Professor Erik Kulavig was born in the provinsial town of Assens into a working class family and was a dedicated socialist in his youth - one of the so-called "red revolutionaries". When his studies at university brought him face to face with the brutal reality of the communist dream in the Soviet Union his perspective changed and he has since then been one of the foremost researcher of communism in his native country. A working scholar at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Kulavig has published several acclaimed books on communism and the Soviet Union.