The Russian Century: A Hundred Years of Russian Lives

Khrushchev’s salutary gestures in these areas must be contrasted with his frequently bellicose foreign policy. The great de-Stalinizer was also the figure who fomented the Berlin Crisis of 1958 and the inordinately dangerous Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. Simultaneously, Khrushchev sought summit meetings with western leaders and spoke of “peaceful co-existence” in quieter moments. The latter phrasing was inherited by his successor Leonid Brezhnev who replaced him in 1964. Both leaders maintained resolutely that communism would ultimately win out even if “peaceful co-existence” prevailed.

Brezhnev’s rule is generally viewed as one of stagnation, especially from the 1970’s on. The system seemed often to be set in stone and major shifts in agriculture and industry could not be effected. The disproportionate percentage of the national budget allotted to the military did not help. The USSR’s military posture and space program were still powerful and prestigious and were useful elements in the political wars aimed at gaining adherents in the Third World. Yet, fissures began to surface. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 turned into stalemate, then loss, something no one predicted.

China took a strong anti-Soviet position on the Afghanistan war. This only exemplified a truism apparent from the mid-1950’s – the two dominant communist powers never consolidated their political might and agendas. The fact that Brezhnev’s era saw nuclear test ban treaties signed, as well as those limiting strategic arms (e.g. SALT I in 1972), though viewed positively in the West, were seen as appeasement in Mao’s China. The political heritage of Brezhnev was broken by Gorbachev.

Mikhail Gorbachev is generally seen as one of the ten most influential leaders of the 20th century. Though committed to communism, he nevertheless realized that overhaul was mandated at all levels of the Soviet enterprise. He was prepared to go to lengths whose outcomes he could not begin to guess. The effort, most noticed internationally via the twin political dictums of glasnost and perestroika, unleashed a plethora of decrees, policies, and emotions, ultimately helping to dismantle the Soviet Union. By the end of 1991, it was no more. History will always remember the irony that a true believer, though not an ideologue, oversaw the demise.

Nickolas Lupinin

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Mariia Shapiro, A Soviet Capitalist

Mariia Shapiro found herself in a woman’s concentration camp in Eastern Siberia in 1946 after being arrested and sentenced for anti-Soviet writings. She was arrested in northern China, in Harbin, once a thriving Russian city established during the Russian expansion eastward. Its growth was greatly stimulated by the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway. After the Civil War many Russians found a haven in that city since it was not in Soviet territory. M. Shapiro completed law school there and turned to journalism as a profession. Her articles dealt with aspects of émigré life, but she also concentrated on Soviet legal proceedings. This did not stand her in good stead when Harbin fell to the Soviets after the defeat of the Japanese in World War II. She managed to keep a secret log of her years in prison which she later expanded into memoirs. Excerpted from Mariia Shapiro, “Zhenskii kontslager’” [A Woman’s Concentration Camp]. New York: The New Review, No. 158, March, 1985.

DECEMBER 9th, 1957

Once two new women appeared in our cell. They arrived loudly enough, in some sort of nervous excitement. In about two days they calmed down. The older of the women, Zoia Zhigaleva, immediately attracted my attention. I often recalled her later, already living in a camp, and tried to define the nature of this 38-year-old uneducated but clever woman with dark eyes and a quite correct, pleasant face which so distinguished her from the crowd that even our anarchist, criminal element immediately felt her power.

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I soon understood that Zoia was a born leader and organizer. This is as much a talent as any other. It was as if Zoia was surrounded by a taboo. She would spread out the contents of her or her friend’s food parcel on a clean napkin on the table and a few times invited me. It was strange to sit and eat the tasty things so demonstratively in the public eye and in the presence of criminals who flung evil glances at us and gnashed their teeth like hungry wolves.