Mikhail Heller (1922–1997)

2055 Utopia in Power: The History of the Soviet Union from 1917 to the Present, by Mikhail Heller and Aleksander Nekrich translated from the Russian by Phyllis B. Carlos (read 21 Feb 1987) This is the history of Soviet Russia up to Gorbachov's assumption of power, written by two Russians who were Russian scholars until they left Russia in 1969 and 1976. The book is very condemnatory of the regime in Russia, and of course rightly so. Even though the outlandish murderousness of Stalin ended with his death, the regime since then has been rigidly repressive--and apparently could not survive if it is not. Thus one's hope that Gorbachev might democratize the USSR in any meaningful way seems foreordained to disappointment.The authors say: "No one leader could bring about structural changes without exposing the Soviet system itself to mortal danger and jeopardizing the provisional balance between social groups that has existed historically and is artificially maintained in order to keep all the levers of control without exception in the hands of the top leaders." [This comment on the book was written right after I read the book, which I called then "depressing but highly informative."]… (meer)