The Soviet Era: A Look Back

On December 25, 1991—exactly twenty years ago today—Mikhail Gorbachev resigned as leader of the Soviet Union, effectively spelling an end to the most grandiose political and social experiment of the twentieth century. But Gorbachev was merely acknowledging what the Soviet leadership had known, though refused to believe, all along: that the country was fiscally and ideologically bankrupt, that after seventy years of building the bright future of Communism, there were only dilapidated factories and cities with bleak concrete apartment blocks, where nobody wanted to live.

The slow progress of this rise and fall was documented, as it unfolded, in the pages of VQR. We offer here a compendium of our best and most compelling first-hand reporting from the Soviet era and after. (You can read each full article by clicking on the title at the end of the excerpt.) And be sure not to miss the full text of the Fall 2011 issue, documenting the state of the post-Soviet republics twenty years after the collapse, and Aglaya Glebova’s two dispatches from the December 10 and December 24 protests, denouncing Vladimir Putin and the recent parliamentary elections that protesters believe he rigged.

After yesterday’s massive protest on Academician Sakharov Avenue in Moscow, Gorbachev is calling for Putin to resign, just as the former Soviet leader did twenty years ago. If Putin steps down now, Gorbachev says, he might still salvage his reputation as the man who helped restore Russia to international prominence. What will happen next is anyone’s guess. One thing is certain: we stand the best chance of anticipating the future of the post-Soviet era by understanding its complex and fascinating past.

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“We had assembled one evening for a long, long chat in the office of the chairman of the Soviet, a stuffy dust-filled room, sodden with the smells of the crowds that packed it every day. A little lamp was burning on the bare table, casting a faint glow over the portraits of Lenine, Trotzky, Zinovyev, that hung on the walls with their hard eyes upon us as though they were there in their spirits to whisper the proper words to their devoted disciples. We were sitting on the hard benches, smoking my American ‘camels,’ eating fruit and talking. Youths that they were, they could not conceal their exultant feeling of self-importance at the opportunity to talk themselves out to an American journalist.”
Maurice Hindus, “Russia’s Awakened Peasants,” Autumn 1927

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“We took the train from the Kursk station in Moscow for the Caucasus the third Monday in July. I had seen the station last the winter of the famine when its floor had been covered with dusty, sack-like shapes that huddled comatose on the floor, the flow of refugees from the south creeping north for bread. But 1925 had brought a harvest, an old time harvest, surpassing even 1913, so memorable for its plenty. And 1926 was just as good. The station floors attested comfort again for city and for country. They were scrubbed until they shone.”
Ernestine Evans, “South to the Caucasus,” Spring 1928

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“As we sailed east almost into the shadow of the Urals, the Revolution shrank smaller, farther, unreal away. Even in my sleep in Leningrad its beat, bursting the old world, was in my ears and I had waked each morning to its thunderous music. Now, while we stopped at village after village, there were whole hours when I forgot the Revolution, when I knew only Russia. For if the migrating muzhik was a sign of Russia’s deepest move—the proletarianizing of the farm—as yet the hearts of these men and women knew no Revolution, despite the destiny of their bodies.”
Waldo Frank, “Russian River,” Summer 1932

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“One of my sisters wrote to me that all members of the family were alive and well, but that my brother was in jail. He had been arrested by the Cheka in March, 1921, at the time of the revolt of the Kronstadt sailors who demanded ‘Soviets Without Communists.’ Lenin’s government held the moderate Socialists morally responsible. The uprising quelled, hordes of meek Mensheviks and pugnacious Essers were rounded up throughout the republic. My brother found himself in a cell, uncomfortable with too many inmates for the small space, but the crowd was to his liking. The fellow-inmates were moderate Socialists of an ironic turn of mind much the same as his. Almost all were his friends; many had been in the same party local before the legal organization was disbanded. They remembered him, too, as the young man who had once published for them a humorous political sheet. So now, in response to his own mood as well as their approbation, he proceeded to write funny verse about the jailers. Somehow the verse came to the jailers’ attention. The jailers were angry.”
Albert Parry, “My Brother’s End,” Winter 1936

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“After a week at Peredelkino, we boarded the Red Arrow, the midnight train from Moscow to Leningrad. On the way to the train we stopped to see the Red Square at night and to watch the changing of the Guard at Lenin’s tomb, a precisely executed ritual, so swift one’s eye can’t catch the movement as the two new guards, with escort, having stood briefly in silence before the tomb, replace the others. Two of us shared a coupé, a small compartment with two narrow beds. When the train attendant brought us tall glasses of tea in silver holders, with cubes of sugar, I felt like Anna Karenina.”
Bernice Grohskopf, “Moscow Kitchens, Moscow Nights,” Winter 1992

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“The hammer and sickle doesn’t fly any longer over the old capital of Russia. Retreating at full throttle from the proximate past, it is once again St. Petersburg. But rumple-faced men still ply the river in dinghies, and the Neva is still the city’s highway, bread basket, and scourge. Less than 50 miles long, it runs down like a granite chute polished with rushing waters from Lake Ladoga on the east to the Gulf of Finland and the Baltic beyond it. Fishermen take perch, bream, and pike from the river. Armed with murderous teeth, the pike is cannibalistic, like Russia’s rulers from Czar Peter to Stalin.”
Russell Fraser, “Peter at the Crossroads,” Autumn 1999

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For more on Putin’s Russia, check out…

Stephen Boykewich, “Russia after Beslan,” Winter 2005
Hugh Ragsdale, “Will the Real Putin Please Stand Up?” Winter 2005
Stephen Boykewich, “Devilish Forces,” Winter 2009
Steve LeVine, “A Response to ‘Devilish Forces,’” March 17, 2009