Lenin's Tomb

The Last Days of the Soviet Empire

By: David Remnick

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

In the tradition of John Reed's classic Ten Days That Shook the World, this best-selling account of the collapse of the Soviet Union combines the global vision of the best historical scholarship with the immediacy of eyewitness journalism.

©2015 David Remnick (P)2015 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"A moving illumination.... Remnick is the witness for us all." ( The Wall Street Journal)

"An engrossing and essential addition to the human and political literature of our time." ( The New York Times)

"The most eloquent chronicle of the Soviet empire's demise published to date.... It is hard to conceive of a work that might surpass it." (Francine du Plessix Gray, Washington Post Book World)

A mixed bag

In the last 50 years there have been few events as important in geo politics as the fall of the Soviet Union and so that event desperately needed a close and thorough examination to see what actually happened, how it happened and what it portended for the future. Mr Remnick, a reporter in the Soviet Union during that time period, has attempted to give us that book, and has both succeeded and failed.

First, the writing itself is superb, almost lyrical at times, and covers a great deal of ground. Often a chapter will start with some individual not known to the general public and we can see through his actions the forces at work behind the scenes of larger events. The first example in the book is that of Colonel Tretetsky who was in charge of the examination of the murdered Polish soldiers near Kalinin. The examination and cataloging of what Stalin had ordered done was at the order of the Soviet government but the KGB tried to derail the examination and ordered it stopped. Through the actions of the colonel we see how average Soviet citizens reacted to events and how that gave a portrait of what was happening in the wider society.

I found every chapter full of information and extremely informative, but often it was hard to see how some of the small details added anything important to the book. Mr Remnick spends a great deal of time talking about his efforts to interview Lazar Kaganovich, the last Stalin intimate still alive at the time. While the ins and outs of his attempts to speak with him are interesting in themselves they do not add anything to the tale of the fall of the Soviet Union. Similarly Mr Remnick seems to not only have had no idea of how harmful some of his actions were during this time, but to not care. He tells the tale of how some Soviet officials, seeing where events were heading, became businessmen themselves. In one report he detailed how these officials were meeting with American businessmen and the two specific names he gave were both Jewish. The official tried to explain how such reporting added to the general anti-semitism in the Soviet Union and Mr Remnick, himself Jewish, but a protected foreigner, seems unable to understand or even care about what he has done. Such things only serve to detract from the book itself and from the author's reputation.

Aside from these detractions the book itself is very good and gives insight into what was happening at the time that was not reported in the US, and found it changed my views of both Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, the former for the worse and the latter for the better. Still the book's foresight is limited and there is little indication of where the new Russian state might be headed. The book ends in the early 1990s and it seems indicative of that lack of foresight that the name Vladimir Putin never is mentioned anywhere in the book.

Mr Prichard's narration is superb and perfectly matched for the subject. I highly recommend this book, but with the understanding of its limitations.

Both Educational & Enjoyable

I enjoyed every minute and gained some understanding of Russian and Soviet history, not just the Gorbachev years. Wonderful reporting and clear narration. My only disappointment is the book coming to an end and finding no audio of the sequel, Resurrection!

Great book, annoying reading

The reader has a staccato style. It sounds like you are listening to a 1950’s news broadcast, Richard Murrow comes to mind. Not pleasant.

Great read.

The access to the rich cast of characters is unlikely to occur again in our lifetimes. For the full understanding of the Russian enigma a window is opened by this stellar account. Thank you.

A most compelling narrative of the fall of the Soviet Empire

I have seldom found a piece of history so riveting and difficult to ‘put down.’ David Remnick, a superb journalist,
is to be commended for the interviewing of so many who endured the tragic decades of heartbreaking personal deprivation and losses, and reminding the reader of so many key details regarding the reign of terror begun under Lenin and worsening under Stalin. Although so many of the events of the 1960’s and forward occurred during my young adulthood, I am ashamed to admit I had no clue as to the continual ‘man’s inhumanity to man’ which was occurring throughout the Soviet Union at a time when evidently the West had little care or concern for life in the Soviet Union. Many of us living today were children during the Cold War, the era of the Iron Curtain, and the greatly feared nuclear threats from our enemy, the Soviet Union, but to realize the extreme cruel conditions and deprivation under which the common people were forced to exist was definitely off my radar, and this book has been a massive revelation.
The author’s account of events leading up to the coup that eventually brought down Gorbachev was just riveting, and even knowing the outcome in advance did little to quell the suspense surrounding this great historical event.
I had begun by reading the printed word, but thankfully had the good sense to switch to Audible. How beautifully the book has been rendered by Michael Prichard whose fluent pronunciation of Russian names and places have made me realize how melodic the language; I regret not studying it for
a second language.
To receive merit, a book of any genre should leave its reader richer and better for having read it. Because of this outstanding book, I have a newfound interest and concern for the peoples of all those former Soviet countries who have borne suffering, enslavement, and cultural loss and as of yet still have little to nothing to have replaced the dismal status quo of a failed experiment in socialism.
A recurring thought as I was listening to the book was that all the dissident students on our college campuses should be required to read or listen to “Lenin’s Tomb;” perhaps they might have a greater appreciation of what it means to live in a free country with personal liberties versus the collectivist world of Communism, a failed ideology from which Russia is still in the throes of recovering.

Fascinating

Comprehensive account of events leading up to the dissolution of the USSR. Mountains of detail about the main players in the Kremlin as well as portraits of relative unknowns from all over the eleven time zones of the Soviet Union construct a grand narrative seemingly as large as the USSR.

Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

If I hadn't become a musician, I am sure I would have become a historian. I love history and reading a well written history book is just heaven for me. This is a very well written book by a man who knew what he was talking about. Mr. Remnick was a (Jewish!) reporter who lived in the USSR through the Gorbachev years right up through the time of Boris Yeltsin when the USSR became Russia again. He spoke with Gorbachev on several occasions, as well as many other high level people in the Soviet government. He took his young bride with him when he received the assignment, and his son was born in Russia, so he was very connected to the country and its people.

His insights, his scope of understanding and his ability to put things into perspective without getting preachy or moralizing helped me to see this part of history more clearly and allowed me to draw my own conclusions. Here is one of my conclusions: God Bless America! When I read of the extreme hardships the Russian people had to endure because of their selfish leadership I truly cried. My heart was breaking as I read of the fishermen who had boatloads of top grade salmon ready to take to market, but had to wait for approval of the government before they could bring them ashore. By that time, the fish that could have fed thousands of starving Russians had rotted. I live in a modest sized home in a fairly nice neighborhood, but I sometimes lament that there is not enough room in my house for everything I want. I was humbled when I realized that many Soviet citizens were living in an apartment the size of my walk-in closet. People who were divorced had to continue living together for years because they could not get a second apartment. Medical care was next to non-existent. And on and on. Our first world problems are sniveling and unimportant when compared with those of this sad country.

And their problems are far from resolved. Although things have improved, the crime has sky rocketed. As one person put it, "Freedom has created more Al Capones and fewer Henry Fords." I hope they can find their way out of this darkness, but i don't think it will be any time soon. It is a country with vast potential, but things must improve before they can come close to reaching it.

Michael Prichard was an excellent narrator for this book. He seemed to understand the Russian pronunciations because they rolled off his tongue with ease. I say this, but not understanding Russian myself I could be mistaken. But compared to what Russian I have heard, it seemed to be spot on.

Very detailed and incisive, but godless perspctive

The author clearly lived through it and got deep into the political events of the fall of Soviet Empire. But as I mentioned he does not see the hand of God in all that...

Amazing

The depth and insight of this book are outstanding. Being a history buff I love when I become engrossed in content that I knew a bit about, but then learn much more. Excellent resource.

Society is sick of history. It is too much with us

"Society is sick of history. It is too mucy with us."
- Arseny Roginsky, quoted in David Remnick, Lenin's Tomb

While Remnick was writing for the Washington Post in Moscow, my family was living in Izmir, Turkey and then in Bitburg, Germany. We got the opportunity to travel to Moscow shortly after the August, 1991 (the beginning of my Senior year) Coup. It was a strange period. So much changed so fast. I was trading my Levi jeans in St. Petersburg and Moscow for Communist flags, Army medals, busts of Lenin. It was only as I got older that I realized both how crazy the USSR/Russia was during that time and how blessed the Washington Post was to have David Remnick writing "home" about it.

I've read other books by Remnick (The Bridge: The Life and Rise of Barack Obama and King of the World: Muhammad Ali and the Rise of an American Hero, and parts of Reporting: Writings from The New Yorker). The New Yorker is where I discovered and fell in love with his prose. So, with Remnick, I was reading backwards. It was time I read what is perhaps his greatest work. Lenin's Tomb is a comprehensive look at the last years of the Soviet Union from the election of Gorbachev (with occasional backward glances at Khrushchev, etc. It was nice to get more information about Andrei Sakharov (I knew only broad aspects of his story, and still need to read more) and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (I know more about him, but need to read more of his work).

Some of this isn't dated. No. That is the wrong word. It is history, and by definition all history is dated, but the book ends with a lot of potential energy. It is sad to see that a lot of the potential for Russia's democracy has been lost into the authoritarianism of Putin. It is also scary to read quotes from Vladimir Zhirinovsky, and unabaashed neofacists who won 8 million votes in 1991, and hear words that could easily have been spoken by Donald Trump. Nations and regimes are never as solid as we think. Often the corruption that exists for years, like a cavity, eats away at the insitutions until they become empty husks and everything colapses. Perhaps, that is one lesson WE in the United States (and Europe) should learn from the Soviet Union's collapse in the early 90s. Perhaps, it is too late.