a modern scientist. Instead, philosophers engag ...

diplomat A diplomat (from ; romanization, romanized ''diploma'') is a person appointed by a state (polity), state, International organization, intergovernmental, or Non-governmental organization, nongovernmental institution to conduct diplomacy with one ...

and

dissident A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 2 ...

who authored the book ''Nomenklatura: The Soviet Ruling Class'', about the Soviet

nomenklatura The ''nomenklatura'' (; from , system of names) were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in the bureaucracy, running all spheres of those countries' activity: ...

, translated into 14 languages and printed in multiple editions. Voslensky was an interpreter for the Soviet Union during the

Nuremberg Trials #REDIRECT Nuremberg trials {{redirect category shell, {{R from other capitalisation{{R from move ...

. In 1953-1955 he worked with the

World Peace Council The World Peace Council (WPC) is an international organization created in 1949 by the Cominform and propped up by the Soviet Union. Throughout the Cold War, WPC engaged in propaganda efforts on behalf of the Soviet Union, whereby it criticize ...

. Later he worked at the

Soviet Academy of Sciences The Academy of Sciences of the Soviet Union was the highest scientific institution of the Soviet Union from 1925 to 1991. It united the country's leading scientists and was subordinated directly to the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (un ...

. In 1974, after 4 years of living in

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

, he was stripped of his Soviet citizenship (restored in 1990) and worked with the Forschungsinstitut für Sowjetische Gegenwart (Research Institute for the Soviet Union). His book ''Nomenklatura'' was motivated by Milovan Djilas's concept of a New Class emerging in

communist state A communist state, also known as a Marxist–Leninist state, is a one-party state in which the totality of the power belongs to a party adhering to some form of Marxism–Leninism, a branch of the communist ideology. Marxism–Leninism was ...

s. His book ''Secrets Revealed: Moscow Archives Speak'' sketches the role of terror in the Soviet system, the evolution of the Soviet

secret police image:Putin-Stasi-Ausweis.png, 300px, Vladimir Putin's secret police identity card, issued by the East German Stasi while he was working as a Soviet KGB liaison officer from 1985 to 1989. Both organizations used similar forms of repression. Secre ...

, and the role of the ''nomenklatura'' in its hierarchy.

Bibliography

* Briefly reviewed in ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. It was founded on February 21, 1925, by Harold Ross and his wife Jane Grant, a reporter for ''The New York T ...

'' (14 January 1985) : 119. * **Russian original was written in 1970, distributed by ''

samizdat Samizdat (, , ) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual rep ...

'', and eventually printed as Восленский М.С., Номенклатура. Господствующий класс Советского Союза. М., 1991. **German: ''Nomenklatura : der herrschende Klasse der Sowjetunion'' *** Wien,

Molden Molden is a general molecular and electronic structure processing program. Major features * Reads output from the ab initio packages GAMESS (US), Gaussian, MOLPRO, PySCF and from semi-empirical packages such as MOPAC, and supports a num ...

, 1980 ***Munchen, Moewig, 1982, ***Molden, 1984, **''La nomenklatura, les privilégiés en URSS'', Paris, 1980. *Восленский М. С. Из истории политики США в германском вопросе (1918–1919 гг.). М., 1954. *''Das Geheime wird offenbar. Moskauer Archive erzählen. 1917-1991. '', Langen Müller 1995, (''"Secrets Revealed: Moscow Archives Speak"'') *''Sterbliche Götter: die Lehrmeister der Nomenklatura'', Erlangen Straube, 1989,

Notes

External links

"Voslensky"

Audio recordings with Michael Voslenski
in the Online Archive of the Österreichische Mediathek (Interviews and lectures in German). Retrieved 4. October 2019 {{DEFAULTSORT:Voslensky, Michael 1920 births 1997 deaths Soviet dissidents Soviet scientists Soviet diplomats Soviet emigrants to West Germany Denaturalized citizens of the Soviet Union Writers about the Soviet Union People from Berdiansk