MOSCOW -- Roi Medvedev, a Russian historian, was born in 1925 in Tbilisi, Georgia. After graduating from Leningrad University, he joined the Soviet Communist Party in 1956 and became a researcher at the Education Academy. In 1969 he was purged from the party following the publication of his book "Let History Judge," which criticized Stalin and Stalinism at a time when official Soviet propagandists were trying to partially rehabilitate the dictator. Later he was severely oppressed for the prodemocracy stance of an open letter he and fellow dissident Andrei Sakharov presented to the Soviet leadership in 1970.
Medvedev's reputation was restored after Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev launched his perestroika program of gradual political and economic reforms in the 1980s. He returned to the ruling party in 1989, was elected to the Soviet Union's Congress of People's Deputies and was named as member of the Supreme Soviet, the permanent working body of the Congress. Today he maintains a social-democratic political stance and is a supporter of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The following are excerpts of Kyodo News' interview with Medvedev.