Vladimir Samarin

Vladimir Dmitriyevich Sokolov (2 March 1913 – 19 January 1992), also known under the pen name of Samarin, was a Russian Nazi collaborator, journalist, writer, researcher and educator. Following his work as a propagandist for Nazi Germany as one of the writers of the Rech newspaper, he fled to the United States and became a senior lector of Russian language studies at Yale University from 1949 to 1976. In 1982, he was targeted by the United States Department of Justice for deportation, bringing him national notoriety. Following the revocation of his citizenship, he fled to an Orthodox monastery in Montreal, Canada, where he died in 1992.

Early life Vladimir Dmitriyevich Sokolov was born to the family of a nobleman and landlords in Oryol, in what was then the Russian Empire, on 2 March 1913. In 1921, as a student, he witnessed the crushing of the Tambov rebellion by the Red Army with the usage of chemical weapons, an experience which had a great effect on his personal views. Following his graduation from school, he could not enter Moscow or Leningrad State Universities due to his family's aristocratic background. He enrolled at Oryol State University (then Oryol State Pedological Institute) and graduated after four years, working in nearby Ramon.

In December 1937, Sokolov was targeted by the NKVD, and fled to the city of Samara, where he lived until he moved to Voronezh in the summer. In Voronezh, he lived with friends under an assumed name and became a literature teacher and later educational director at a local college. Among Sokolov's writings was as follows:

In the course of millennia Jews were conquering the world systematically and unflinchingly. All means, without exclusion of most gruesome, were utilized by them and their road to global dominance is covered with blood of millions of people...Significant role in corruption and zhidovisation of highest levels of English society was played by freemasonry, a powerful Jewish organization enveloping all countries with its activities. The type of influence of freemasonry in England can be judged by the fact that the king himself is a member of freemason lodge.|author=V. Samarin (Sokolov)|title=England and Judaism|source=Rech

The Office of Special Investigations, founded in 1979, began its attempt to denaturalise Sokolov in January 1982. The trial opened with testimony from Holocaust historian Robert Herzstein, who stated that Sokolov had participated in "ideological and psychological warfare" on behalf of the Nazis. Further evidence, acquired from Soviet archives of Gestapo files, referred to him as an "enthusiastic co-worker and trustworthy propaganda orator."

Sokolov's trial attracted attention from American conservative figure William F. Buckley Jr., who wrote a personal letter to President Ronald Reagan requesting his intervention on Sokolov's behalf. Among Sokolov's defenders was also Alexander M. Schenker, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor who worked alongside him at Yale, and Strobe Talbott, future Deputy Secretary of State under Bill Clinton, who claimed that the charges against Sokolov had been falsified by the KGB. Also involved in the case was future Chief Justice of the United States John Roberts, who sought to keep Reagan and then-Attorney General William French Smith from intervening. However, in 1988, Sokolov fled the United States to the monastery of an Orthodox monk in Montreal, Canada, and applied for refugee status.

Samarin died on 19 January 1992, less than a month after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, in Montreal.