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082			_a947.085 SMI
100			_aSmith, Mark B. _921372
245			_aExit Stalin: the Soviet Union as a civilization, 1953-1991
260			_aLondon _bAllen Lane; Penguin Random House _c2026
300			_a550p.
520			_a'Superb... Immensely important... This is a tragic story, and Smith tells it magnificently' The Telegraph One of the most anticipated books of 2026 according to Financial Times and New Statesman An extraordinarily atmospheric and powerful history of the world's largest state and its decline and fall With Stalin's death, the Soviet Union remained a repressive, harsh and belligerent place, but one which became more predictable for its citizens and one which made a genuine attempt to create the egalitarian, progressive country that the Russian Revolution had once promised. That this attempt would fail was not clear until the 1980s. Mark B. Smith's remarkable book recreates the day-to-day life of this vast state, the largest ever to exist. What was life like in a country which made such absolute claims for the future, which claimed to be on its way to creating a people's utopia and which, like the USA, owned enough atomic weapons to end human life on Earth? Exit Stalin is filled with extraordinary stories about those who lived in the USSR and the distinctive and functioning civilization that they built. Many of them embraced its values, understood its goals and could not imagine life outside such a vastly ambitious and progressive project. The shortages, coercion and incompetence that underlay the USSR - and which by the late 1980s would doom it - has to be understood alongside the acceptance it always had from many of its citizens. And this in turn is a crucial issue for understanding Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union in the 21st century.
650			_aGeneral history of Europe _921373
650			_aHistory of Russia and the Soviet Union _921374
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999			_c361846 _d361846