Children of the Arbat

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Children of the Arbat is a novel by Anatoli Rybakov which recounts the era in the Soviet Union of the build-up to the 'Congress of the Victors', the early years of the second Five Year Plan and the (supposed) circumstances of the murder of Sergey Kirov prior to the beginning of the Great Purge.

Principally told through the story of the fictional Sasha Pankratov, a sincere and loyal Komsomol member who is exiled as a result of party intrigues, the novel is semi-autobiographical - Rybakov too was exiled in the early 1930s. The book recounts the growing hysteria of the period where simple mistakes or humour were seen as examples of sabotage or acts of wreckers (cf 'The Joke' by Milan Kundera). In effect the book exposes how, despite the honest intentions of Pankratov and older Bolsheviks like Kirov, the dictatorship of the proletariat is destroying all their hopes.

The novel is also notable for its portrayal of Stalin as a scheming and paranoid figure. Much of that portrayal stands up well in the light of later historical evidence.

The book, which was written between 1966 and 1983 but suppressed until Gorbachev came to power, was the great publishing sensation of the era of perestroika, as it was so direct in its cricticisms of the Soviet system, seemingly honest in its portrayal of Stalin and harsh in its cynical view of those who turned the Soviet Union into a first rank power.

The book was published in English in 1994 by Random House UK Distribution.