Customer Reviews

Stalin's Children: Three Generations of Love, War, and Survival

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"...on 22 June 1941, Hitler launched the BLITZKRIEG assault codenamed Operation Barbarosa, which quickly crushed Soviet resistance." (p. 79).

This was the genesis of a perceptibly endless and cruel roller-coaster ride for two young Russian girls, respectively the mother and the aunt of the author, Owen Matthews. Lyudmila and Lenina Bibikov had already lost their father, a devout Communist Party notable who, in Stalin's paranoia-based purge of perceived enemies, died by the sword by which he had lived.

This is the compelling 287-page non-fictional account of multiple generations of a family whose roots were Russian and which was horrifically impacted by the totalitarian leadership and policies of the former Soviet Union -- and yet it is also an inspiring story of ultimate success against grim odds of survival. Facets of this story's sidelights are both shocking and graphic, ergo, the selling of the body parts of children in the public market, meat to feed a horrifically starving culture.

The author (who was born in London) is currently the bureau chief in Moscow for Newsweek Magazine. His research for this book was quite difficult and chaotic due to Russian red tape still prevalent subsequent to the fall of the Soviet Union. Owen's father, Mervyn Matthews, had worked in the British Embassy in Moscow and was ultimately deported after some KGB chaos. It took him six years to get the author's mother out of Russia before they could be re-united and married.

This book isn't what I'd call a hot page-turner but it is indeed a compelling tale and provides the reader with some "bottom-up" snapshots of day-to-day life in the Soviet Union. As I read it I was reminded of another fine (but little talked-about) work which offers a slightly different, but equally dismal paradigm of Soviet totalitarianism in the post WW II years, a story from the view of an American ambassador: My Three Years in Moscow (1946-1949)

I highly recommend Owen Matthews well-done work to anyone interested in Soviet/Russian culture or to those who simply enjoy good solid books on modern European history.

As memoirs go, this chronicle of 3 generations of a Russian family allmost destroyed by Stalin's purges is a good one. Unfortunately, the most riveting parts of the tale occur in the first part of the book where the family patriarch is destroyed and the rest of the family is scattered and emotionally damaged, left to try to survive the German invasion. Once the author starts to talk about his English father and his own life in the USSR, the book hits a dry patch. The thwarted romance between his father and his Russian mother who battle long odds to be together is moving, but could've been better edited. Worth reading for Russianophiles and history buffs. Since this is the author's own family, it gives the story an extra dose of emotion for the reader...

In "Stalin's Children" Owen Matthews gives us his memoir through the lenses of his parents Mervyn and Mila and his grandparents (both his English and Russian grandparents).

Matthews' story begins with his Russian grandparents Boris and Martha Bibikov. The Bibikov's had the unfortunate luck of Boris being a lower level party functionary during the time in Russian History known as "The Great Purges." The Purges were akin to Hitler's "Night of the Long Knives" in purpose but differ in scope and intensity. While the "Night of the Long Knives" was an extra-legal affair, the Purges were stamped with the imprimatur of legality with all its victims receiving a trial (a "show trial"). The centerpiece of these trials was the accused's "confession" which was obtained after the use of various forms of torture (including a technique we now know as "Waterboarding). Boris was arrested and received a secret "trial" and was summarily executed.

Matthews' work explores how his family in particular and Russia in general (Stalin's children) have coped and continue to cope with Stalin's legacy. Between the purges and the consequences of Stalin's disastrous 5 Year Plans, the loss of life in the Soviet Union was absolutely staggering. Matthews' narrative will jump from that of his parents and grandparents to his own. The transitions can be jarring but given what Matthews is trying to communicate, the reader should be jarred. The memoir is a compelling page-turner and is both timely and relevant.

It would be expected that skilled journalist Owen Matthews would construct a work that is well-written and accessible to most readers, but not necessarily one that is so layered with an author's emotional complexity that it must be, in this instance, considered a superior narrative of personal history. Described with prose that is both graceful and incisively ironic is a storyline largely contained within the U.S.S.R., from its earliest days beneath Bolshevik control until the late twentieth century. In 1997 Matthews discovered, somewhat by chance in Kiev, a hoary KGB intelligence file concerned with his maternal grandfather, Boris Bibikov, executed in 1937 as an enemy of the state. With this information as bedrock, the author constructs an affecting account of his ancestral history over seven decades, its linchpin being the intensely romantic relationship between his Welsh father Mervyn and Russian mother Lyudmila, who had met while studying at Moscow University in 1967, and married six years after, following a lengthy separation during which they exchanged letters daily, many of these being reproduced, in whole or part, here. Having been extruded from the Soviet Union following his refusal to assist the K.G.B., Mervyn then lobbied throughout Europe to obtain an exit visa that would permit Lyudmila to leave the U.S.S.R. and join her lover in England. Successful in the attempt (by means of a "spy swap") after years of failure the pair was wed, settling in Pimlico, England, and one of the more intriguing elements of the book depicts the couple's disenchantment with their subsequent comparatively placid existence, in contrast with the five years of struggling to wrest Lyudmila from Soviet tentacles. Owen Matthews himself is married to a Russian woman, and describes his ongoing and increasing engagement with his Slavic background, the book additionally and in effect being a love letter through time to his mother, and as well an engrossing and well-organized chronicle of his family's Russian connection.

Few writers would begin their family's history with the discovery of a grandfather's final, tragic act: his signature on his (certainly forced) confession of treason: a death warrant. But this is how Stalin's Children begins, and how it continues: a series of tragedies and struggles and powerful excesses, a caravan of dark images only made palatable by the strength and hope of those who endure it.

Owen Matthew's grandfather was a privileged communist party leader in the Ukraine, until his party turned on him. Matthew's mother fell in love with his father (a Welsh ambassador in the British embassy in Moscow), and Matthew's himself returned to Russia to become the Moscow bureau chief for Newsweek (which accounts for his excellent, snappy writing). Matthews weaves these three generations together to give us a history of not only his family, but of Russia's recent directionless political and cultural upheaval ("like a quiet implosion...a slow sagging into poverty and confusion").

This is not one of those cheesy, over dramatized "heartwarming tales of love and redemption across generations and continents." This is a stark and often brutal story of cold-war survival and compensation; the love is there, but it makes concessions to the harsh realities of the dark middle of the 20th century.

An impressive account of an era largely chronicled by those who experienced it first hand; Matthew's history represents a new generation--the third since WWII--of world war and cold-war autobiographers who are coming to terms with the life and stories that affected their parents and grandparents, reminding us that the terror of war and misguided political idealism does not end once a treaty is signed or an iron curtain falls, but lives on and on in the memories of those they so egregiously affected.

Somehow I expected something more. This book is more 'literature' than 'history.' The metaphors and similes are nauseating more often than not and the ideas put into people's minds, including the authors thoughts of what they must have been 'feeling,' 'thinking,' in the midst of 'understanding,' etc seem like a waste of time and space since we'll never know what they truly were thinking and/or feeling. The author is obviously new to Soviet history, his rapid and general descriptions of what was going on there in the late 1920s and early 1930s speak volumes, including his thoughts on the famine of the early 30s, which occurred throughout the Soviet Union. For example, the author explains that in December of 1932 internal passports were introduced "in an effort to stem the exodus of the starving into the cities" (pg. 40) What isn't discuss is the fact that starving peasants streaming into the cities would only make the food shortages in cities THAT much worse. While it is true that collectivization policies were brutal, as was the dekulakization campaign, the author forgets all the resistance that the Soviets encountered from the peasants in the countryside. This was not a smooth process or transition on the part of the Soviets, but a bloody affair for all sides. I wasn't surprised to find a bibliography in the book, but I was surprised that no footnotes were used. Quite a bit of the information offered is interesting in and of itself in regards to the history of the Soviet Union, but where did it come from?

The author getting to see his grandfather's (Bibikov's) NKVD file was an enlightening story. It was interested to see who implicated whom, and as I expected, his grandfather, after days of what we can only presume were filled with torture, finally implicates his co-workers and they in turn, when interrogated, implicate him. This becomes a common theme throughout the purges as those being interrogated, if they cannot endure it, implicate everyone they can think of, and they in turn do the same. This is one of the reasons for why the purges become so widespread. Even more interesting was that within the same file was contained information about the men who had tortured and interrogated Bibikov, they were all dead within a year. Something few like to remember, or know, about the Soviet Union is that it routinely eliminated those doing the interrogations and torture. This mainly occurs when the heads of the NKVD are changed and they 'cleanse' those put in charge by those they are replacing. There are quite a few touching, at times heart rendering, scenes throughout the Second World War period which the authors describes; the chaos of the times, the wounded Red Army men, retreat, Stalingrad, women digging anti-tank ditches, orphanages, etc. After the war is over the author's grandmother, who was imprisoned for 11 years in a GULag camp in Kazakhstan, comes to live with one of her daughters, the author's aunt, in Moscow. What follows can only be described as a tragedy. Her treatment of her children is simply inhumane at times, she lashes out at them, throws household objects at them, and her daughter and husband endure it all. Few held onto their sanity and human decency while enduring GULag life. It is hard to blame a woman who has lived through more than ten years of such an existence for her actions, some can only endure and wait for it to end, in one way or another.

The above covers a little less than half the book. The rest deals with the author's parents, largely, through their letters to each other. The reader is also told how his father arrived in Moscow (and why) as well as his travels throughout the Soviet Union, how a KGB agent tried to recruit him, how his parents met, who their friends were, etc. And, again, more stories of visits and living in Russia by the author himself. All interesting in their own way, especially in regards to how foreigners viewed Russia and vice versa. Overall an good book which moves along quickly enough but at times offers too much 'literary flare' (and takes artistic license) for my liking.

This story is not really about Stalin. Rather it is about what Stalin's ruinous policies and legacy did to three generations of a family in Russia.

Overall, I enjoyed the story. The most gripping story is the author's mother as a child in the whirlwind of the early USSR and World War 2 and how she managed to survive at all. Her parents' story is interesting, but is not in too much detail. His father's story is not quite as exciting, but still interesting. The romance and separation of his parents gets a little too drawn out, but some readers may appreciate it. The author's personal story, which is woven in among the telling of the other three stories, is a good contrast to the privations and hardships faced by his parents and grandparents.

I enjoyed the book, though at times it was not very swift moving and I had to convince myself to finish it. My children actually really enjoyed hearing about the story. Definitely recommended for students of history who will enjoy the historical knowledge and application to actual people.

It's difficult to feel sympathy for the stern and single-minded Boris Bibikov, grandfather of author Owen Matthews. He was a man who benefited (as did his wife and two girls) from being a lower echelon Soviet party member. This chosen association would ultimately cost him his life, in one of the first of Stalin's many political purges (later, the men who condemned Boris would face the very same fate).

His grandmother, Martha (Boris's wife) is equally hard to warm up to-- even Mr. Matthews has negative memories of her. The woman's unjust imprisonment, suffering and loss of family and status surely were the cause of her acidic nature, and yet, for years after regaining freedom Martha made no attempt to reconnect with daughters who equally suffered during her absence. She chose instead to inflict mental pain on anyone in her vicinity.

The two girls, Lenina and Lyudmila (the author's mother) were sent to an orphanage upon their parents' arrest. Events caused them to be separated; Mila would almost die from a tubercular leg and starvation. Somehow, both made it through their ordeals and only the merest of chances reunited them.

They would both go forward to create good lives for themselves: education, employment, marriage, kids. STALIN'S CHILDREN then, is their story. It's also a well-researched look at Soviet life from the early 1920s through Glasnost, as lived by members of a single family. The author even offers his own experiences in post-Soviet Ukraine-- a sudden random street assault and official investigation, and his interactions with a bureaucracy reluctant to reveal the secrets and injustices of a regime no longer extant.

For those in the U.S. who can only recall the Cold War from a child's perspective-- the influence of propaganda plus any negative views of the U.S.S.R. we may have absorbed from our parents-- what is most revealing in STALIN'S CHILDREN is that citizens living under Soviet Communism only wanted the same things we hoped for over here: security, a home, a family and the ability to provide for them. What the children of Boris and Martha Bibikov endured to finally realize these simple dreams should never happen to anyone, anywhere, ever again.

This was an enjoyable read. The author who is part British/Russian and covers Russia for Newsweek. His grandfather on his mother's side was a believing Russian Communist who was killed by the NKVD. His grandmother was a victim of the purges when she was internally exiled. Both his mother and aunt were split by WWII and post war chaos. Matthews explains the tramatic experiences the family experiences during the last eighty years. His mother married a Welsh student studying in Russia during the Cold War. His father even managed to get his mother released from Russia during the height of the Cold War.

I enjoyed this book greatly. The author talks from true experience in relating the hardships experienced by his family. Russians endure despite all the difficulties their nation experiences. If Russians can survive Stalin, WWII, and the Cold War, they can endure anything. This book explains why Russians have a different attitude than Westerners. Russian endures even with the hardships imposed on her population.

This is a multi-generational story that follows through the years of Russia under Communism. Beginning with his maternal Grandfather who was involved with the October Revolution, through his mother/father and the times of Stalin/Brezhnev, and lastly his own involvement in the fall of the Soviet Empire and the rise of the "New" Russia. Owen Matthews does a wonderful job of interspercing the tales of all three generations while telling a compelling and tragedy laden story of twentieth century Russia.

Beginning with his grandfather who led the construction of a large Truck Works through to completion. But, first his grandfather helped create and perpetuate the "Great Starvation" of the 1920s and the rounding up and shipping off to Siberia of the Kulaks. Like many of the "Old Bolsheviks" during the late 1930s, he himself was rounded up and killed by the NKVD for 'anti-Soviet' agitation.

His mother and aunt were left as orphans when their mother was also taken by the NKVD. They grew up during the war in a Soviet orphanage but were lucky to be kept together. His stories about his mother are the best and most thorough of the book. His father grew up in Wales and Southern England and was a Russophile. On a student scholarship in Moskow his parents meet and get engaged, but are ready to get married when his father is hustled out of the country by the KGB.

His parents spend six years trying to get his mother out of the Soviet Union. They finally succeed by getting his mother out as part of a spy swap. The problem is that the 'myths' created by his parents during their time apart, makes it almost impossible for their lives together to ever meet expectations.

Owen is best when writing about his mother and worst when writing about himself. But the book moves along and is a good study of the "Soviet Empire" and how things looked from the bottom up.

Zeb Kantrowitz