An extraordinarily atmospheric and powerful history of the world's largest state and its decline and fall
With Stalin's death, the Soviet Union remained a repressive, harsh and belligerent place. Yet it also became one that was more predictable for its citizens, and made a genuine attempt to create the egalitarian, progressive country the Russian Revolution had once promised. That this attempt would fail was not clear until the 1980s.
Mark B. Smith's original and evocative book recreates the day-to-day life of this vast state, the largest ever to exist. What was life like in a country which made such absolute claims for the future, which claimed to be on its way to creating a people's utopia and which, like the USA, owned enough atomic weapons to end human life on Earth?
Exit Stalin is filled with extraordinary stories about those who lived in the USSR and the distinctive and functioning civilization that they built. Many of them embraced its values, understood its goals and could not imagine life outside such a vastly ambitious and progressive project. The shortages, coercion and incompetence that underlay the USSR - and which by the late 1980s would doom it - have to be understood alongside the acceptance it always had from many of its citizens. And this in turn is a crucial issue for understanding Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union in the twenty-first century.
About the Author
Mark B. Smith teaches in the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of Property of Communists and The Russia Anxiety.
Industry Reviews
To this enthralling journey across an archipelago of twentieth-century Russian people and situations, Smith brings deep historical knowledge, analytical prowess and formidable emotional intelligence. At the end of it you have not just learned something, you have been somewhere. Essential reading for anyone with an interest in contemporary Russia and its people
Christopher Clark
The most insightful and accurate cultural history of the Soviet Union that I have encountered, and a very good read, to boot
Jack F. Matlock Jr.
Although it died less than half a century ago, the Soviet Union, even to many who experienced first hand its complexities, contradictions, cruelties, and moments of creativity, can seem as if it belongs to ancient history. Mark B. Smith brings this lost world to life through a powerful combination of exhaustive scholarship, lucid prose, and subtle insight
Douglas Smith
Richly detailed... Mark Smith’s impressive history gives readers a powerful sense of what it was like to live under communism in the four decades between Stalin’s death and the country’s disintegration at the end of the cold war
Financial Times
Exit Stalin asks a timely question: what is life in a non-democratic modern society actually like? Smith builds up a picture of an entire culture, a way of life, a vivid sense of an entire disappeared world and forces the question: would you accept the price?
Owen Hatherley, New Statesman
Superb... Immensely important... This is a tragic story, and Smith tells it magnificently
The Telegraph
Deeply informed … A significant book for anybody who seeks to understand modern Russia
The Sunday Times
Accessible and comprehensive … Smith's authentic account of Soviet life is enlivened by biographical sketches and his deep understanding of Russian culture and society
Irish Times
Smoothly readable … A fascinating chronicle of the Soviet Union … Exit Stalin offers a superb history of the rise and fall of a utopian state and its dangerously deluded ideology
Observer
Although it died less than half a century ago, the Soviet Union, even to many who experienced first hand its complexities, contradictions, cruelties, and moments of creativity, can seem as if it belongs to ancient history. Mark B. Smith brings this lost world to life through a powerful combination of exhaustive scholarship, lucid prose, and subtle insight
Douglas Smith
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