Boris Bazhanov

Boris Georgiyevich Bazhanov (Russian: Бори́с Гео́ргиевич Бажа́нов; 9 August 1900 – 30 December 1982) was a Soviet secretary of the Secretariat of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union who defected from the Soviet Union on 1 January 1928.

Bazhanov was the personal secretary of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin from August 1923 to 1925 and held several prominent secretarial positions in the Politburo until defecting from the Soviet Union in 1928. Bazhanov was granted French citizenship and survived subsequent Soviet assassination attempts, writing and publishing memoirs and books from 1930 about Stalin and the secrets behind the Stalin regime. Bazhanov was the only member of Stalin's Secretariat to defect, and one of the first major defectors from the Eastern Bloc.

David W. Doyle, who translated Bazhanov's book "Bazhanov and the Damnation of Stalin", described him as "a usually reliable source," but that "he should be read with caution where he displays bias or discusses his own motive". Russian historian Yuri Emelyanov has also criticized Bazhanov's memoirs for historical inaccuracies such as factual errors, confusion of dates, and sensationalism. Similarly, Western historian Robert Conquest, viewed his account as "useful" although not "always authenticable" of his time as Stalin's secretary.