Annie Kriegel, née Annie Becker (born 9 September 1926 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

, died August 1995) was a French historian, a leading expert on Communist studies and the history of communism

History of communism

The history of the political ideology of communism hypothetically stretches all the way from the Palaeolithic up until the present day. However, most modern forms of communism are based upon Marxism, a variant of the ideology formed by the sociologist Karl Marx in the 1840s...

, a co-founder (1982) of the academic journal Communisme

Communisme

Communisme is a French multidisciplinary academic journal in the field of communist studies, focusing in particular on the history of communism, founded in 1982 by Annie Kriegel and Stéphane Courtois...

(with Stéphane Courtois

Stéphane Courtois

Stéphane Courtois is a French historian, an internationally known expert on communist studies, particularly the history of communism and communist genocides, and author of several books...

), and a columnist for Le Figaro

Le Figaro

Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...

.

As a student, Kriegel was a member of the French Communist Party

French Communist Party

The French Communist Party is a political party in France which advocates the principles of communism.Although its electoral support has declined in recent decades, the PCF retains a large membership, behind only that of the Union for a Popular Movement , and considerable influence in French...

, but changed her political views after the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and became an outspoken anti-communist.

Her brother was the historian Jean-Jacques Becker, and she was married to Arthur Kriegel. The Association d'études et de recherches en sciences sociales Annie Kriegel is named in her honour.

Selected works

• 1920. Le Congrès de Tours. Naissance du PCF, Paris, Julliard, 1964.
• Les Communistes français : essai d'ethnographie politique, Paris, Seuil, 1968.
• Les Grands Procès dans les systèmes communistes, Paris, Gallimard, 1972.
• Communismes au miroir français, Paris, Gallimard, 1974.
• Ce que j’ai cru comprendre (mémoires), Paris, Robert Laffont, 1991, 842 p.