Samizdat: Voices of the Soviet Opposition

by George Saunders (Editor), Marilyn Vogt (Translator)

From courageous agitation by Pussy Riot to the popular working-class uprising for national sovereignty and political rights in Ukraine, events across the former Soviet Union in the 21st century bring new life to these works clandestinely circulated hand to hand in the USSR between the 1950s and early 1970s. Authors give firsthand accounts of the Bolshevik revolution; 1918-20 civil war; and resistance to the Stalinist political counterrevolution that reversed V.I. Lenin s proletarian internationalist course. Read about the 1953 rebellion at the Vorkuta forced-labor camp; opposition to Moscow's 1968 invasion to crush the "Prague Spring"; and struggles by Ukrainians, Tatars, and other non-Russian peoples for national rights. Index, Annotation, Photos. Now with enlarged type.

Genres: History

591 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1974

Reviews

[Paul · Rating 5 out of 5]

Extremely important book. Documents: a) the existence of a mass socialist opposition to the rise of the Stalinist bureaucracy; b) the resistance carried out by these oppositionists within the camps – particularly Vorkuta; and c) the extermination of the bulk of the oppositionists by the Stalinist state. Of particular interest is the English translation of "Memoirs of a Bolshevik-Leninist", who makes a provocative case for the central role of the Mezhrayonka (Inter-District Committee) in the 1917 revolution.

[Thibaud Sanchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the second pathfinder press book I read. The book has great first hand accounts of dissidents like Aleksei Kosterin and the Memoirs of a Bolshevik-Leninist. It shows that the dissidents were pro-soviet and pro- communist but were repressed.

A similar thing is happening which hits me close to home on how we treat Black Lives Matter, Palestine protesters, climate activists, anti-war activists and anyone different from Democrats or Republicans. We need to remember what Rosa Luxemburg said “Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for one who thinks differently, effectiveness vanishes when it becomes a special privilege”.

I recommend to check out Project Censored.

[Em · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked up this book in order to gain an understanding of the varying perspectives of those living under soviet rule. As someone inclined towards a far left political stance I was looking for a text that presented the opinions of the opposition. To my surprise, this book contains account of those who were pro soviet and pro communist but who were nonetheless silenced by the oppressive regime of the USSR in the Stalin years and beyond. This text opened my eyes to the issues that were plaguing the Russian people in this period. Overall, this collection of samizdat (banned) material offers a fascinating overview of soviet “dissidents” who, for the most part, were neither anti-communist nor anti-regime.

[Marc Lichtman · Rating 3 out of 5]

This may be rather dated now, but there are important documents here. Some scholars have questioned the legitimacy of "Memoires of a Bolshevik-Leninist." I'm sure it doesn't read exactly the same way as when it was written; that's the nature of Samizdat. But in its broad outlines, I'm sure most of the document, and the other documents dealing with the Bolshevik-Leninists are exactly what they say they are. Why wouldn't they be? We have other evidence pointing out their role; Leopold Trepper, in The Great Game: Memoirs of the Spy Hitler Couldn't Silence; Solzhenitsyn creates a fictional Bolshevik-Leninist in Cancer Ward, perhaps based on someone he met.

There were some dissidents who should have been included, like Mustafa Dzhemilev, a leader of the Crimean Tatars, who when the 'Militant' sent a reporting team to Ukraine in 2018, remembered who we were, and requested a meeting. The Socialist Workers Party and others had organized an important meeting in New York in 1976 to defend him, and the text of those speeches was made into a pamphlet, 'In Defense of Mustafa Dzhemilev.'


We had put out a limited edition of Internationalism or Russification by Ivan Dziuba; it's too bad we didn't have it in print when Russia again attacked Ukraine "right to exist." Someone brought out a new printing.

Some of the "left wing" of the dissidents gave up their views rapidly when they wound up in the US or Western Europe. They would have to understand a lot more about imperialism than they did for us to expect otherwise.