Zhivago’s Children is a systematic account of the experience of the Soviet Union’s second generation and Russia’s last generation of intellectuals. The book’s primary strength lies in the author’s nuanced depictions of the interactions between Moscow intelligentsia and the changing political environment. Drawing intensively from memoirs and interviews of its members, Zubok points out that these intellectuals remained vocal advocates of reformist socialism for most of the years under the Soviet regime, contrary to common stereotypes that portray them as anti-Soviet dissidents. While this contribution is certainly important, Zubok’s book has some limitations, including a general lack of discussion on the relationship between intellectuals and the broader masses.
The book’s title, Zhivago’s Children, is borrowed from Boris Pasternak’s Nobel Prize-winning novel, Doctor Zhivago. And indeed, a major contribution of the book lies in its convincing depiction of a constructed socialist affinity among the second generation of Soviet intelligentsia. It traces this back to the Stalinist education and complex experiences of World War II, strict cultural control and dogmatization under the influence of Andrei Zhdanov, and antisemitic persecution. In so doing, Zubok reveals the material and ideological background that shaped the generations’ socialist and reformist inclinations, which contributed to the intelligentsia’s ambivalent sentiment and changing affinity to the regime in the Khrushchev years resonating with his volatile cultural policies. This provides the major content of his chapters.
This historical perspective crucially permits a fascinating exploration of the hybrid culture that emerged from this intelligentsia: the embrace of Western culture coexisted with the antagonism against capitalism, while criticisms of Soviet bureaucracy coexisted with an aspiration for genuine, “humane” socialism. To be sure, this generation of intelligentsia developed in diversity entering the 1960s, seeing the growth of liberals and the Russian nationalists. Yet, as Zubok points out, the deeply rooted socialist affinity only evaporated in 1968, when the Soviet Union forcefully ended the Prague Spring—a lethal disillusionment at the zenith of a global atmosphere of leftist change. In his view, dissidents, the conventional focus of liberal narratives, only played a contributing role in the course of history instead of the pioneering one.
What deserves more attention in assessing Zhivago’s Children, however, is the greater significance the author placed on the pivotal turn of 1968 through chapter arrangements and title selections. It seems that for Zubok, more than a disillusionment of one generation of intelligentsia amongst many, the crackdown marked the decline of the last Russian intelligentsia in general. As if writing in haste, the book provides a gloomy sketch of a long decade, 1968 to 1985, only in its ninth chapter, “The Long Decline,” which is then followed by an epilogue titled “The End of the Intelligentsia.” One has to ask, why is it so?
In the book’s conclusion, the author summarized its story as the struggle of intellectuals to “regain autonomy from an autocratic regime.” Nonetheless, an answer to the above question lies in speculation of the author’s implicit theme: the tense yet unbroken and mutually dependent relationship between the Soviet regime and this last generation of Russian intellectuals. Whilst the intelligentsia maintained a critical stance against the state and pursued high culture, the Stalinist and post-Stalinist systems were essential for their survival because they provided social privileges, economic benefits, proper education, incorporation into the field of power, and a dream of searching for a utopian society. In short, Zhivago’s Children may be critical to the autocratic regime precisely because they were constituents of it. Just as the author writes, “the preoccupations and aspirations in the intellectual milieu remained essentially non-capitalistic.” This significant irony of history manifested at the end of the USSR: when the intelligentsia finally envisioned its revival in the reformist-minded Gorbachev, the lift of censorship in the glasnost tore the system apart, as with the dreams and livelihood of millions of intellectuals. Now, the iron law of capitalism reigns.
This tragic downfall of Zhivago’s Children raised my expectations for a more profound reflection on the characteristics of this generation of intellectuals and on the cultural and ideological system of the Soviet Union. This can be formulated as two preliminary sets of questions. First, what was the relationship between this intelligentsia and the broader Soviet masses? To what extent did these socialist intelligentsia identify with the people? Or did they view themselves as a privileged group that was de facto distant from the rest of the population? Second, what were the theoretical and ideological implications behind the humanist ideals of “Zhivago’s Children?” This deserves particular attention if one considers that Zubok briefly introduced a group of “genuine” Marxist intelligentsia and notes that French structuralist Marxism emerged in the 1960s, driven by concerns over the perceived threat of humanist influences created by East European Marxists since Khrushchev’s Thaw. Unfortunately, Zubok does not explore either of these two topics, likely due to his deep commitment to the stories and values of Zhivago’s Children. This dedication leaves little room for critical reflection on their potential theoretical shortcomings or intellectual elitism. Considering the subject matter of this book, I think the above problems are more serious and intriguing as well than the author’s intensive use of memoirs.
In sum, Zhivago’s Children is an exciting but problematic read. As a nuanced chronological intellectual history, it deserves high praise. The author, Zubok, is no doubt passionate about his subject. However, perhaps because of his strong opinions, several vital topics remain regrettably unexplored, which means that readers should approach this book critically.
Shutong Wang (王庶同) was born and raised in China. He earned a B.A. in History at McGill University and is currently a PhD student at the University of Texas at Austin. He studies the social movements of the 1950s, with a particular focus on the interactions between grassroots communities in Modern and Contemporary China.
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