Reviews for The Many Lives of Khrushchev's Thaw: Experience and Memory in Moscow's Arbat

The average rating for The Many Lives of Khrushchev's Thaw: Experience and Memory in Moscow's Arbat based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-06-10 00:00:00 Tom Jensen This did feel a little repetitive as the stories were recounted almost as if we were reading their files with little input from the author. I would have liked a little bit more analysis of these stories and a bit more depth to the book. We're told that their confessions might not have been the truth but then we don't get any more information on what the truth was or any information on the type of methods used to get confessions. While I understand that this might not have been possible for the author to find, it did make the book feel one dimensional. I really wanted more context for these stories. I must admit to giving up reading before the end because each story seemed to be the same, which does make me feel bad as obviously these people deserve to their stories known. Perhaps this book is better suited for those people with a greater knowledge of this subject than me.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-07-27 00:00:00 Joanne Ellis A simple truth is stated early in this book. The communist party in Russia is a counter intelligence operation first, a political party second, and runs the country with whatever time it has left. German attempts to learn what was going on inside Russia were doomed from the start. The communists are so dedicated to searching for dissidents within their country attempts to inject spies are quickly spotted.