Russia: Broken Idols, Solemn Dreams

by David K. Shipler

An American journalist discusses life in modern Russia and shares the viewpoints of common citizens about their government, the U.S. and the quality of life in the Soviet Union

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction, Travel, Russian History, Politics, Journalism

448 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

David K. Shipler reported for The New York Times from 1966 to 1988 in New York, Saigon, Moscow, Jerusalem, and Washington. He is the author of four other books, including the best sellers Russia and The Working Poor, and Arab and Jew, which won the Pulitzer Prize. He has been a guest scholar at the Brookings Institution, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and has taught at Princeton University, at American University in Washington, D.C., and at Dartmouth College.

Reviews

[Bob Newman]

Putin's Roots

David Shipler worked as a journalist for the New York Times for five years in Moscow from 1975 to 1979. He spoke Russian and certainly made a large number of contacts. Due to Soviet government interference and their wish that he see as little as possible, he had to do a great deal of twisting and turning, worry about being bugged, go to surreptitious meetings. Yet, he met people from many walks of life, people high in society and from the working class. He traveled around the vast nation on guided tours, but still managed to garner impressions of its various parts. As a person who has worked with hundreds of former Soviet citizens for the last 26 years, I can say that his impressions and his comments ring true. Those people (from several republics) who come to the USA are obviously those who were not satisfied, but the criticisms they make are extremely similar to his. The strongpoints they mention also resemble his. But the thing that makes me give this book five stars is the analysis of Soviet society and its likely future, made in 1982. Though he did not predict the actual demise of Communism, Shipler said that if any change occurred, it would be in the direction of rightwing nationalism. He also stressed that Russians loved authoritarian rule (in general of course) and hated disorder and too much diversity. In other words, even if Communism ended, they would be unlikely to embrace a Western democratic model. Thirty five years later, when we look at Putin, the authoritarian rule, the lack of openness, etc. we can only admire Shipler's insights. He covers a number of topics in a very readable style. Though the book is obviously dated, you can definitely get something out of it if you want to know why Russia looks the way it does today.

[UtopianNomad]

Interesting first hand account of a great reporter that lived in russia before the wall came down... a real inside look at their culture - speckled with great insight and entertaining stories and acccounts of acts of russians that would have put some in great risk to themselves for the writers sake and for truth.

[Dmitry]

(The English review is placed beneath the Russian one)

Russia Broken Idols очень похожа на понравившуюся мне книгу The Russians by Hedrick Smith, однако если The Russians было интересно читать, то вот Russia Broken Idols ничего кроме скуки мне не принесла. Я пытался прочесть книгу два раза, но в итоге бросил, не дочитав последнюю четверть. В принципе, можно было не читать уже с середины, так как мой интерес пропал именно в этом месте. Причина? Трудно сказать, ибо как я отметил выше, книга The Russians мне очень понравилась. Могу лишь предположить, что мне просто было не интересно читать все те истории жизни обычных граждан СССР, что описывает автор.

Перво-наперво стоит отметить просто невероятно длинную историю, связанную со школой, которую описывает автор. Впрочем, все остальные истории, пусть не настолько длинны, но тоже меня совершенно не заинтересовали. Если в уже упоминавшийся книге The Russians я смог найти информацию, которая актуальна даже для сегодняшней России, то в этой книге я ничего подобного найти не смог. У меня возникло такое ощущение, что автор намеренно исключил себя из книги, отдал всё пространство описанию советских людей (впрочем, тут я могу и ошибаться). Наверно книгу можно посоветовать лишь тем читателям, кто очень сильно хочет прочитать о жизни простых людей с Советском Союзе в период его застоя - 70-ых годах.

"Russia Broken Idols" is very similar to my favorite book "The Russians" by Hedrick Smith, but while "The Russians" was interesting to read, "Russia Broken Idols" was nothing but boring. I tried to read the book twice but eventually gave up before finishing the last quarter. It was possible not to read from the middle, as my interest disappeared at this very point. The reason? It is hard to say because, as I mentioned above, I liked "The Russians" very much. I can only assume that I was simply not interested in reading all those stories of the life of ordinary citizens of the USSR that the author describes.

First of all, it is worth noting the incredibly long story about the school, which the author describes. However, all the other stories, though not so long, did not interest me at all. If in the already mentioned book "The Russians," I was able to find information that is relevant even for today's Russia, in this book, I could not find anything like that. I had the feeling that the author deliberately excluded himself from the book and gave all the space to the description of Soviet people (however, I may be wrong here). Probably the book can be recommended only to those readers who very much want to read about the life of ordinary people in the Soviet Union in the period of its stagnation - 70-ies.

[Nikki]

This is an excellently written book based off of Shipler's experiences within Russia right before and in the beginning of glasnost. I enjoyed the perspective he provided in regards to what it was like to be a foreign correspondent in Russia during that time period. Although it is dated, it gives an interesting insight to the cultural reality of Russia during the 70's and 80's through individual anecdotes and overarching Russian attitudes/cultural practices.

This is definitely not a comprehensive book on Russia; if you are looking for a broad, general history of Russia this is not for you. But for someone like myself who is interested in Russian history and culture on a deeper level, this is a great book/perspective to add to your bookshelf.

[Dan Trubman]

A fascinating snapshot of a society especially with the benefit of hindsight. Shipler's position gives him the benefit of knowing, or at least encountering, those from a wide variety of stations in society. From his time with middling bureaucrats, cosmopolitan dissents hoping to emigrate, factory workers in the provinces and rural peasants, Shipler comes to understand that decades after the Great Patriotic War, it is clear that few have much faith in society's institutions, and even the premises on which it is all built upon seems worth of (private) reconsideration. Unsurprisingly however, no consensus of a path forward emerges.

Maybe because they seem the most prosaic from a contemporary perspective, I found the chapters on the revival of faith and yearning for a return to a pre-Soviet cultural and ethnic nationalism ("Russianism") quite insightful.

In this genre of books, I alway find the sections detailing how Russians (and while Shipler does spend time with non-Russian Soviets, particularly Jews, Russians are the primary focus) perceive American society entertaining, and this book is no exception.

It can be tempting as an author to impose a grand narrative, but Shipler largely, if not totally, avoids imposing an over-arching common thread upon the diverse Russian, let alone Soviet, population. At a time and place where data is largely unavailable, and certainly not to be trusted anyway, it's up to the reader to determine for themselves just how representative Shipler's anecdotes and conclusions are.

[Armand]

I read this as research for a novel that I am working on. I was lucky enough to find "Russia: Broken Idols, Solemn Dreams" at my local Boomerangs (kind of like Goodwill) for $1.00. I had never heard of the book before, but one glance at the back told me that it was for me. It's a dense read, but well-written, informative, and Shipler (who had been sent to Moscow as a NY Times correspondent in the late 70's) informs it with a generous view of human nature. I recommend it to anyone who is a student of history, Russia, or Soviet Communism.

I actually read Russia as a companion piece of sorts to G. Hosking's "The First Socialist Society". Hosking's book is a thoughtfully crafted text on all of Soviet history. Happily, it filled in a lot of background on Russian history and illuminated my experience in reading Shipler's book.

Unlike Hosking, Shipler gives us a comprehensive and microsocial perspective of everyday life in late Soviet Russia. As a Times correspondent working Moscow in the period of late and post-detente, Shipler was granted unprecedented access to Soviet people and was able to interview and interact with a wide range of folks from near-homeless drug addicts (who were officially not supposed to exist), to wide-eyed school children, to farmers, to malcontents, (including prominent dissidents like Andre Sakhorav) to intellectuals, to government officials.

By casting his net far and wide and carefully recording notes, histories and anecdotes, Shipler creates a mosaic of late Soviet society, one in which the creative and overly-idealistic are too-often punished, one if which the young are protected by a smothering blanket that one part care and one part lies, one that covets Western technology while cynically rejecting Western-style democracy as a scheme, one in which the savvy and clever know how to cynically manage the seemingly contradictory principals of Communism and self-advancement, and perhaps (most sadly) one that is innately hostile to pluralism.

Despite the institutionalized misery of the Soviet system, this was written in the 70's and not during Stalin's time, so Shipler also finds small messages of hope in his larger narrative. Including the Russian dedication to education and the safety of their children, the story of a few brave souls who are able to somehow express themselves despite the smothering bureaucracy and blacklisting, and those who manage to maintain a sense of humor about Russia's problematic state.

If I had one small problem with the book is that it actually runs a bit long for what it is. My paperback version with small font runs nearly 400 pages, and I assume that the hardcover would probably weigh in closer to 500 pages. I actually skipped over some sections as I neared the end and my interest flagged a bit.

All in all, however, I found "Russia" to be well-written, informative. It provides a smart take on every day life at the tail end of the Soviet dynasty.

[Rick]

Excellent background for my novel: Vantage

[Allen]

Written 35 years ago, based on the author's several years as a journalist in Moscow. An insight into life and people of the USSR. A good read to understand how people got to where they re today.

[Tom Oman]

This guy had a better insight into Russia than almost any writer, especially the day to day and how society broke down because of anti trust and finger pointing.

[Wendy]

Very insightful

[Thom Dunn]

ex Searching for Bobby Fischer, p. 39.