This is the story of the Soviet Union's most famous informer, one of the great hero-monsters of the century, and of the pressures which made it possible for a young boy in the North Urals to denounce his father to the secret services and to become an icon for doing so. Crucially, too, it is the story of the dramatic transition in the early Thirties from the relatively relaxed period of the New Economic Policy to the strenuous years of the Five-Year Plan. The NEP had made it clear - or at any rate made it plausible to claim - that independent-minded peasants and tradesmen, self-enriching and assertive, would shortly undermine all the Bolsheviks stood for. Plans were laid against the impending counter-revolution: hideous, impossible goals were set. Within five years, agriculture was to be collectivised and a massive industrial base made ready for action. To this end, Party members and the secret services were to terrorise the population into acquiescence.

LRB 6 March 1997 | PDF Download