Vasily Grossman

"It is impossible to publish your book, and it will not be published in the next 200 years."

"We are restoring the Leninist norms of democracy. But Leninist norms are not the same as the bourgeois norms of democracy. You know yourself: when Gorky—affected by traumatic impressions, deprivation,…"

"The more difficult a man's life had been before the camp, the more furiously he lied. This lie had no practical purpose; it served simply to glorify freedom. How could a man be unhappy outside the cam…"

"You believe that we have violated the principle of freedom in your case. Yes, this is so if one understands freedom in the bourgeois sense of the term. But we have a different conception of freedom. O…"

"National Socialism had created a new type of political criminals: criminals who had not committed a crime."

"Your book contains direct analogies between us and the Hitlerite fascists. You book incorrectly describes our people, communists. Could we have won the war with the kind of people you describe? In you…"

"We should not underestimate the harm it would bring should it be published."

"Why should we add your book to the atomic weapons arrayed against us by our enemies. Publication of your book would help our enemies."