Nina Andreeva’s “I Cannot Forsake My Principles”

Published in the 13 March 1988 issue of the daily newspaper “Sovetskaia Rossiia” (Soviet Russia), this letter by chemistry lecturer and Stalinist apologist Nina Andreeva (1938-2020) sparked tens of thousands of public responses, revealing that conservative currents in the Communist Party and beyond now faced strong resistance from a glasnost-empowered public.