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Shadow Over the Kremlin
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14211 |
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Section : |
BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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7 / 1988 |
3,448 Words |
| Author
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George Szamuely
George Szamuely writes for Commentary and The Wall Street
Journal. He is a former editor of the Times Literary
Supplement. |
CHILDREN OF THE ARBAT
Anatoli Rybakov
Boston: Little, Brown & Co.
752 pp., $19.95
There is a (probably) apocryphal story that is often told about Stalin's death. Though everyone has assumed that, unlike Lenin, he left behind no last will and testament, the guardians of the Kremlin archives know better. Considering all the trouble that Lenin's document caused, there is really little reason to be surprised that Stalin's will has remained such a closely guarded secret. Discovered on Stalin's bedside table were two sealed envelopes, each of which carried the deceased tyrant's handwritten instructions. On one he had scribbled "To be opened if things get bad"; on the other "To be opened if things get really bad."
As the months passed, the political situation began to deteriorate: There were riots in East Berlin, uprisings in the Soviet concentration camps; writers and artists started to demand more freedom; there were shortages of almost everything in the stores; Eastern Europe grew increasingly restive. The new leaders were at a loss as to what to do and decided to open the envelope marked "To be opened if things get bad." Inside they found a plain piece of paper on which Stalin had written "Blame everything on me--Joseph Vissarianovich Stalin." And, sure enough, they followed his advice; they lumbered him with sole responsibility for every single shortcoming of the Soviet system--past, present, or future.
For a while, Stalin's advice seemed to work. True, the uprisings in Hungary and Poland
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