Grossman describes the development of a spirit of camaraderie and egalitarianism among the defenders of Stalingrad; he then shows this spirit being stamped out by Party functionaries who see it as more dangerous even than the Germans. He writes equally movingly about the general sadness in Stalingrad after the Russian victory, when the ruined city has ceased to be the focus of the world’s attention, a ‘world capital’ whose ‘soul was freedom’, and has been reduced to being merely a ruined city like any other ruined city.
