Editing Robert Conquest (section)

===''The Great Terror'' (1968)===
{{Main|The Great Terror (book)}}
In 1968 Conquest published what became his best-known work, ''The Great Terror: Stalin's Purge of the Thirties'', the first comprehensive research of the [[Great Purge]], which took place in the Soviet Union between 1936 and 1938. Many reviewers at the time were not impressed by his way of writing about the Great Terror, which was in the tradition of "great men who make history".<ref name="Baltic Worlds 2" /> The book was based mainly on information which had been made public, either officially or by individuals, during the so-called "[[Khrushchev Thaw]]" in the period 1956–64. It also drew on accounts by Russian and Ukrainian [[émigré]]s and [[exile]]s dating back to the 1930s, and on an analysis of official Soviet documents such as the [[Soviet census]].<ref name=GT1>{{cite book|last1=Conquest|first1=Robert|title=The Great Terror|date=1968|edition=1st}}</ref>

The most important aspect of the book was that it widened the understanding of the purges beyond the previous narrow focus on the "[[Moscow trials]]" of disgraced [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]] leaders such as [[Nikolai Bukharin]] and [[Grigory Zinoviev]], who were executed shortly thereafter. The question of why these leaders had pleaded guilty and confessed to various crimes at the trials had become a topic of discussion for a number of [[Western culture|western]] writers, and helped inspire anti-Communist tracts such as [[George Orwell]]'s ''[[Nineteen Eighty-Four]]'' and [[Arthur Koestler]]'s ''[[Darkness at Noon]]''.<ref name="WSJ 4"/>

Conquest argued that the trials and executions of these former Communist leaders were a minor detail of the purges. By his estimates, Stalinist purges had led to the deaths of some 20 million people. He later stated that the  total number of deaths could "hardly be lower than some thirteen to fifteen million."<ref>Robert Conquest, Preface, ''The Great Terror: A Reassessment: 40th Anniversary Edition'', Oxford University Press, USA, 2007. p. xviii</ref>

Conquest sharply criticized Western intellectuals such as [[Beatrice Webb|Beatrice]] and [[Sidney Webb]], [[George Bernard Shaw]], [[Jean-Paul Sartre]], [[Walter Duranty]], [[Bernard Pares|Sir Bernard Pares]], [[Harold Laski]], [[D. N. Pritt]], [[Theodore Dreiser]], [[Bertolt Brecht]], [[Owen Lattimore]], and [[Romain Rolland]], as well as American ambassador [[Joseph E. Davies|Joseph Davies]], accusing them of being dupes of Stalin and apologists of his regime. Conquest cites various comments made by them where, he argues, they were denying, excusing, or justifying various aspects of the purges.<ref>Robert Conquest, ''The Great Terror: A Reassessment'', Oxford University Press (1990) {{ISBN|0-19-507132-8}}, pp. 466–475.</ref>

After the opening up of the [[Soviet archives]], detailed information was released that Conquest argued supported his conclusions. When Conquest's publisher asked him to expand and revise ''The Great Terror'', Conquest is famously said to have suggested the new version of the book be titled ''I Told You So, You Fucking Fools.'' In fact, the mock title was jokingly proposed by Conquest's old friend, Sir [[Kingsley Amis]]. The new version was published in 1990 as ''The Great Terror: A Reassessment''; {{ISBN|0-19-507132-8}}.<ref>Conquest, Robert.
[http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2007/apr/12/kingsley-amis-and-the-great-terror "Letter to the Editors"], ''[[The New York Review of Books]]'', 12 April 2007.</ref> The American historian [[J. Arch Getty]] disagreed, writing in 1993 that the archives did not support Conquest's casualty figures.<ref name="getty">{{cite journal | title=Victims of the Soviet Penal System in the Pre-War Years: A First Approach on the Basis of Archival Evidence | journal=[[American Historical Review]] |date=October 1993  | volume=98 | issue=4 | page=1043 |author1=[[J. Arch Getty]] |author2=Gábor T. Rittersporn |author3=[[Viktor N. Zemskov]] |url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080828071544/http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/GTY-Penal_System.pdf |archive-date=2008-08-28 |url-status=live|doi=10.2307/2166597 |jstor=2166597}}</ref> In 1995, investigative journalist Paul Lashmar suggested that the reputation of prominent academics such as Robert Conquest was built upon work derived from material provided by the [[Information Research Department|IRD]].<ref name="defty">{{cite book |last=Defty |first=Andrew |date=2 Dec 2013 |title=Britain, America and Anti-Communist Propaganda 1945–53: The Information Research Department |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dQ9EAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA3 |location= |publisher=Routledge |page=3 |isbn=978-1317791690}}</ref>
According to [[Denis Healey]] ''The Great Terror'' was an important influence, "but one which confirmed people in their views rather than converted them".<ref name="Brown"/>

Many aspects of his book continue [[The Great Terror (book)#Reception, impact, and debates|to be disputed]] by [[sovietologist]] historians and researchers on Russian and Soviet history, such as [[Stephen G. Wheatcroft]], who insists that Conquest's victim totals for Stalinist repressions are too high, even in his reassessments.<ref name=":0">{{cite journal|author=Wheatcroft, Stephen G. |title=Victims of Stalinism and the Soviet Secret Police: The Comparability and Reliability of the Archival Data. Not the Last Word|journal= [[Europe-Asia Studies]]|volume= 51|issue= 2 |year=1999|url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/WCR-Secret_Police.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070704065523/http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/WCR-Secret_Police.pdf |archive-date=2007-07-04 |url-status=live|pages=340–342|doi=10.1080/09668139999056}}</ref><ref name=":1">{{cite journal|author=Wheatcroft, S. G. |title=The Scale and Nature of Stalinist Repression and its Demographic Significance: On Comments by Keep and Conquest|journal= Europe-Asia Studies|volume=52 |issue=6|pages=1143–1159|year=2000|url=http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/WCR-Comments_KEP_CNQ.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080828071704/http://sovietinfo.tripod.com/WCR-Comments_KEP_CNQ.pdf |archive-date=2008-08-28 |url-status=live|doi=10.1080/09668130050143860|pmid=19326595|s2cid=205667754}}</ref> In 2000, [[Michael Ignatieff]], whose family had emigrated from Russia as a result of the [[Bolshevik Revolution]], wrote "One of the few unalloyed pleasures of old age is living long enough to see yourself vindicated. Robert Conquest is currently enjoying this pleasure."<ref name="Ignatieff">{{cite journal|last1=Ignatieff|first1=Michael|title=The Man Who Was Right|journal=New York Review of Books|date=23 March 2000|volume=47|issue=5|url=http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2000/mar/23/the-man-who-was-right/|accessdate=7 October 2015}}</ref> Conservative historian [[Paul Johnson (writer)|Paul Johnson]], one of [[Margaret Thatcher|Thatcher]]'s closest advisers, described Conquest as "our greatest living historian". And, in the phrase of [[Timothy Garton Ash]], he was [[Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn|Solzhenitsyn]] before Solzhenitsyn.<ref name="Brown"/>

In 1996 Marxist historian [[Eric Hobsbawm]], who had been previously attacked by Conquest for his book ''[[Age of Extremes]]'',<ref>{{cite news |last=Moyihan |first=Michael C. |author-link=Michael C. Moynihan |date=20 August 2011 |title=How a True Believer Keeps the Faith |url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424053111903480904576512722707621288 |newspaper=[[The Wall Street Journal]] |accessdate=9 January 2012}}</ref> praised Conquest's ''The Great Terror'' "as a remarkable pioneer effort to assess the Stalin Terror". However he expressed the view that this work and others were now to be considered obsolete "simply because the archival sources are now available". As a result, he wrote, there was no need for "fragmentary sources" and "guesswork". "[W]hen better or more complete data are available, they must take the place of poor and incomplete ones."<ref name="Hobsbawm">{{cite book |last=Hobsbawm  |first=Eric |date=2011 |title=On History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WVuIyMVegT8C |location= |publisher=Hachette UK |chapter= 19 |isbn=978-1780220512}}</ref> In 2002 Conquest replied to his [[Historical revisionism|revisionist critics]]: ''"They're still talking absolute balls. In the academy, there remains a feeling of, "Don't let's be too rude to Stalin. He was a bad guy, yes, but the Americans were bad guys too, and so was the British Empire."''<ref name="The National Review">{{cite web|url=http://www.nationalreview.com/article/215908/robert-conquest-an-appreciation|title=Robert Conquest an appreciation|date=5 August 2015 |publisher=nationalreview.com|accessdate=18 September 2015}}</ref>