Red Plenty

I started reading this book, not really knowing what to expect. it's basically fictionalized accounts / snapshots of different lives in the communist USSR, set typically around 1960s. the stories seem initially a bit disconnected. the writing and phrasing was very elegant so i kept going. Wow, as i got into it, the overall narrative blew my mind. The stories are actually connected in a powerful way. they take you from a grad student looking at a new life with a new wife, up to (middle of the book) riots caused by food prices and a subsequent massacre by the army. Each story involves a different person, but they reference either the job function described in previous stories, or the actual characters themselves. So, i'm half way through the book, and i realize that the overall narrative is one that examines how a planned economy approach of a communist country works, implicitly comparing and contrasting to a market approach. The logical thinking is impeccable - after the first few chapters I was thinking that a planned approach has to work by default, there are too many advantages related to system optimizations. Towards the middle, it's all falling apart and you realize that the micro optimizations and redundancy created by a market economy are major strengths that have to be handled with such an administrative overhead in a planned economy that it is ridiculous. It's a very powerful way to explain how the system worked, how the good intentions eventually filter down into some crazy actions, some bizarre checks and balances. Hats off to the author, the writing is superb. I have no idea if this is what the USSR was actually like, but this has given me much more of a human connection to the types of things i think people dealt with on a daily basis. I now intuitively "feel" the weight of the planned system, and have new respect for both the planned approach (good intentions, far too many limitations both human and academic) and the market approach (duplication, survival of the fittest). I'm currently working for one of the largest organizations in the world, and many of the details of the Gosplan planning process have analogs in my company. I'd rate this as one of the best books I have ever read. It has expanded my mind in many ways, and I find myself just zoning out thinking about the implications.

This is an unusual and very enjoyable book about the utopian fantasies that underpinned Soviet economic thinking in the 50s and 60s. Spufford writes with verve and an authentic sense of place, and has digested a small mountain of research material to give a vivid picture of aspects of life in the Soviet Union of the period. Let's be clear, however, about what the book is *not.* First of all, it's not really non-fiction at all. It's fiction, through and through. As the 70 pages of notes and bibliography attest, it's *extensively researched* fiction, based on real situations and often real people...but all the best historical fiction generally is extensively researched, based on real situations and real people. If Patrick O'Brian had ever seen fit to provide the sources consulted for his Aubrey/Maturin series, I have little doubt but that it would run to hundreds of pages. The mere fact that there are six short explanatory essays in the book does not, in fact, make the book some kind of non-fiction / fiction hybrid. Secondly, those looking for a comprehensive explanation of Soviet economic planning are barking up the wrong tree. Some of the interrelated stories in the book concern the thinking that spurred the failed Kosygin Reform of 1965, and others demonstrate the contradictions, corruption and compromises inherent in centrally planned economies. However, other chapters are only tangentially related to this theme. Some focus on the emergence of the USSR's elite science cities in the 60s, Soviet computer science, Komsomol propagandists, and Soviet maternity hospitals, among other things. This scattershot approach will vex some readers, particularly those under the misimpression that the book is a "history" rather than historical fiction. Fiction readers are likely to be more tolerant...particularly readers who realize that Spufford's episodic style is mimicking the style the Russian greats Vasily Grossman and Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Spufford is using the economic theories of Leonid Kantorovich as a launching pad for a broader exploration of what the experience of living in the Soviet Union during the short-lived optimism of the Khruschev Thaw might have been like, when for a brief time the idea a Communist utopia seemed plausible to many. This is an ambitious agenda, and the extent to which Spufford succeeds is remarkable. There are a couple things, though, that keep Red Plenty from being truly outstanding. First, Spufford isn't a Russian speaker, so his characters strike the occasional false note. Second, the transition from irrational optimism to hopeless disillusionment is abrupt. For instance, we see the (fictional) economist Emil Shailludin at the very beginning of his career when he is filled with idealism and (somewhat improbably) shocked by conditions outside of Moscow, and then many years later when he is he thrown into despair by the illogical half-measures that constituted Soviet economic reform. The progression is from A immediately to Z, with no sense of what might have happened in the intervening years. It's not often that I lament that a book is too short, but I really do feel Spufford's thematic concerns demanded an even broader canvas than the one he's provided. These are quibbles, however, and don't detract much from one what was one of the more original and enjoyable books I've read this year.

It's difficult to review this book. It's written like a novel but is very much based in real historical events and people. It's a great read but what I really liked about it was the way it gave me a view of what it was like for ordinary Russians during the cold war period; how they lived, their hardships, their philosophy and what they believed. It can be difficult for us in the West to understand how they could accept such terrible hardship as the norm without rebelling against it. The book brilliantly shows how the ideal of communism managed to remain a pure and sought after thing while the awful reality bore no resemblance. The belief in the general populace that this was just a phase on the way to utopia is wonderfully brought to life. Their belief was that it had to be true that when everybody worked together for the same goal with total efficiency it was a better system than the west where everybody competed and tried to trip each other up. This book is certainly no fan of communism but it does brilliantly in showing how you can get sucked in to the kool-aid. It really made me look at things differently and I feel I have a far greater understanding of what was a bizarre social experiment. It gives you how the whole thing set off on the wrong track from the beginning with a naive faith and it does all this while reading like a great novel. I wish I could articulate my review better as this book deserves it but it is a great read, hugely informative and very though provoking.

Embora hoje em dia pareça óbvio que uma economia planificada não poderia dar certo, no final dos anos 40 e começo dos anos 50, muitos economistas acreditavam que o sistema econômico soviético poderia de fato superar o capitalismo em termos de bem estar material. Red Plenty é a história de como isso deveria acontecer, a dificuldades encontradas e as soluções possíveis para essa dificuldade. Se você gosta de matemática, esse é um livro perfeito para você. Nele as grandes criações matemáticas da programção linear são contadas e como supostamente isso ajudaria a URSS. Se Você gosta de economia, nesse livro você vai entender o entusiasmo com a economia planificada e os problemas que eles enfrentaram. Se você gosta de política ,também terá uma excelente história das dificuldades políticas do sistema soviético e como mesmo as melhores intenções podem resultar em desastres. E, por fim, se você não gosta muito de nada disso, mas apenas de uma boa história, este livro tem muitas boas histórias. Aliás, a descrição de como ocorre o câncer em um dos personagens é uma das passagens mais bens escritas e perfeitas que já li. Em suma, há muitos motivos para você gostar desse livro. Foi o melhor livro que li em 2011, sem sombra de dúvida. Recomendo a todos.

Anhand von historischen Erläuterungen und großteils fiktiven beispielhaften Geschichten wird die Entwicklung der Sowjetunion in der Nachkriegszeit bis Ende der sechziger Jahre dargestellt. Dabei werden die ökonomischen Hintergründe ebenso deutlich wie die ideologischen Annahmen und die Gründe für das letzliche Scheitern. Tragische und absurde Folgen der zentralen Planung werden anhand der kurzen Geschichten sichtbar, die ganz unterschiedliche Personen vorstellen und teilweise deren Entwicklung verfolgen. Ein lehrreiches Buch gerade für den Nichtwissenschaftler mit Interesse an Ökonomie.

Having grown up during the Cold War (I was a teenager when Gorbachev was shaking things up in the USSR), I've always had a bit of a fascination with life behind the "Iron Curtain". The communist countries seemed so different than my own comfortable existence here in North America -- the USSR and its allies had deliberately chosen a radically different system than Capitalism. But how did that system work? Did it actually work at all? What was daily life like for people in those countries? Although the USSR disappeared a long time ago, I continue to have a lot of curiosity about life under systems other than Capitalism. It's not that I harbour any nostalgia or empathy for Communism -- absolutely not. But I enjoy reading about these "alternative systems" because they illuminate the human psyche. There are significant lessons to be learned by reading about these countries, how they operated (for better or worse), and why ultimately they radically shifted course in the late 1980's and early 1990's. Mr. Spufford has written a very engaging book. It's not quite fiction, nor does it pretend to be a truly historical account of life in the USSR. It's a compendium of short stories, each story told from a different character's perspective. The majority of the characters are based on real people, and Mr. Spufford goes to great lengths (in the introduction and the addendum) to explain how he "padded" the real lives of these people in order to create a narrative. The book straddles numerous actual historical events, diverse subjects, and ties everything together into an "almost" true-to-life drama that evolves over many years, from the death of Stalin in the 1950's, to the ascendance of Brezhnev in the 1970's. Within those decades, Mr. Spufford creatively isolates characters within their worlds in order to explain what the USSR was like: we visit collectivized farms, a central planning office, a Soviet hospital, etc. ... as you read about how each character struggles with their lot in life, you really begin to empathize with them, and the difficulties and opportunities that Communism presented them. Hard-line believers in Communism (of whatever flavour) will probably not like this book. They would probably find Mr. Spufford's perspective to be reductionist, biased, and/or flawed. The picture that Mr. Spufford paints is not a pretty one. 21st-century Communists would probably label him as "revisionist" and, if they could, set him up for a spectacular show-trial and death-by-firing squad. Fortunately, we've moved beyond that paradigm. If you're an armchair history fanatic with a love of Cold War intrigue, or if you have interest in Socialism and life in the USSR, you'll really enjoy this book. Highly recommended!

FS is an excellent writer and did an enormous amount of hard research for this book about how Soviet Russia operated in the 1930s thru 60s. In principle it is fascinating but it is oddly structured and somehow half-baked. There are many chapters, each focusing on a different character doing something that illustrates a socio-economic aspect of the country. (eg., a woman has a baby, to show us the medical & childbirth systems; someone is assigned as a scientist to an experimental "science village" in Siberia; etc.) But then that character disappears and a new chapter about something entirely different follows. I call them chapters because they are not short stories; there is no real plot development, just a slice-of-life, then it's over. Now & then a character we have previously met will show up in a later chapter, but not always, and all the chapters sort of hang there without any real conclusion, apparently meant solely to be illustrative. This drove me absolutely mad. The characters are wonderfully interesting (even Krushchev is in it!) & well-written and one wanted Real Stories about them, but no, they were all just left hanging. I could not get into it at all and was mightily frustrated. Others may feel differently, because it is all hugely educational and god knows I learned plenty. But I am still thinking about some of those people and wondering what happened to them. The footnotes are excellent.

`The original is unfaithful to the translation.' [Jorge Luis Borges] Having finished Francis Spufford's new book in one hit, I feel like what I imagine a fat person feels like, after polishing off a whole tub of ice-cream. I want more. But there is no more, which I think is the point. I'm sure many literary types will disagree with me, when I say that what I read, what I feel, is that same feeling that I got, when I read `The Kingdom of This World' by Alejo Carpentier. Magical realism, historical-fiction, call it what you like, only make sure you describe what is on offer, in Red Plenty, as original. Being just a layman, I mostly have to borrow words, and the best way I can describe what I read, is to use somebody else's, about another book : "The Kingdom of This World is full of startling imagery and baroque detail which attest to Carpentier's vision of the marvelous in the real. At the end of the novel, Ti Noel, an African slave who has suffered under both the French rulers and the black King Henri Christophe, finds temporary sanctuary in the roofless ruin of a French plantation mansion he himself had helped destroy. The ageing Ti Noel is depicted amidst the tumble-down walls of the mansion, strangely attired in a (looted) European-style green-silk dress-coat with lace ruffles, and a crushed straw hat. Ti Noel uses a pile of encyclopaedia as a seat whilst chewing on sugar cane and chattering away, mainly to himself. Accompanying these images, which carry both irony and pathos, Carpentier offers a sober meditation on the abuse of political power and the tyranny of all ethnic elites in Santo Domingo. When the mulattoes now in control of the island begin intimidating the black population yet again into forced labour, Ti Noel feels he has lost heart `in this endless return to chains, this rebirth of shackles, this proliferation of suffering' (p.108)." [Serendipity - The Kingdom of This World by Katy Wimhurst] Gordon Brown promised an end to `boom and bust', as if he could possibly suppress human nature, nature itself, in fact. The chapter describing the fall of Kruschev, well, I'll let you decide for yourself. Both men had good intentions. If you decide to read Red Plenty as either fiction, or non-fiction, you will almost certainly not agree with my view, if however, you try to imagine reading a book written 50 years before the events it covers, rather than the reverse, who knows . . . plenty more space for reviews. I'll leave this review, with a word of advice to the current Chinese Politburo : `Has there ever been a society which has died of dissent ? Several have died of conformity in our lifetime.' [Jacob Bronowski]