The House of Government

Book cover of The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution

Book description

On the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, the epic story of an enormous apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction The House of Government is unlike any other book about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment. Written in the tradition of Tolstoy's War and Peace,…

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Why read it?

2 authors picked The House of Government as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Susanne Schattenberg

Author

This book is incredible, because it tells the story of Stalinist terror through a single house. Moreover, Slezkine creates a world history around this house of victims and perpetrators, which literally begins in the primordial mud and ends on the Day of Judgment. Slezkine takes no prisoners: either you follow him and the apocalyptic horsemen, or you don't, he doesn't care. Like a man possessed, he tells the story of one of the greatest crimes of the 20th century and I found it almost impossible to escape his spell.

From Susanne's list on Pre-Putin’s Soviet Russia.

Roger R. Reese

Author

This is a long book, but easy to read and worth the investment in time. It is about the USSR primarily in the 1920s and 1930s as seen through the lives of people who lived and worked in the House of Government in Moscow. The book traces the lives of people as they (and their children) rose and fell in power and grace. It uses interviews of many of the people so you get the real human story here with all the passion and pain.

From Roger's list on Stalinism from every angle.