With Stalin's death, the Soviet Union remained a repressive, harsh and belligerent place. Yet it also became one that was more predictable for its citizens, and made a genuine attempt to create the egalitarian, progressive country the Russian Revolution had once promised. That this attempt would fail was not clear until the 1980s.Mark B. Smith's original and evocative book recreates the day-to-day life of this vast state, the largest ever to exist. What was life like in a cou...
