It Was a Long Time Ago, and It Never Happened Anyway
Russia and the Communist Past
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- $24.99
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
A veteran writer on Russia and the Soviet Union explains why Russia refuses to draw from the lessons of its past and what this portends for the future
Russia today is haunted by deeds that have not been examined and words that have been left unsaid. A serious attempt to understand the meaning of the Communist experience has not been undertaken, and millions of victims of Soviet Communism are all but forgotten. In this book David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent and longtime writer on Russia and the Soviet Union, presents a striking new interpretation of Russia's great historical tragedy, locating its source in Russia's failure fully to appreciate the value of the individual in comparison with the objectives of the state.
Satter explores the moral and spiritual crisis of Russian society. He shows how it is possible for a government to deny the inherent value of its citizens and for the population to agree, and why so many Russians actually mourn the passing of the Soviet regime that denied them fundamental rights. Through a wide-ranging consideration of attitudes toward the living and the dead, the past and the present, the state and the individual, Satter arrives at a distinctive and important new way of understanding the Russian experience.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Satter (Age of Delirium: The Decline and Fall of the Soviet Union), a Hudson Institute fellow and former Moscow correspondent for the Financial Times, amasses over two decades of research and reporting in a startling book that revisits the history, symbols, and repressive tools of the deposed Soviet state and the crushing grip of amnesia imposed on citizens since the fall of the Communist regime. Despite the millions prosecuted and killed during the many Soviet purges and mock trials, Satter boldly states that today's average Russian is not interested in re-evaluating the past, but merely surviving and avoiding any mention of "bad things in our history." Some think of the Brezhnev years as good times, when the terror abated and the government provided economic security. Satter concludes that the failure of a "historically enslaved population" to confront the "authoritarian instincts" on which communism was built leaves Russia vulnerable to a resurgence of those instincts. Drawing on interviews with Russian citizens and officials, Satter's reflective, expert analysis of a Russian society in moral and cultural flux after the end of communism provides great food for thought beyond today's headlines.
