Orlando Figes claims Kremlin ban

Orlando Figes, the award-winning historian, believes the Kremlin has banned his book, The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia, because it shows the Soviet wartime leader in a bad light. Although he cannot offer hard proof, the circumstantial evidence is certainly compelling.

On Tuesday Figes's Russian publishers, Atticus, suddenly cancelled his contract, a move that came days after masked officers from the Russian general prosecutor's office raided the offices of Memorial, a human rights organisation which assisted him with research for the book. As well as confiscating about a third of the material used in The Whisperers, the officers seized Memorial's entire St Petersburg archive, which included databases containing information on repression in the country, as well as recordings and transcripts of interviews with the victims.

Atticus claims it dropped the book for commercial reasons, however Figes, writing in the Guardian, said: "The raid was part of a broader ideological struggle over the control of history publications and teaching in Russia that may have influenced the decision of Atticus to cancel my contract."

Figes, who is the chair of history at Birkbeck College, University of London, added: "The history in my book... is inconvenient to the current regime in Russia... The Kremlin has been actively for the rehabilitation of Stalin. Its aim is not to deny Stalin's crimes but to emphasise his achievements as the builder of the country's 'glorious Soviet past'." ·