Andrei Sinyavsky "Soviet Civilization: A Cultural History."

Like a cultural archeologist subversively digging beneath his country's rotting foundation, Paris-based Russian emigre writer Sinyavsky tears away the facade of the Communist criminal experiment. In his eyes, the "Soviet way of life" is one of "permanent uncertainty," marked by widespread worker theft from factories and farms, by the scarcity of consumer goods, despised communal apartments, appalling negligence, corruption.

A survivor of labor camps who also writes under the name of Abram Tertz ("A Voice from the Chorus"), Sinyavsky offers a devastating, mordantly witty appraisal of the new Soviet "yes-man" and of the masses' "slave psychology" forged by criminal Stalin. Fearful of a resurgent militant ultranationalism, he sees the typical Russian as chauvinistic, ignorant of other countries and cultures, with a smug sense of superiority. Apt literary analyses enliven Sinyavsky's arguments.

Hardcover, 1990.

New book. Very minor shelf wear from rubbing. Small remainder mark on bottom of pages. See pictures.