Exit Stalin
The Soviet Union as a Civilization, 1953-1991
Format:Hardback
Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd
Publishing:29th Jan '26
£36.00 was £40.00
This title is due to be published on 29th January, and will be despatched as soon as possible.
An extraordinarily atmospheric and powerful history of the world's largest state and its decline and fall
*One of the most anticipated books of 2026 according to the Financial Times and New Statesman*
With Stalin's death, the Soviet Union remained a repressive, harsh and belligerent place, but one which became more predictable for its citizens and one which made a genuine attempt to create the egalitarian, progressive country that the Russian Revolution had once promised. That this attempt would fail was not clear until the 1980s.
Mark B. Smith's remarkable book recreates the day-to-day life of this vast state, the largest ever to exist. What was life like in a country which made such absolute claims for the future, which claimed to be on its way to creating a people's utopia and which, like the USA, owned enough atomic weapons to end human life on Earth?
Exit Stalin is filled with extraordinary stories about those who lived in the USSR and the distinctive and functioning civilization that they built. Many of them embraced its values, understood its goals and could not imagine life outside such a vastly ambitious and progressive project. The shortages, coercion and incompetence that underlay the USSR - and which by the late 1980s would doom it - has to be understood alongside the acceptance it always had from many of its citizens. And this in turn is a crucial issue for understanding Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union in the 21st century.
Superb... Immensely important... This is a tragic story, and Smith tells it magnificently * The Telegraph *
Richly detailed... Mark Smith’s impressive history gives readers a powerful sense of what it was like to live under communism in the four decades between Stalin’s death and the country’s disintegration at the end of the cold war * Financial Times *
Exit Stalin asks a timely question: what is life in a non-democratic modern society actually like? Smith builds up a picture of an entire culture, a way of life, a vivid sense of an entire disappeared world and forces the question: would you accept the price? -- Owen Hatherley * New Statesman *
To this enthralling journey across an archipelago of twentieth-century Russian people and situations, Smith brings deep historical knowledge, analytical prowess and formidable emotional intelligence. At the end of it you have not just learned something, you have been somewhere. Essential reading for anyone with an interest in contemporary Russia and its people -- Christopher Clark
The most insightful and accurate cultural history of the Soviet Union that I have encountered, and a very good read, to boot -- Jack F. Matlock Jr.
Although it died less than half a century ago, the Soviet Union, even to many who experienced first hand its complexities, contradictions, cruelties, and moments of creativity, can seem as if it belongs to ancient history. Mark B. Smith brings this lost world to life through a powerful combination of exhaustive scholarship, lucid prose, and subtle insight -- Douglas Smith
ISBN: 9780241400852
Dimensions: 242mm x 163mm x 36mm
Weight: 986g
576 pages