Arnold Lockshin (born February 3, 1939) is an American-born Russian scientist. After he was dismissed from a position as a cancer researcher in Houston, Texas, he and his family received political asylum and citizenship in the Soviet Union. The film director Michael Lockshin is his son.
Lockshin was born in San Francisco. [1] His ancestors on his father's side were Soviet Jews who fled to escape antisemitic persecution. [2] He attended high school in Richmond, California, and graduated in 1956. He attended the University of California, Berkeley and earned an undergraduate degree in biochemistry. [3] He completed a doctorate in biochemistry at the University of Wisconsin. [4]
Lockshin performed cancer research at the USC School of Medicine between 1977 and 1980. From 1980 to 1986, Lockshin worked at the Stehlin Foundation, a cancer research facility associated with St. Joseph Hospital in Houston. He was terminated from that position. [1]
Leadership at the Stehlin Foundation said that he was fired because of his deteriorating work performance. Lockshin said that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was involved in his firing and that he and his family had been the targets of death threats and other forms of harassment. [3] Lockshin said that he and his wife had long supported socialism and that he had previously been a Communist Party USA organizer. Dorothy Healey described his Party role as a district organizer, calling him "a rigid dogmatist". [5] He said that the government harassment was brought on by his political beliefs. [6] [7]
The USSR leadership provided them with the requested asylum, gave Lockshin an apartment in Moscow and assisted him in securing employment.[ citation needed ] Subsequently, he and his wife Lauren gave numerous interviews and press-conferences in Moscow accusing American secret services of persecuting dissidents in the United States. [8] In 1989 they published a book, in Russian, as well as English, titled Silent Terror: One family's history of political persecution in the United States. [9] [10]
In 1992 Lockshin received Russian citizenship by order of Russian President Boris Yeltsin.[ citation needed ] Lockshin continued to work in the Blokhin Oncological Scientific Center in Moscow as a research biologist until the late 1990s.
Subsequently, Arnold and Lauren disappeared from public view. Their current whereabouts are unknown. However, at least two of their children appear currently to live in Russia, including his daughter, Jennifer, who works at the State University – Higher School of Economics. Their son, Michael, is a Russian film director known for his film The Silver Skates . [11] [12] In an interview in 2017, Arnold Lockshin said that he had separated from his wife at some point after moving. [12]
On July 21, 2013, Arnold Lockshin appeared on a TV talk-show hosted by Igor Vittel on the Russian RBC channel and spoke in support of political asylum for Edward Snowden.[ citation needed ]
Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn was a Russian writer and prominent Soviet dissident who helped to raise global awareness of political repression in the Soviet Union, especially the Gulag prison system.
Sergei Mironovich Kirov was a Russian and Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary.
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The Great Purge or the Great Terror, also known as the Year of '37 and the Yezhovshina, was Soviet General Secretary Joseph Stalin's campaign to solidify his power over the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the state by eliminating his rivals by drastic use of imprisonment and execution. In particular, the purges were designed to remove the remaining influence of Leon Trotsky. They occurred from August 1936 to March 1938, with the most prominent feature being show trials of leading Bolshevik party members. However, a considerable proportion of the country's population was affected as well.
Svetlana Iosifovna Alliluyeva, later known as Lana Peters, was the youngest child and only daughter of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin and his second wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva. In 1967, she became an international sensation when she defected to the United States and, in 1978, became a naturalized citizen. From 1984 to 1986, she briefly returned to the Soviet Union and had her Soviet citizenship reinstated. She was Stalin's last surviving child.
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Oleg Vladimirovich Blokhin, or Oleh Volodymyrovych Blokhin, is a Ukrainian and Soviet former football player and manager. Regarded as one of the greatest footballers of his generation, Blokhin was a standout striker for Dynamo Kyiv and the Soviet Union.
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Neo-Stalinism is the promotion of positive views of Joseph Stalin's role in history, the partial re-establishing of Stalin's policies on certain or all issues, and nostalgia for the Stalinist period. Neo-Stalinism overlaps significantly with neo-Sovietism and Soviet nostalgia. Various definitions of the term have been given over the years.
Arkady Nikolayevich Shevchenko was a Soviet diplomat who was the highest-ranking Soviet official to defect to the West.
Viktor Andriyovych Kravchenko was a Ukrainian-born Soviet defector, known for writing the best-selling book I Chose Freedom, published in 1946, about the realities of life in the Soviet Union.
Abdurakhman Genazovich Avtorkhanov was a Soviet historian and Kremlinologist of Chechen origin who during the Cold War authored popular books on the Soviet Union and its ruling system. He wrote under several Russian pseudonyms, but since the Dissolution of the Soviet Union some of his works have been republished under his real name.
Ernst Kolman or Arnošt Yaromirovich Kolman ; 6 December 1892 – 22 January 1979) was a Marxist philosopher, who renounced his former activities as an ideological enforcer in Soviet science. At the age of 84 he sought asylum in Sweden and published a retraction of his previous activity.
Pope Pius XII and Russia describes relations of the Vatican with the Soviet Union, Russia, the Eastern Orthodox Church, and the Eastern Catholic Churches resulting in the eradication of the Church in most parts of the Soviet Union during the Stalinist era. Most persecutions of the Church occurred during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII.
Vasily Mikhailovich Blokhin was a Soviet secret police official who served as the chief executioner of the NKVD under the administrations of Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolay Yezhov, and Lavrentiy Beria.
Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov was a Soviet journalist for Novosti Press Agency (APN). In 1970, as a member of the Soviet mission in New Delhi, India, Bezmenov defected to the West and was re-settled in Canada pursuant to an arrangement between American and Canadian security agencies.
Kronid Arkadyevich Lyubarsky was a Russian journalist, dissident, human rights activist and political prisoner.
Seat 12, also known as Operation Seat 12, was a disinformation campaign of communist propaganda during the Cold War to discredit the moral authority of the Vatican because of its outspoken anticommunism. The existence of the plot was written in 2007 by Ion Mihai Pacepa, a general who headed the Romanian secret service before defecting to the West in 1978. Seat 12 was documented in the Mitrohkin Files and corroborated by the DIA Venona Project.
Grigory Aleksandrovich Tokaev also known as Grigory Tokaty; was a Soviet rocket scientist and politician. Eventually turned anti-communist, he defected to the United Kingdom and became a long-standing critic of Stalin's USSR.
The Order of Lenin, was an award named after Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the October Revolution. It was established by the Central Executive Committee on 6 April 1930. The order was the highest civilian decoration bestowed by the Soviet Union. The order was awarded to:
