EXIT STALIN

A vivid exploration of Soviet civilization—or, better, the many civilizations of the former Soviet Union.

“Soviet civilization was never static, because it changed so much over time,” writes Cambridge University historian Smith. It was also never wholly coterminous with the Soviet state. The Soviet Union began with the promise of liberation, but soon hardened into a rigidly doctrinaire Leninist state—Leninist as interpreted by Stalin, who ruled unchallenged for more than a quarter century. Against this, slowly and with utmost care, an intelligentsia developed, with a mindset that “was a matter of enlightenment and civilization, but also refinement and culturedness, and above all empathy, kindness, and decency”—in other words, Smith adds, it was “a moral category,” distinct from the apparatchiks. With Stalin’s death in 1953 came “the Thaw,” referring both to the loosening of restrictions but also to that messy, muddy period between winter and full-on spring; under Nikita Khrushchev’s regime, antitotalitarian writers such as Daniil Granin and Boris Pasternak emerged, while the nation “wanted to know what had happened” to friends, family, and comrades during the worst years of the Stalin terror, and Khrushchev, although involved in that terror, also wanted to know “exactly what had happened: who, how many, where, when.” Those who followed Khrushchev and seeded other civilizations, mostly of dissent, were nowhere near as impressive (Smith writes, meaningfully, that in his dotage Leonid Brezhnev became “increasingly fond of medals and honours”) until Mikhail Gorbachev attained power, ending the Soviet state—or, rather, “the Soviet Union, its state and apparatus of republics decolonized itself out of existence.” Yet it reemerged, and with it, dissidents were crushed as the Putin regime invaded Ukraine and “honest voices were silenced.” Smith’s excellent book powerfully explains how government, society, and civilization can diverge, sometimes coexisting, sometimes warring, but always evolving.

An essential and accessible addition to the library of Soviet and post-Soviet studies.