Boris Nicolaevsky

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Boris Ivanovich Nicolaevsky (Russian: Борис Иванович Николаевский) (October 20, 1887 N.S. in Belebey – February 21, 1966 in New York City) was a revolutionary Russian Marxist activist and historian.

Many individuals of all political complexions confided their archival treasures to him. The failed negotiations over the Soviet offer to purchase the Marx-Engels Archive and the politically motivated theft from Nicolaevsky's office of Leon Trotsky's archives affected him greatly in 1936. His extensive collection of revolutionary documents is now held by the Hoover Institution Archives in Palo Alto, California.

Nicolaevsky is the author of the book "Karl Marx: Man and Fighter", first published in German in 1933. It was translated into English by Otto Mänchen-Helfen and published in 1936. Some subsequent English editions restore the notes, appendices, and bibliography omitted from the first English edition.

Nicolaevsky also wrote "Forced Labor in Soviet Russia", with David J. Dallin, published in 1948, which was one of the first books to give a truthful and documented account of the scale of the USSR's labour camp system.

His other works included "Power and the Soviet elite: The letter of an old Bolshevik" and "Aseff the spy".