The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia

The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia
by Orlando Figes

The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia
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Book Summary Information

Author: Orlando Figes
Edition: Hardcover
Published: 2007-11-13
ISBN: 0805074619
Number of pages: 740
Publisher: Metropolitan Books

Book Reviews of The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia

Book Review: More Anecdotal Evidence of Communism's Crimes
Summary: 5 Stars

It amazes me that with all the information that has been released from the Russian archives with regards to the Stalinist period that there are still influential people in the west who minimize or excuse the crimes of Stalin's regime. Oh, there are people around who deny the crimes of Hitler as well. The difference is that those who deny the crimes of Hitler are ostracized and in some countries even subject to criminal sanctions. But those who deny or minimize the crimes of Stalin and his henchmen are generally given a pass in Western societies. I have often wondered why that is, maybe the best answer is that that left-leaning elites consider the Stalinist terror a minor error made in the service of a "just" cause. It is ironic that many of Stalin's biggest supporters in the US were Russian emigres and their offspring and many of those were embedded in opinion-shaping professions here such as education, journalism and film-making. So maybe its no wonder that we still have apologists for communism in prominent positions.
The Whisperers is a fine history that should help put further to rest any idea that Stalin was any less of a monster than Hitler. It doesn't serve any purpose to argue about which man was responsible for more deaths. One is just as dead whether the bullet that kills you comes from the gun of an SS man or from the gun of an NKVD executioner. One is just as dead whether he was killed because of his ethnicity, religion, or because he was a "kulak". What you will learn in The Whisperers is how millions of people were cowed into accepting the necessity of the brutality of the Stalinist regime and in the end wound up looking only after their own interests. Though some decent people remained, friend turned on friend, neighbor on neighbor, and relatives on one another in a desperate bid to avoid that knock on the door in the middle of the night that meant exile or worse.
I won't rehash the story, others have done so. But if you have any interest in gaining a broader knowledge of the machinations of the Communist police state, the human tragedy it spawned, and how it impacted ordinary Soviet citizens then The Whisperers is highly recommended. Orlando Figes has painstakingly woven together a complex web of anecdotal evidence of communism's crimes through the stories of a number of survivors of Stalin's terror whose trust he earned enough for them to be forthcoming enough to tell the tragic stories you read here. Once you finish the book, you may feel as though you actually know some of the people whose stories are told. It may be heavy reading, and its a thick book, but the understanding you'll gain will make it more than worth the effort expended.

Summary of The Whisperers: Private Life in Stalin's Russia

From the award-winning author of A People’s Tragedy and Natasha’s Dance, a landmark account of what private life was like for Russians in the worst years of Soviet repression

There have been many accounts of the public aspects of Stalin’s dictatorship: the arrests and trials, the enslavement and killing in the gulags. No previous book, however, has explored the regime’s effect on people’s personal lives, what one historian called “the Stalinism that entered into all of us.” Now, drawing on a huge collection of newly discovered documents, The Whisperers reveals for the first time the inner world of ordinary Soviet citizens as they struggled to survive amidst the mistrust, fear, compromises, and betrayals that pervaded their existence.
Moving from the Revolution of 1917 to the death of Stalin and beyond, Orlando Figes re-creates the moral maze in which Russians found themselves, where one wrong turn could destroy a family or, perversely, end up saving it. He brings us inside cramped communal apartments, where minor squabbles could lead to fatal denunciations; he examines the Communist faithful, who often rationalized even their own arrest as a case of mistaken identity; and he casts a humanizing light on informers, demonstrating how, in a repressive system, anyone could easily become a collaborator.

A vast panoramic portrait of a society in which everyone spoke in whispers—whether to protect their families and friends, or to inform upon them—The Whisperers is a gripping account of lives lived in impossible times.

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