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“... statement that ‘as a Soviet leader, Chernenko was impossible and even indecent.’ According to Zhores Medvedev, ‘Chernenko had no authority among the party leaders ... everyone knew that he would be no more than Brezhnev’s ghost.’ Martin McCauley predicted that Andropov would ‘wish to replace his defeated rival as soon as possible’ as head ...”

“... to be soon undermined or made obsolete, as the books under review in varying degrees demonstrate. Zhores Medvedev provides the sharpest political analysis of Gorbachev’s rise to power. His book is indispensable for anyone wishing to understand the background from which has emerged the most original figure in Soviet politics since the death of ...”

“... secret documentary evidence about the proto-Chernobyl catastrophe near Chelyabinsk in 1947. Zhores Medvedev has lately told us more in the Times Higher Education Supplement among other places, though the total number of fatalities among the eighty thousand-odd forced labourers, and the neighbouring population, is still unknown. ...”

“... spelt out by Schmidt-Häuer, but it is not inconsistent with the story he tells. Inevitably, Zhores Medvedev’s biography covers much of the same ground as Schmidt-Häuer’s and draws on much of the same published material. He has the benefit of deep personal knowledge of Soviet history, the drawback of exile. He is particularly interesting on the ...”

“... Peace Prize.The courage of these dissidents was matched by their ingenuity. In 1969 the biologist Zhores Medvedev reopened an old wound by publishing an account of Lysenko’s rise and fall, first in samizdat and then in translation in the West. Medvedev was diagnosed as schizophrenic – on the grounds that he was ...”

“... acronym for the Communist Youth Festival), Ninel (Lenin spelled backwards) and so on. Roy and Zhores Medvedev, twins born into a communist family in 1925, were named respectively for the Indian revolutionary M.N. Roy and the French socialist Jean Jaurès, assassinated in 1914 for his anti-war views. Some people changed their names so as not to sound ...”

“... terror in the midst of which he grew up left its mark on all the adults who lived through it. Roy Medvedev estimates that at least four to five hundred thousand people – above all, high officials – were shot and several million imprisoned. ‘The spiritual atmosphere of the USSR cannot be explained without harking back to this era,’ Sakharov ...”