Customer Reviews

The Russians

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Since the collapse of the Soviet Union a decade ago, I have visited various parts of the former Soviet Union over a dozen times. What astonishes me about this book is that all that Smith reports so closely matches what I have seen and experienced on my visits to the Soviet empire. Though he wrote in the 1970s - long before the collapse of Communism - Smith has captured the essence of the country and its people in a way which is extremely readable and relevant today. It is the best book on Russia which I have read.

It's really difficult to find a better book as an introduction to contemporary history. Now that the Berlin Wall has fallen, it's difficult for current generations of American university students to understand what Communism was like. Even current generations of Russian immigrants have difficulty remembering Communism. This book is a link to that history that couldn't be any more brilliant. That is why Mr. Hedrick's books continues to be one of the most commonly assigned books in Russian history and politics classes. The sequel "The New Russians" is updated to reflect the fall of Communism and the current morass (2000) that Russia is in now. Anykind of popular story or joke that I heard then was captured in this book. The best thing about the book is that Mr. Headrick wrote in a way that could be understood by the average American (meaning even my students could understand this book!). If you don't have much of a feel for what life was like in Russia when it was the USSR, then the "Russians" is your ticket to both understanding and getting a feel for life under Communism.

This book was very long, but then to talk about the Russians and their culture it is a lot of material. Obviously, the author seemed biased from his american perspective and made many generalizations that could also be applied to America. But then, I see it as a sign of the times (he wrote this in 1973). All in all, a good guide to have some idea of life in Russia, but I would try to get the whole picture.

Although this book is now rather dated (from the Brezhnev era of the 1970s) it still sticks in my mind as a very vivid portrait of Russia and the Russians...I read it in my late teens circa 1989 or so. I didn't read THE NEW RUSSIANS until a couple of years ago. Both are excellent books but I enjoyed THE RUSSIANS more, I think. Any student of Russia would do well to read this book even today...although it's no longer contemporary/current events it still captures like a snapshot the then-USSR in the late 70s, and even some discussion of the earlier times in people's memories then--Krushchev, Stalin, etc. I found the book insightful and still relevant when I myself I finally visited Russia in 1993. Should be available at most Public Libraries...handle with care, the copies will be old.

For many years the world behind the Iron Curtain was a mystery. There were Sovietologists of all different kinds. One famous Daniel Bell essay gave I believe eight or so different basic ways of interpreting the Soviet Union. Hedrick Smith is a reporter and what he did in this outstanding work was to look into the ordinary life of Soviet society as far as he could. He explained then close to thirty years ago many of the anomalies of the system. And when I read the book then I felt I really was getting inside information into a hidden and highly significant world.

Hedrick Smith is a modern day Herodotus (sans the tall tale reputation). This is an honest and fascinating look at the reality of the Russian people and what it was really like to live under 'Communism'. By having a first-hand view of the Russian people and the system, Americans can not only recognize how fortunate we are to live in a 'democracy'; but also how alike we are in our human-ness. I am looking forward to 'The New Russians' by Mr. Smith.

The author combines a deep understanding of the people in the Soviet Russia with an easy-going writing style.

This book covers a multitude of experiences foreigners didn't normally get to have in Soviet Russia. As an American journalist who speaks decent(?) Russian, Hendrick Smith both partakes in the Soviet Russia's shiny facade created specifically for Western consumption, and engages into normal Soviet reality, that is, normal for Russian citizens. He and his family meet and befriend people in the true Russian friendships - where secrets are discussed, unorthodox ideas are shared, and yes, lots of vodka is consumed.

And then there are reflections and comparisons and cleverly and generously supplied statistics from official Russian-approved sources and guesstimates by western researchers about the scale of things in Soviet Russia.

This books discusses both Soviet and American propaganda of the 70s, but the story itself is fair and earnest and told by a kind and involved observer.

This book does an excellent job of explaining that. Smith discusses how Americans and Russians operate on different premises about human nature. Americans believe that people can govern themselves based on internal restraints. So not many external restraints are needed. Russians believe that people are naturally unruly and anarchic and need a strong hand to restrain them. Some of the most interesting parts of the books are those explaining how the Russians, though hating communism and lack of freedom and being spied upon, were nostalgic for Stalin at the same time. Although by American standards, the Russians were very obedient to authority, the Russians themselves, as Smith tells it, often complained that things were falling apart and that people needed more discipline. The book is a fascinating look at how different peoples think differently.

Another good part and fascinating to Americans are the chapters on shopping. People stand in line for everything, including groceries. Sometimes the store runs out of whatever it is, bread, sausages, olives, before they get to you. People carry with them lists of friends' and families' shoe sizes and clothing sizes so that if they run into something desirable they can buy it before it is all gone. If you see a line of people waiting to buy something, you get in line even if you don't know what it is, just in case it is something good, perhaps a better quality of shoe or bra or kid overalls that are usually not available.

Another interesting part is about the arts and how seriously many Russians take books and poetry, the ballet, how much they appreciate the arts, and also the constraints under which artists create.

Also good is the part about what happens to people that somehow, even unintentionally, displease someone in power, say a party member. Not only are they punished by losing jobs and status, their children cannot get into good schools or get good positions. The whole family becomes undesirables. If they have a nice apartment, they may have to leave it. And this is not as bad as being locked up or sent to Siberia.

Hendrick Smith is a New York Times correspondent that spent the years 1970-75 living in and among the Soviet people, studying both the people and the culture. As much as a westerner could he immersed himself in many aspects of their lives interviewing workers, peasants, government beaurocrats, physicists, writers, movie producers, dissidents and students. He came away with a picture of a passionate and conflicted people; at times warm and hospitible, fearful and paranoid, petty and tyrannical, cynical and apathetic, and proud and loyal. In a country where the state is in overwhelming control of nearly every aspect of their lives, where a stroke of the pen from a government beaurocrat could destroy a man's life for the slightest misstep, the Russian are hardy souls that have found many ingenious ways to cope and survive.

In a supposedly classless utopia Smith shows us a country deeply divided by class distinctions, much more so than anywhere in the west. With a haughtiness that rivals the most snobbish western aristocrat, the cultural elite enjoy a life that is completely out of reach of the common man. They get to shop at special stores, stocked to the gills with imported goods from all over the world (Soviet made items considered beneath them) while the rest of the country spends on average 22 hours a week per household standing in line for basic necessities. The blatant corruption and hypocrisy is startling, but don't you dare voice it. Smith claims that just a few weeks of this type of living would wither away the will of your average American, and I believe him.

Only a westerner living among the Soviet people could write such a book. He tells of his 11-year-old daughter, enrolled in a Soviet public school, coming home and practising military drills taught as a regular part of the curriculum, or repeating songs and slogans extolling the `Great Leninist State' and condemning America without really comprehending the meaning of anything she's saying. Soviets are taught from an early age to simply parrot the idealogical dogma that is fed to them on an almost daily basis without digging too deeply. The Russians are so used to being lied to by their own government that they assume all nations lie to their people, and the Soviet government uses this political cynicisim as an effective means of control.

Although many of these `facts' about life in the USSR are fairly common knowledge in America (especially if you grew up during the Reagan years), Smith puts a human face on it that transforms this grey, drab, and seemingly monotonous totalitarian state into a vivid and colorful mosaic of a sincere, intelligent and deeply conflicted people with a communal inferiority complex

I cannot claim to be a student of Russian history, but I have always foudn the ironies and disconnects of Russian life interesting. I just read this book in 2004, and now understand today's headlines from Russia, and their nostalgia for the order of the brutal regimes that preceded the fall of the Soviet Union. This is, as someone else said, a classic, a must read, a requirement for anyone who needs to understand Russia. Don't worry about it being date; part of Russian culture is that they cling hopelessly to the old while being swept cruelly away by the new. The attitudes and longings portrayed in this book appear to still be the same.