Inside Russia Today

by John Gunther

Great for comparing the differences from half a century ago to how much the basic Russian character shows through in the different systems.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Russia

Hardcover

First published January 1, 1958

About the author

John Gunther was one of the best known and most admired journalists of his day, and his series of "Inside" books, starting with Inside Europe in 1936, were immensely popular profiles of the major world powers. One critic noted that it was Gunther's special gift to "unite the best qualities of the newspaperman and the historian." It was a gift that readers responded to enthusiastically. The "Inside" books sold 3,500,000 copies over a period of thirty years.

While publicly a bon vivant and modest celebrity, Gunther in his private life suffered disappointment and tragedy. He and Frances Fineman, whom he married in 1927, had a daughter who died four months after her birth in 1929. The Gunthers divorced in 1944. In 1947, their beloved son Johnny died after a long, heartbreaking fight with brain cancer. Gunther wrote his classic memoir Death Be Not Proud, published in 1949, to commemorate the courage and spirit of this extraordinary boy. Gunther remarried in 1948, and he and his second wife, Jane Perry Vandercook, adopted a son.

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

During our two years at Park Ridge's Lincoln Jr. High School we were all required to spend time in its library, learning how to use the card catalog to check out books and write research papers on the order of "What I Want to Be When I Grow Up" and "The Person I Most Admire". One of the books I read in that place was Gunther's Inside Russia Today.

My choice of Gunther was likely the result of four factors. One, it was big and I wanted to impress my teachers. Two, Dad followed current events and read history books. Three, since Kennedy's election, I also had been reading newspapers and magazines and watching current affairs programming on television. Fourth, Ms. Kurtzenbaugh, our Social Science teacher, had been showing us anti-communist and anti-Soviet films in class while Mr. Nordskog, in Math/Science, frequently went on tangents warning us about the same threats.

Gunther was a good read as an antidote to the rather ignorant anti-communist line we were being fed. His book humanized the Russians and some other nationalities of the old USSR for me.

Oh, I wanted to be, first, an airline pilot, then, when research showed me that my eyesight made this impossible, a pharmacist. Well, actually, learning about pharmacy made me not much want to be a pharmacist, but it was too late to change the thesis. And the most admirable person? Douglas MacArthur of course.

[Julio The Fox · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cut to the chase: Is INSIDE RUSSIA TODAY still worth reading? Absolutely. John Gunther reminds us, "Scratch a Russian and you find a Tartar. Scratch a Tartar and you find another Tartar". One great takeaway from this book, the result of a trip to the Soviet Union under Khrushchev and decades of distillation in thinking since Gunther first visited the country in the 1930s when Stalin was on top, is that Russia fundamentally never changes, no matter who is in charge, and that the Communist transformation after 1917 is vastly overrated by foreigners. Gunther very strongly believes in national character. The Russians are a people used to sacrifice and suffering, something evinced in everything from their literature to the iconography of the Orthodox Church, and have developed a fatalistic outlook on life, the result of a combination of foreign invasions from the days of the Norse to the Tartars to twice by the Germans and domestic chaos, highlighted by the Time of the Troubles after Ivan the Terrible to the Stalinist Purges. Russians do not holler; at best they grumble at the hands of their masters. Some of Gunther's observations on the U.S.S.R. are incisive and funny, "Of all the dull things about this dull land the dullest is the state of newspapers", and others prophetic; he surmised that a burning nationalism in the fifteen Soviet Republics lay just beneath the surface of Soviet rule, "Moscow is willing to let the Republics do anything they wish provided it is harmless". Of special note is his trip to Ukraine. The Russian speakers there deny there is any difference between the Russian and Ukrainian languages, but Gunther's Russian translator cannot speak to any Ukrainians in their native tongue; a quite prophetic observation. INSIDE RUSSIA TODAY is a reporter's notebook of a first-rate journalist who also proved himself a valuable and readable political scientist and historian of the future.

[harry · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most fun history book I have read in a while - largely because it actually focuses on people not just isolated events. He writes like the journalist he is and that’s what makes it so endearing.
98/100 - genuinely brilliant

[Alex · Rating 5 out of 5]

This couldn't have possibly been written at a better time. Inside Russia Today, was published in the late 50s, just as Russia had launched the first man-made satellite into orbit. The Russians had just defeated Germany and had been left with half of Europe, the strength of communist parties in Italy, and France were leaving the West very nervous, and now they had disproved Western assumptions of technological superiority leaving many people wondering if the USSR was the superior nation and the way of the future.

What a perfect moment for John Gunther to travel through nation and give us a valuable account of Soviet geography, politics, history, education, culture, and even simply everyday life.

As an obvious fan of state regulation and planned economies (refer to his account of the Tennessee Valley Authority in Inside USA) It was interesting to read his perspective. He most admired the educational system, (so did I), but he never held back from pointing out the nation's flaws, being especially disgusted by it's authoritarianism in the realm of thought, and even rolled his eyes at overtly pessimistic predictions of Soviet world domination.

He gives an in depth analysis of the government, perfectly timed as always with some historical even or other, in this case with the destalinization being carried out by Khrushchev.

I enjoyed his perspectives on culture and society. He describes state sponsorship of all sorts of art from the visual to the musical, especially ballet, and the schools that would go on to train all those painters and sculptors that would make the ubiquitous propaganda murals and statues.

He discusses everyday society, never reluctant to enthusiastically engage everyone he meets with in detailed and enthusiastic conversation. Recently Westerners have been surprised by stories of Russian prudishness about sex and even swearing, yet it's amusing to find Gunther expressing the same surprise 60 years ago.

I enjoyed his perspectives on the future of the Soviet Union as well. Writing about any potential Soviet world domination, he says it will come to pass more through Western stupidity than Soviet genius. Predictions of the USSR's inevitable collapse had not exactly been a novelty since the nations foundation in the three decades before this book was written, and Gunther appears to take into account their failures, made worse by the unexpected launching of Sputnik in the face of Western presumption of superiority, as a warning against joining that bandwagon.

Gunther is cautiously realistic about the USSR's future. He doesn't predict any collapse but I don't think he would been surprised by it either. He had a good understanding of the country, even a bit of respect for any good he saw.

[Nicolas Quattromani · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one is a real treasure. It's a travelogue, recounting Gunther's many experiences on his 1956 trip to the Soviet Union, but it's not just a travelogue---it's also a bold attempt to summarize the entire country as it existed at the start of the Khrushchev era. We get multiple informative history sections; post-Stalin Communist Party politics; science and education; culture, from writing to film to ballet (so much ballet). Inside Russia Today also represents a political statement, analyzing the USSR from a firmly American perspective, rooted in some of the tensest years of the Cold War.

At the time of this book's revised edition Sputnik had just been launched, signaling the communist world's (illusory) scientific and economic superiority. There was a lot of fear going around, anxiety that the democratic system was not, in fact, best equipped to survive, and in writing his snapshot of the Soviet Union John Gunther did a very good thing---he answered fear with facts. His book goes to great pains to show the Soviet aversion to war. Instead of a totalitarian monolith about to mobilize against the free world, he paints a nuanced picture of a society burdened by an oppressive ideology, but nevertheless straining towards greater freedom, and most importantly eager for peace. There are no obvious exaggerations or inaccuracies that I found in the text; for an American in the high Cold War, he is remarkably unbiased, and willing to admit the Soviet system's strengths without apologizing for its atrocities.

How is it as a book? Very good. Gunther is rarely boring to read, except maybe in the sections on Soviet ballet. He organizes his thoughts well and the extended length is very tolerable because there is just so much richness packed into it. One gets a very good sense of the broad sweep of the USSR at a specific moment in history. For any Soviet aficionados who can get their hands on this rare volume, I would highly recommend giving it a read!

[Daisy]

One of the oldest of literary definitions is that a literary movement consists of two writers who live in the same community and hate each other.

royalties:
for a novel are tallied partly by length of the work or even how many characters it has;
are reduced the more a novel sells;
standard for a playwright are 1.5 percent of box office (after "deductions) per act--so a four-act play earns the author more than a two-act play;
16,000 ruble fee for translation of a foreign play;
poets paid a flat rate per line (14 rubles)

the Order of Motherhood Glory--to any woman who had 10 or more children (plus a stipend of 40-150 rubles monthly)

[Carla · Rating 4 out of 5]

I probably did not read all of this book in my grammar school years in the 1950's, but I read enough to understand something about the Politburo, something about the Russians as people, and enough to gain some perspective about foreign countries, and about how motives of those with political power oftentimes neither match nor benefit the general population. I am grateful to that book for its accessibility, even to a child in grammar school.

[Miguel Andrés · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a first eye account of what the soviet union was back in the 50s as described by an american. It would often be said that american writings about the soviet union in the 50s are nothing more than western propaganda, but I must say that this one is somewhat different, because the author compares his visit in the late 50s to that he made in the late 30s, providing us with a good comparison as to how has life change in the two decades that have passed.

[sologdin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cold War era US-oriented popular assessment of the Soviet Union. Not shrill, and genuinely interesting at times. Opens with a chapter regarding Soviet geography, say, which is intended to show how the US is better situated, and ends up demonstrating that the Soviets had much more to overcome in terms of climate, hydrological management, sea access, and so on, compared to the US.

[Gospelofjon · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the overall idea of the book. I was surprised I liked it so much.

[Hayden Bradford]

Published in 1958. Things would be different in Russia today.