Thinking Reed, The: Intellectuals and the Soviet State 1917 to the Present

by Boris Kagarlitsky, Brian Pearce (Translator)

Overview

This panoramic account of political culture in the Soviet Union, by one of the leading voices of unofficial radical socialism, examines the way in which cultural life in the arts, philosophy and historiography has been able to withstand the persistent efforts of the “statocracy” to extinguish independent thought.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780860919612
Publisher:	Verso Books
Publication date:	07/17/1989
Edition description:	Rev. ed
Pages:	384
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

Boris Kagarlitsky is the author of The Thinking Reed, The Dialectic of Hope, and The Mirage of Modernisation. He has been arrested twice for his activism, once in 1982 under Brezhnev, and in 1993 under Yeltsin.

Editorial Reviews

Kagarlitsky’s analysis ... is the most acute and substantial so far available ... Among the utterly absorbing acts of witness now reaching us from the Soviet Union, this chronicle, with its proudly Pascalian title, occupies an eminent place.”—George Steiner, The Sunday Times

“An excellent cram course in Soviet intellectual history for the non-specialist civilian.”—The Voice Literary Supplement

“This extraordinarily impressive book, full of surprising insights, shows the intensity of unofficial life behind officaldom.”—Anthony Barnett, Observer

“The book succeeds on the strength of the author’s conclusive demonstration of the vitality and variety of left democratic thought in the Soviet Union and by his elaborate mastery of the sources. The best of its kind.”—Library Journal

“Ambitious, earnest, impassioned.”—Washington Post

From the Publisher

Kagarlitsky, a young Soviet sociologist who is secretary of an informal Marxist group tolerated under Gorbachev's rule, forcefully interprets Soviet intellectual life from the viewpoint of ``domestic socialism'' in this book dealing with the breadth and importance of glasnost . The conflict between Soviet intellectuals and the Revolution, he contends, gives way to the ``statocracy,'' the Stalinist ``pseudoculture,'' and the rise of a ``new opposition.'' Although uneven, the book succeeds on the strength of the author's conclusive demonstration of the vitality and variety of left democratic thought in the Soviet Union and by his absolute mastery of sources. The best of its kind. Zachary T. Irwin, Pennsylvania State Univ., Behrend Coll., Erie

Library Journal