rTlHIS bookdespite its modest lengthis the reһ<br > suit of an extended though intermittent effort<br > begun in 1 963It was then that KhrushchevS headstrong and<br > illplanned agricultural ventures brought on a grave economic<br > crisis and forced the Soviet Union to purchase grain from out<br > side its borders for the first time in its history orindeedin the<br > entre history of Ru ssia+<br > My own interest in KhrushchevS political and economic re<br > forms arose in connection with my research on the history of a<br > controversy in Soviet geneticsthe SU bject of my book The Rise<br > and Falf ofDLysenkoʮFor my brother and COauthor Roy<br > an analysis of KhrushchevS policies developed naturally from<br > his work on the history of Stalinismpublished as Let History<br > JuPRoy and I also had published several articles on Khru<br > shchevS agricultural policy in the samizdat(underground)<br > journal Politichesky dnevnik(Political Diary)which circulated<br > in MOSCOW from 1964 tO 1971<br > Our study of Khrushchev was temporarily and rudely inter<br > rupted in 1 971Whenin October of that yearit became known<br > that Let History Judge was soon to appear in the United States<br > the KGB(Committee of State Security)searched RoyS apartһ<br > Russiaof courserefers to our country as it was bethre 1917theSoviet<br > Unionto it as it was organized after the Russian Revolution<br > T Zhores AMedvedevThe Rise and Fall of TDLysenkotransbv IM<br > Lerner(New YorkColumbia University Press1 969)<br > Roy AMedvedevLet History Judgtransby CTaylor(New YorkKnopf<br > 1971)<br >