Victor Grossman was a remarkable man. He died yesterday at age 97. He was an American, who in 1952 defected into Soviet-occupied Austria. He made his way to the German Democratic Republic (“East Germany”), where he would live the remainder of his life, even after the fall of the GDR.

He defended the communist project in Germany to the end of his life. He was a prolific writer. He wrote 2 books in English, and both are excellent reads: Crossing the River: A Memoir of the American Left, the Cold War, and Life in East Germany and A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee

Rest in power, comrade.