Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets

by Svetlana Alexievich

Why didn’t we put Stalin on trial? I’ll tell you why…In order to condemn Stalin, you’d have to condemn your friends and relatives along with him. The people closest to you. I’ll tell you about my own family. My father was arrested in 1937 and, thank God, came back after doing ten years in the camps. He returned eager to live. He himself was amazed that he still wanted to after everything that he’d seen. This wasn’t the case with everyone, not by a long shot…My generation grew up with fathers who’d either returned from the camps or the war. The only thing they could tell us about was violence. Death. They rarely laughed and were mostly silent. They drank…and drank…until they finally drank themselves to death. The other option…the people who were never arrested spent their whole lives fearing arrest. This wouldn’t be for a month or two, it would go on for years—years! And if they didn’t get time, they’d wonder, “Why did they arrest everybody but me? What am I doing wrong?” They could put you in prison or they could put you to work for the NKVD*19…The party requests, the party commands. It’s not a pleasant choice to have to make, but many were forced to make it. As for the executioners…the everyday ones, not the monsters…our neighbor Yuri turned out to have been the one who informed on my father. For nothing, as my mother would say. I was seven. Yuri would take me and his kids fishing and horseback riding. He’d mend our fence. You end up with a completely different picture of...