Russia - The People And The Power

Robert Kaiser's Russia: The Power and the People, is an excellent portrait of a point in time in Russia. The material is dated to the 1970s for the most part, and gives a great view of the Russian people. Kaiser shows how the Russians live, how they work, and how they view themselves. Kaiser shows the Russians to be a people doing their best to live well in what westerners would consider unlivable conditions. Overcrowded living (often several families to an apartment), the overuse of abortion because of a lack of available contraception, a 100% censored media, and irrational governmental system all contribute to how the Russians live. Kaiser demonstrates that in Russia ordinarily good people regularly lie, participate in the black market, steal from their employers, sign false statements against people, and create false reports about all sorts of things. The brilliance of Kaiser is that he does this without being judgemental of the Russian people. He shows that they live in a place and time that requires these things as part of their survival. Kaiser also shows that the Russians are a people of many contradictions. They are extremely political, but as a result of a 100% controlled media, incredibly ill-informed about the rest of the world. Perhaps the saddest thing for a western reader to learn about the Russians is their extreme paranoia. As Kaiser shows in several examples, the government relies heavily on a network of informants and spies, to keep the populace under control. The result is that the Russian people are unable to trust anyone with even their small talk, lest an off handed comment reach an official with the power to make their life difficult.This book is not a Russian history, nor does it encompass the fall of communism. It isn't really even a study of communism in Russia. This book is a picture of Russian life and how it really worked for the people in that time. It's an excellent piece of journalism that I recommend to anyone who wants to learn how Russia actually operated under communism or is curious as to why communism is not a good idea.

I was assigned to read this book in a Russian History class in college and fell in love with Russia and her people. It is a little out of date now if you are looking for what life is like under the New Russia. But if you want to read what life was in Russia in the 70's and 80's this book is an excellent resource.Kaiser is a journalist and gives a journalistic pov of the Russian people and their way of life. He gets past the surface of Cold War rheteric when Russia was closed to most of us in the West ansd simply just an "Evil Empire" of the old guard, and lets us see her people with their hopes, their dreams and their lives.