Survivors' History

The twenty years of social upheaval since the Soviet collapse have added a bitter postscript to Stephen Cohen's story. Most of the survivors, including Anna Larina, are now dead, and with them the dream of a humane communist future that had kept them alive though their long detention. Poverty, ideological exhaustion, and the double-edged promise of consumer capitalism have shattered the fragile, idealistic unity of the Perestroika era. In many ways, including the subtle (albeit half-hearted) rehabilitation of Stalin, the pendulum has again swung back toward a Brezhnev-style authoritarian conservatism. Yet this situation is exactly what makes The Victims Return relevant and necessary. Cohen's account of the survivors' struggle for truth and dignity is his testament that while every story may not have what his Russian friends would call a "kheppy end," every system of oppression always produces its eventual gravediggers.