The Whisperers: Private Lives in Stalin's Russia by Orlando Figes
The Whisperers: Private Lives in Stalin's Russia by Orlando Figes
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Friday, 19, Sep 2008 02:39
Published by Penguin, out now, paperback, 780 pp (inc index/bibliography), £10.99.
In a nutshell.
Concise, informed, exhaustive, comprehensive, thought-provoking
What's it all about?
While other studies of have examined the Stalinist period from any number of perspectives - Orlando Figes here draws on the personal expereinces of those who were forced to live through those years of terror. Drawing on a range of sources - including letters, memoirs, photographs and family archives, as well as a five-year research project interviewing survivors for perhaps the last time - Figes has creates a collage of experiences which reveal the true character of the epoch, unique in its depth, breadth and detail.
Beginning with the first generation of Soviet citizens born after the Bolshevik Revolutions of 1917, Figes guides readers through the 31 years of Terror, famine, war and economic mismanagement; revealing the ebb and flow or suffering in minute detail. The book is unique in its observation. It does not examine those who struggled against the regime, but those who were complicit in it. On one level citizens were able to subsume their personalities into the single Soviet identity, but in others maintaining an indestructible belief in the individual. The book examines the conflict between the two, as inhabitants battled against physical and psychological torture forced upon them.
Who's it by?
Figes is a towering figure in the study of Soviet history, already having composed several works on the subject - including Natasha's Dance: A cultural History of Russia and A People's Tragedy: Russian Revolution 1891-1924.
He is presently Chair of History at Birkbeck College, University of London.
Here he presents a valuable addition to the study of the period, and also the discipline of oral history. Much of what he says with regard to Soviet Russia is uncontroversial, with details of the regime used merely to frame the experiences of those present. There is not critical study of the key protagonists - Stalin, Molotov, Khrushchev for example - but a case by case - sometime exhaustively so - examination of what Figes himself calls 'ordinary Soviets'
As an example...
"Everybody was afraid of us. They were afraid to talk to us, or even come near us, as if we had the plague and would infect them... Our neighbours avoided us, they forbade their children to play with us." - Vera Turkin, on her experience of being named as an 'enemy of the people'
"She is losing her dark colouring and slowly turning red - so there is hope: that she will be a strong person, with healthy views on life, that she will walk and eat and talk as a person should - in a word, that she will become someone with good principles." - Konstantin Simonov, on the prospect of redemption for his daughter
So is it any good?
It is difficult to overestimate the scope and scale of this work. While a brave few fought against Soviet oppression, the vast majority merely capitulated; having no choice but to hunker down and wait for better times. Figes walks with these people - through the trauma of the Great War, the Revolutions, the Civil War, collectivisation, the Terror, fame, fear, the Great Patriotic War and, eventually, the death of Stalin.
Each phase is separated and examined, giving an idea of the flow of life under Stalin. At times it appears the shackles will be relaxed, as with the New Economic Policy, allowing a modicum of freedom, before the state repression is redoubled. The book is filled with exhaustive detail of husbands and wives forced to separate due to their differing views of the Soviet systems, brother fighting brother, families shattered by the Gulag and the desperate fight for food and living space - all of which were common during the period.
Figes succeeds here in collating a previously untapped resource, the interview, the family archives, into an engaging, rewarding and infinitely rewarding narrative. Those who have never had the space to tell their stories before are here given voice; unvarnished, and unafraid. This is perhaps the last time these voices will be heard, despite the recent boom in oral history. Overall it gives a sense of the diversity of experience - with the modest success and overwhelming failure - of one of the darkest chapters of human history.
8/10
Christopher O'Toole