Sergei Melgunov

Having graduated from Moscow University in 1904, he began his political and scholarly career in Imperial Russia.

After the 1917 Bolshevik October Revolution, he became an active opponent of Lenin's government and joined the anti-Soviet Union of Revival of Russia, which advocated an armed overthrow of the Bolshevik regime.

First living in Germany, Melgunov finally settled in Paris, where he continued his historical research and edited several émigré journals.

His most famous book is Red Terror in Russia (Russian: Красный террор в России), detailing the chronology of Bolshevik repression and atrocities.

Historian Robert Gellately describes Melgunov's pioneering study of the Red Terror as "a detailed and shocking account" which "has been confirmed by recent revelations from the Russian archives and by historians.