Robert Conquest
British-American historian and leading Cold War Sovietologist.
George Robert Acworth Conquest (15 July 1917 – 3 August 2015) was a British and American historian, poet, and novelist. He was one of the West’s leading Sovietologists during the Cold War and was influential to both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Conquest was also affiliated with the anticommunist Information Research Department, within the British Foreign Affairs Office. A long-time research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, Conquest was most notable for his work on the Soviet Union.
- born
- 15 July 1917, Great Malvern, Worcestershire
- died
- 3 August 2015
- field
- History, Sovietology
- nationality
- British and American
- known_for
- Works on the Soviet Union, including The Great Terror and The Harvest of Sorrow
Lore & Background
Conquest was born to an American father and an English mother. He was educated at Winchester College and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1937 but broke with it in 1939 when the party denounced the war as imperialist. During the Second World War, he served in the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, studied Bulgarian, and was posted to Bulgaria as a liaison officer. After the war, he joined the Foreign Office and later the Information Research Department, where he worked on anticommunist propaganda. He left the Foreign Office in 1956 to become a freelance writer and historian.
Reader's Guide
Conquest's significance lies in his pioneering research on Stalinist repression, particularly the Great Purge and the Soviet famine. His book The Great Terror (1968) was the first comprehensive study of the purges, estimating some 20 million deaths, and widened understanding beyond the Moscow trials. The Harvest of Sorrow (1986) addressed Soviet collectivization and the terror-famine. His work influenced Western policymakers Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. After the opening of Soviet archives, Conquest argued his conclusions were supported, though historian J. Arch Getty disagreed on casualty figures. Conquest also sharply criticized Western intellectuals he accused of being apologists for Stalin. His legacy remains debated, with some scholars questioning his methodology and reliance on rumor.
Did You Know?
- Conquest joined the Communist Party of Great Britain in 1937 but broke with it in 1939.
- He helped smuggle two Bulgarians out of Bulgaria in 1948, leading to his recall from the British Legation in Sofia.
- His assistant Celia Kirwan approached George Orwell for information to identify Soviet sympathisers.
- Conquest suggested the revised edition of The Great Terror be titled 'I Told You So, You Fucking Fools', though the joke originated with Kingsley Amis.
Notable Quotes (Wikiquote)
"Truth can thus only percolate in the form of hearsay." — Robert Conquest "On political matters basically the best, though not infallible, source is rumour at a high political or police level." — Robert Conquest "The Somber Monster", The New York Review of Books (8 June 1995)." — Robert Conquest "From a review of Lenin: A New Biography by Dmitri Volkogonov, trans./ed. Harold Shukman published by the Free Press in October 1994." — Robert Conquest
More in Scientists & Inventors (2)
Elsewhere in the Historical Figures universe
Spotted an error? Know more?
This is a living reference — every entry is fact-audited, and reader corrections feed straight into our audit queue. Suggest an edit · See this site's audit record