Mikhail Baitalsky (1903–78) was born in a village called Chernovo in Odessa Province. He spent his youth in Ukraine – Odessa, Kharkov, and the Donbass – on Komsomol work and was arrested three times during the Stalin era (1924–53). His Notebooks for the Grandchildren, begun in 1958 upon his return from imprisonment, represents one of the major political documents of his generation of communist activists.