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Red Plenty Paperback – February 14, 2012

by Francis Spufford (Author)

77 customer reviews

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"Spufford cunningly maps out a literary genre of his own . . . Freewheeling and fabulous." ―The Times (London)

Strange as it may seem, the gray, oppressive USSR was founded on a fairy tale. It was built on the twentieth-century magic called "the planned economy," which was going to gush forth an abundance of good things that the lands of capitalism could never match. And just for a little while, in the heady years of the late 1950s, the magic seemed to be working. Red Plenty is about that moment in history, and how it came, and how it went away; about the brief era when, under the rash leadership of Khrushchev, the Soviet Union looked forward to a future of rich communists and envious capitalists, when Moscow would out-glitter Manhattan and every Lada would be better engineered than a Porsche. It's about the scientists who did their genuinely brilliant best to make the dream come true, to give the tyranny its happy ending.

Red Plenty is history, it's fiction, it's as ambitious as Sputnik, as uncompromising as an Aeroflot flight attendant, and as different from what you were expecting as a glass of Soviet champagne.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"A marvel... a work, by turns learned and lyrical, that grows by degree, accreting into something lasting: a replica in miniature of a world of ideas never visible to most, and now gone." -- Andrew Meier, New York Times Book Review

"At the end of the first chapter... I printed a nerdy but heartfelt word: 'Bravo'. I felt like giving the author a little bow, or maybe a one-man standing O." -- Dwight Garner, The New York Times

"An engrossing, and at times deeply moving historical drama." -- Max McGuinness, The Daily Beast

“A hammer-and-sickle version of Altman's Nashville, with central committees replacing country music . . . [Spufford] has one of the most original minds in contemporary literature.” ―Nick Hornby, The Believer

“A thrilling book that all enthusiasts of the Big State should read.” ―Michael Burleigh, The Sunday Telegraph

About the Author

Francis Spufford is the author of The Child That Books Built and two other books. In 2007 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He teaches writing at Goldsmiths College and lives near Cambridge.

Paperback: 448 pages
Publisher: Graywolf Press; Original edition (February 14, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 9781555976040
ISBN-13: 978-1555976040
ASIN: 1555976042
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.3 x 8.1 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 77 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #88,250 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #105 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > Russian & Former Soviet Union
- #128 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > Ideologies & Doctrines > Communism & Socialism
- #201 in Books > Politics & Social Sciences > Politics & Government > International & World Politics > European

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Top customer reviews

It's like a time travel coach tour of Soviet market planning. Ironically your buying on Kindle does not mean you own your copy.

BySeren Dipityon April 29, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

I liked it. It's not a historical novel in the normal sense. There are far better reviews than mine here. But it has a neat mechanism. It's not quite a historical novel and it's not quite an exposition. It's sort of both.

It's almost like going on a time travel coach tour. The coach driver provides a background and narrative and then you get to step into a point in time and see what was happening. In that alone Spufford excelled.

I am disappointed in that for some reason the author or the publisher will not allow loaning of the Kindle version that I thought I bought.
Apparently I only own the right to read it and central control is not up to the purchaser. I hoped to loan it to a friend but that is not permitted for this book. How ironic.

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Very much worth reading

ByBarryRBon August 24, 2017

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is a hard book to classify but I found it absorbing and very well-written. Historical novel comes closest, I suppose. It moves seamlessly between fact and fiction.

It is an absorbing account of a fraught period in Russian history and how the lives of some very interesting and largely sympathetic people intersected during the Soviet period. I can't vouch for its accuracy--it includes copious notes, for those who care. The portrayal of the thoughts of Khrushchev was convincing to me; whether these were in fact his thoughts seems not a very interesting question in the context of a work of art as opposed to a history. Tolstoy, after all, did the same thing with Napoleon and Kutuzov.

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More than history

ByJon Grahamon February 22, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

It is a novel-like book with Russian fairy tales, skazki, interwoven. The characters are both real and imagined. We want the workers to succeed, the horrible plans to be abandoned. Alas, it is not to be. For someone who has visited the Soviet Union late in her history, 1974, it was enthralling. It helped me better understand what I had experienced as a child. The grim apartments still endured, shared kitchens and baths. An accepted spying everywhere, an inherent mistrust of the west especially the US.
I recommend this book for anyone who has an interest in the USSR.

0Comment 3 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Excellent Fictional History of the USSR

Byjtingermanyon February 18, 2014

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

A novelized account of the early, halcyon days of the Soviet Union -- when overtaking the West seemed not just possible, but probable. It uses fictionalized versions of major historical figures (Kantorovich, the discoverer of linear programming, among them) and little-known (in the West) events that illustrate and drove the development and downfall of the USSR.

The book also gives a good overview of life in academia and in the Party as they try to run an economy along political, rather than economic, principles.

An excellent, readable overview of life in the USSR and why it failed. As the author says in a note, "This whole book is, in fact, a prehistory of perestroika".

Finally, the Kindle version of this has a MAJOR problem -- the notes. As is common in fiction, these are done by page, rather than using a series of notes, and they are NOT linked to the text in the Kindle version. Which means that if you, like me, don't check them out at the start of the novel, you may not know they're there until you've missed quite a bit.

0Comment 2 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you?YesNo

Could Communism Have Worked?

ByCharles W. Riendeauon March 27, 2015

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This is a history of the Soviet Union during the time of Krushchev holding up to our minds the possibility that for one golden Camelotian moment the Soviet Economy actually worked. It is unusually written in that it is in a narrative format that is neither history nor novel. The author prefers to describe it as a fairy tale. I would describe it as history put into the personal terms of the lives of the individuals who lived it and thus becomes history as a story well told. The reading is smooth and interesting for a subject that often can be off putting. It also contains the seeds of why the Soviet Union finally dissolved and probably would have done so without Mr. Reagan ever having been our president. The positive notion that the Soviet economy might well have worked if anyone in politics could actually have employed the scientific program of administering it is delicious but unverifiable since the politicos could not allow an impersonal mathematical program to dictate what prices should actually be. History is often a pile of facts. This has, or at least is based upon, facts but resists making a pile large enough to impress other historians while leaving the book largely unreadable except by the most determined or those in need of that particular pile. As long as a narrative does not wander off into the purely speculative, I much prefer it. For me it makes history more accessible and more easily remembered. I would encourage other writers to pick up that challenge. Meanwhile, why isn't Communist China collapsing?

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An Amazing Book, The Best I've Read in Years

ByRETon August 29, 2017

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

A brilliant hybrid of fact and fiction based on fact, exploring the history of Soviet economic policy under Khrushchev as seen through the lives of the key players. Even if you have zero interest in economics, you'll find this glimpse into the Soviet empire a fascinating ride.

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Very entertaining semi - fictional approach to Nikita Khruschev's promise to overtake the USA by 1980.

ByBayard B.on January 13, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

Entertaining semi - fictional stories of various real and make-believe Soviets trying to bring about (or responding to) Khruschev's promise in 1960 that the USSR would catch up with and overtake the USA economically by 1980. Each chapter is a story or vignette of someone's perceived role in trying to make it happen or the consequences or disappointments of it not happening. The stories range from Leonid Kantorovich (a real and very bright mathematician) inventing econometric linear programming for a plywood factory and then trying to apply the concept to the entire Soviet economy, to an "expeditor" who functions in a semi - illegal manner to make the real economic system work. Most of the stories take place in the 1950s through the 1970s. It's quite an original approach, I thought.

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Most recent customer reviews

Five Stars

READ!

Published 2 months ago by Amazon Customer

Simply amazing..

Simply amazing ... somehow the conceit works. This is basically a history book, written as a historical novel, written as a sci-fi novel? Sort of?Read more

Published 4 months ago by P.H.

History with Personalized Perspectives

Very easy read with historic fiction and factual events about the drama of a changing world.

Published 6 months ago by Judith

beautifully written!

Very well written, entertaining, with great characters. Makes me feel what its like to live in Russia in the 60s.

Published 7 months ago by Tini Ipser

Excellent writing, very accurate description of planning thought and ...

Excellent writing, very accurate description of planning thought and impact in the 1960s. Highly recommended, one of my most precious books.

Published 8 months ago by Steve Scott

Khrushchev's Time

This is the story of a long decade. It begins with the death of Stalin. Khrushchev wanted to create a better kind of USSR.Read more

Published 9 months ago by gerardpeter

Kindle version does not link text to footnotes

Excellent book, but my reading experience was crippled by the lack of proper footnotes in the Kindle version of the book.Read more

Published 1 year ago by blimundus

... stories portraying life during the Khruschev "thaw" is a brilliant and wonderful read

Spufford's book of semi-connected stories portraying life during the Khruschev "thaw" is a brilliant and wonderful read. For the Soviet history buff, this is a must-read.

Published 1 year ago by Kane Xavier Faucher

Many will hate it, so I would be very careful whom ...

A unique blend of Soviet history,economic theory, the etiology of lung cancer and human drama in a half-invented half-non-fiction, mishmash.Read more

Published 1 year ago by Amazon Customer

Five Stars

One of the best books I've read in years. Completely captivating, beautifully written.

Published 1 year ago by Josiah J Madigan

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