The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin [Mass Market Paperback]

Adam Hochschild (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1995

Stalin's rule over Russia left some 20 million people dead and, in the 35 years since his death, no one would openly write or talk about his vast self-inflicted genocide. With the advent of glasnost, journalist Hochschild explores how Russians today are healing the wounds from an avalanche of long-repressed memories. Photos.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Journalist Hochschild (Half the Way Home), records the long-suppresed memories of Russians still healing from the wounds of Stalin's rule.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Hochschild's search for survivors of Stalin's Terror results in a moving historical horror story. He spent half of 1991 in the disintegrating USSR, listening to former prisoners, guards, executioners, and families describe mass murder, imprisonments, interrupted lives, and hopes destroyed. Russian-speaking journalist Hochschild, a founder of Mother Jones , was among the first Americans to enter KGB archives, where he received records of executed Americans. He visited gulag sites and chapters of Memorial, an organization documenting the Terror. He traveled to Kolyma, the frozen final destination for many and a name that resonates among Russians with the power of Auschwitz. Hochschild's questions are disturbing and timeless: Why did the Revolution devour itself? What makes someone an executioner? Hochschild's people, as well as his honesty and passion, make this unforgettable book essential for everyone concerned about history and human rights. Strongly recommended. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/93.
- Donna L. Cole, Leeds P.L., Ala.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (February 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140157956
• ISBN-13: 978-0140157956
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,282,403 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Adam Hochschild was born in New York City in 1942. His first book, "Half the Way Home: A Memoir of Father and Son," was published in 1986. Michiko Kakutani of The New York Times called it "an extraordinarily moving portrait of the complexities and confusions of familial love . . . firmly grounded in the specifics of a particular time and place, conjuring them up with Proustian detail and affection." It was followed by "The Mirror at Midnight: A South African Journey," and "The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin." His 1997 collection, "Finding the Trapdoor: Essays, Portraits, Travels," won the PEN/Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award for the Art of the Essay. "King Leopold's Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa" was a finalist for the 1998 National Book Critics Circle Award. It also won a J. Anthony Lukas award in the United States, and the Duff Cooper Prize in England. His books have been translated into fourteen languages and four of them have been named Notable Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review. His "Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves" was a finalist for the 2005 National Book Award in Nonfiction and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for History.

"To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918," Hochschild's latest book, was published in May, 2011 and was on The New York Times bestseller list.

Hochschild has written for The New Yorker, Harper's, The Atlantic, The New York Review of Books, Granta, The New York Times Magazine, and many other newspapers and magazines. His articles have won prizes from the Overseas Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists and elsewhere. He was a co-founder of Mother Jones magazine and has been a commentator on National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." Hochschild teaches narrative writing at the Graduate School of Journalism at the University of California at Berkeley. He and his wife, sociologist and author Arlie Russell Hochschild, have two sons and two granddaughters.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Mesmerizing and Haunting, January 3, 2005

By 

Patrick J. Murphy - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin (Paperback)

Every so often, a book comes along that no written review, no matter how carefully crafted, can really do justice to. This is one such book.

Hochschild's six month sojourn in 1991 through the remnants of the gulag archipelago is the mesmerizing tale of a once mighty nation still very much haunted by its past descent into madness. Interviewing both victims and perpetrators alike, Hochschild aptly conveys the great extent to which Soviet society still remains conflicted some 50 years after the terror of Stalin's Great Purge.

To his credit, Hochschild does more than simply chronicle the tyranny of Stalin's regime; he continually asks "why?". Why did a movement supposedly predicated on championing and elevating the common man turn so quickly on 20 million of its own people? Why would a regime exert so much time and effort prosecuting and persecuting persons it knew to be innocent? After all the unspeakable injustices perpetrated by Stalin, why would so many weep at his passing? Why do some victims of the regime readily embrace their former captors and tormentors as fellow casualties while others refuse to speak of their ordeals to this very day? A thought provoking narrative that admirably weaves together a complex tangle of emotions and issues.

If The Unquiet Ghost has a shortcoming, it is the author's tendency to occasionally interject his personal political beliefs into the narrative. While some political expressions perhaps have relevance, such as when Hochschild criticizes his liberal forebears who refused to see Stalin's Soviet Union for the brutal totalitarian dictatorship that it was, his off-hand commentary regarding political issues unique to the United States detracts from what it otherwise a fantastic book.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Questioning, searching, thought-provoking, August 1, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin (Mass Market Paperback)

Hochschild examines the harsh reality of people living with the legacy of Stalinism. Russia is a country that rests on buried corpses, and as Hochschild relates, their ghosts are no longer silent. As Russians attempt to confront the past, many find it too painful to face the truth about their loved ones and even themselves. But for some, the deeply buried memories of the horror of Stalinism is surfacing. Hochschild causes the reader to ask "Would I have done any differently?" Hochschild's book is an important tool in helping understand the great problems that face the people of Russia today. His book causes the reader to ask if, indeed, there is a little Stalin in all of us

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An insightful look into Russia's Stalinist past, June 27, 1996

By A Customer

This review is from: The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin (Mass Market Paperback)

Hochschild writes an interesting account of life in Russia after the fall of Communism. He examines the scars of the Stalin years, and how contemporary Russian society is dealing with the past. The book takes the reader on a short tour of Russia, with Hochschild's visits to previously closed towns, ending in the Kolyma region, notorious for its labor camps. Throughout the book, Hochschild interviews Russians from all walks of life, former camp inmates and guards, doctors,workers, and former party members. While some long for the security offered in the Communist past, most await the prosperity of the free market economy. Almost all have difficulty dealing with the purges of the Stalin years, since many Russians lost family members as a result of arrest and detention. Hochschild does a commendable job of exposing the divisive nature of the purges, and how the society is having a difficult time placing responsibility, especially in the face of new information coming from formerly closed government sources almost daily. Hochschild's book is a must read if one is to fully understand the Russian people, as they search for their place in the community of nations