Red Plenty

By: Francis Spufford

Narrated by: Roger Clark

Strange as it may seem, the gray, oppressive USSR was founded on a fairy tale. It was built on the 20th-century magic called "the planned economy," which was going to gush forth an abundance of good things that the lands of capitalism could never match. And just for a little while, in the heady years of the late 1950s, the magic seemed to be working.

Red Plenty is about that moment in history, and how it came, and how it went away; about the brief era when, under the rash leadership of Khrushchev, the Soviet Union looked forward to a future of rich communists and envious capitalists, when Moscow would out-glitter Manhattan and every Lada would be better engineered than a Porsche. It's about the scientists who did their genuinely brilliant best to make the dream come true, to give the tyranny its happy ending.

Red Plenty is history, it's fiction, it's as ambitious as Sputnik, as uncompromising as an Aeroflot flight attendant, and as different from what you were expecting as a glass of Soviet champagne.

©2010 Francis Spufford (P)2017 Tantor

communism

turns out, difficult to feel happy while reading. like carrying around a stone, but worth the insights.

A Grey Fairy Tale

An intimate and personal collection of stories related to the USSR’s planned economy and the dream of utopia which kept it staggering along.

A wonderful, melancholic, and sometimes rather confusing journey through the USSR of the mid 20th century

What I wrote above largely says it all. I found myself very much invested in the story and characters of this book. it left me wanting to delve deeper into historical fiction involving the USSR. My only complaint with the book is that, possibly due to the Russian names, it was sometimes difficult to know when a character popped up later. This is probably less of an issue in the written version because the names are more distinct on paper.

The first book I have read that provided insight

on how the system actually functioned or was made to function by the actors in the USSR. Not a novel nor history or perhaps a bit of both Spufford takes us on a too and fro journey in time within the USSR. From General Secretary Khrushchev to a biologists in a "research city" to an aged functionary with lung cancer we learn how the system actually worked and ruined lives spiritually and economically while it strove for the magical horn of plenty promised by Communism. My favorite storyline was that of the fixer (or whatever you call the anti-salesperson who instead of selling worked sellers to actually sell and provide products to other producers. We learn the perverse incentives that made the system go off the rails, and then watch it happen in almost slow motion! Having read many many books on the USSR, Stalin, Communism and the leadership (including Khruschev's auto-biography) this fantastic book provided the first real insight on how it worked or did not work.

A riveting novel for history buffs

This is a really entertaining and intriguing novel for those who are interested in Cold War history.