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ellyt36's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
clangfield's review against another edition
5.0
"Whenever he had been troubled by a memory, he had worked, telling himself that the best answer to any defect in the past must be a remedy in the future. The future had been his private solution as well as a public promise. Working for the future made the past tolerable, and therefore the present."
Bear with me as I struggle to describe this... novel? Not quite a novel but also somehow something more than a novel.
The book self consciously teeters between fact and fantasy, peppering its narrative of the mid-60s Soviet Union with fragments of skazki: fairytales. It begins and ends with stories of buckwheat oatmeal transforming into plentiful feasts, and peasant boys and girls being whisked away on magic carpets, casting a dreamlike haze over the whole thing.
The dream, of course, is that of socialist plenty. That through rational and democratic control over economics, the world of "hunting in the morning, fishing in the afternoon, and criticizing [what we would today call vibing] after dinner" will replace the one where the majority of us toil without owning the value which we produce.
The author is right to say that the main character of the book is simply this idea. But this idea is expressed through vignettes of vivid human characters, who sometimes recur and sometimes don't. They are the ones who lived and rose and fell in the world of which this idea was a part.
In the 1960s a group of Soviet cybernetic economists believed they had found the outlines of a plan to get there: to boil down the complexity of the state-run economy to a grand mathematical structure, whose finer points could be decided by computer-programmed optimization routines synthesizing data from around the country and sending back signals of what to make and where to send it. Much of it was based on the mathematics of Leonid Kantorovich, the only Soviet economist to win the Nobel Prize in Economics.
The ideas were never implemented, except in small experiments. The Soviet planned economy was never rationalized in this way, and while it must be given credit for breaking the cycle of famine and "functioning" in the narrowest possible sense, it was always plagued by the inefficiencies and absurdities that have been pointed out ad nauseam (though correctly) by critics of socialism.
As Red Plenty's narrative tells us, these new economic ideas were among the many beacons of optimism during Khruschev's rule that were extinguished by the massive weight and darkness of the Soviet political machine as it shuddered back towards complacency, corruption, and shortsightedness. The author spares no punches in criticizing the bleak parts of the USSR, but places its failures in their political, social, and economic contexts in a way I believe to be fair, especially for a Western author.
The idea which is the subject of Red Plenty is not dead though. The last few stanzas of the book, which was published just a few years after the Great Recession, ask: "Can it be, can it be, can it ever be otherwise?" Just as those living in the Soviet Union asked themselves that, we who live here and now should be as well.
Bear with me as I struggle to describe this... novel? Not quite a novel but also somehow something more than a novel.
The book self consciously teeters between fact and fantasy, peppering its narrative of the mid-60s Soviet Union with fragments of skazki: fairytales. It begins and ends with stories of buckwheat oatmeal transforming into plentiful feasts, and peasant boys and girls being whisked away on magic carpets, casting a dreamlike haze over the whole thing.
The dream, of course, is that of socialist plenty. That through rational and democratic control over economics, the world of "hunting in the morning, fishing in the afternoon, and criticizing [what we would today call vibing] after dinner" will replace the one where the majority of us toil without owning the value which we produce.
The author is right to say that the main character of the book is simply this idea. But this idea is expressed through vignettes of vivid human characters, who sometimes recur and sometimes don't. They are the ones who lived and rose and fell in the world of which this idea was a part.
In the 1960s a group of Soviet cybernetic economists believed they had found the outlines of a plan to get there: to boil down the complexity of the state-run economy to a grand mathematical structure, whose finer points could be decided by computer-programmed optimization routines synthesizing data from around the country and sending back signals of what to make and where to send it. Much of it was based on the mathematics of Leonid Kantorovich, the only Soviet economist to win the Nobel Prize in Economics.
The ideas were never implemented, except in small experiments. The Soviet planned economy was never rationalized in this way, and while it must be given credit for breaking the cycle of famine and "functioning" in the narrowest possible sense, it was always plagued by the inefficiencies and absurdities that have been pointed out ad nauseam (though correctly) by critics of socialism.
As Red Plenty's narrative tells us, these new economic ideas were among the many beacons of optimism during Khruschev's rule that were extinguished by the massive weight and darkness of the Soviet political machine as it shuddered back towards complacency, corruption, and shortsightedness. The author spares no punches in criticizing the bleak parts of the USSR, but places its failures in their political, social, and economic contexts in a way I believe to be fair, especially for a Western author.
The idea which is the subject of Red Plenty is not dead though. The last few stanzas of the book, which was published just a few years after the Great Recession, ask: "Can it be, can it be, can it ever be otherwise?" Just as those living in the Soviet Union asked themselves that, we who live here and now should be as well.
pascalthehoff's review against another edition
2.0
The entire premise of Red Plenty is that it's neither a novel nor a non-fiction book about Soviet history. This in-between approach, as interesting as it may be, makes the book feel imbalanced between long awkward narrative passages and (fewer) absolutely on-fire theoretical and historical parts.
After the sheer density of the theoretical/historical bits, it's a big ask to endure the slow, long-winded, often stilted prose. I want to learn more about Marxist theory in the context of 1950s Soviet real politics; not listen to a person who gets way too much into detail about what they do at work. The narrative chapters feel just as cold and calculated as the theoretical chapters. While that tonality fits the theoretical "half" of the book (if it only were a 50/50 balance), it makes the in-the-moment chapters feel too lifeless to get really engaged in them.
The are great moments every once in a while. Like a Black cultural ambassador in the US being baited into fervently defending the capitalist, racist system that hates and exploits him. The whole us(a) vs. them was so ingrained that nobody was willing to acknowledge the advantages of the other system – sometimes leading to absurd argumentations. A thing that prevails until today with poor people, for example, defending the free market and "personal responsibility" as god-given values.
Thematically, Red Plenty does a great job of conveying how the ideological cold war between capitalism and communism was more of a cultural war than an actual competition where the better system was allowed to prevail fair and square.
There are also some really poetic bits about the meaning of the Marxist idea, like the sentiment of a "consciously arranged society" being the "biggest endeavor in the history of civilization" while in capitalism "humans become more dead and objects more lively". Those parts that expand on these concepts are really great. But overall, Red Plenty can't really hold a candle to neither the great novels nor the great non-fiction books about its subject.
After the sheer density of the theoretical/historical bits, it's a big ask to endure the slow, long-winded, often stilted prose. I want to learn more about Marxist theory in the context of 1950s Soviet real politics; not listen to a person who gets way too much into detail about what they do at work. The narrative chapters feel just as cold and calculated as the theoretical chapters. While that tonality fits the theoretical "half" of the book (if it only were a 50/50 balance), it makes the in-the-moment chapters feel too lifeless to get really engaged in them.
The are great moments every once in a while. Like a Black cultural ambassador in the US being baited into fervently defending the capitalist, racist system that hates and exploits him. The whole us(a) vs. them was so ingrained that nobody was willing to acknowledge the advantages of the other system – sometimes leading to absurd argumentations. A thing that prevails until today with poor people, for example, defending the free market and "personal responsibility" as god-given values.
Thematically, Red Plenty does a great job of conveying how the ideological cold war between capitalism and communism was more of a cultural war than an actual competition where the better system was allowed to prevail fair and square.
There are also some really poetic bits about the meaning of the Marxist idea, like the sentiment of a "consciously arranged society" being the "biggest endeavor in the history of civilization" while in capitalism "humans become more dead and objects more lively". Those parts that expand on these concepts are really great. But overall, Red Plenty can't really hold a candle to neither the great novels nor the great non-fiction books about its subject.
craigbased's review against another edition
4.0
tough book to review. The basic concept is applying taylorism to a planned economy and the stories range from some of the most riveting things I've ever read to the most boring dogshit ever written. I think if you're familiar with Project Cybersyn and thought it was interesting you should absolutely dive into this
shanth's review against another edition
5.0
How can you not like a novel which begins : ``This is not a novel. It has too much to explain, to be one of those. But it is not a history either, for it does its explaining in the form of a story; only the story is the story of an idea, first of all, and only afterwards, glimpsed through the chinks of the idea’s fate, the story of the people involved. The idea is the hero.''
Of course, as some others have pointed out this is hardly reason to not call it a novel, after all, there have always been novels about ideas, but let's not quibble about taxonomy. What this book is, is a well researched, wonderfully footnoted, novel about the period in Soviet history when some scientists earnestly believed that the communist dream of central planning and efficient optimising of the economy by the government could finally be achieved in reality thanks to advances in mathematics, cybernetics and economics. Spufford shows us how the human element enters this optimisation problem, at various levels in the form of the bosses in the Central Committee, striking low-paid workers, small-time factory managers worried about fulfilling quotas, and a whole lot of others. And if all this still doesn't get you interested, there's a chapter about lung cancer written from a molecular biology point of view, with enzymes and free radicals as the principal protagonists.
Of course, as some others have pointed out this is hardly reason to not call it a novel, after all, there have always been novels about ideas, but let's not quibble about taxonomy. What this book is, is a well researched, wonderfully footnoted, novel about the period in Soviet history when some scientists earnestly believed that the communist dream of central planning and efficient optimising of the economy by the government could finally be achieved in reality thanks to advances in mathematics, cybernetics and economics. Spufford shows us how the human element enters this optimisation problem, at various levels in the form of the bosses in the Central Committee, striking low-paid workers, small-time factory managers worried about fulfilling quotas, and a whole lot of others. And if all this still doesn't get you interested, there's a chapter about lung cancer written from a molecular biology point of view, with enzymes and free radicals as the principal protagonists.
manalive's review against another edition
4.0
This is a remarkable book.
Who would have thought that a politically progressive British author would write a popular history that would actually, in the form of a narrative, successfully bridge the opposing accounts of various academic factions arguing over whether the USSR collapse was caused by poor incentives (as argued by [a:Bryan Caplan|373203|Bryan Caplan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1257402293p2/373203.jpg] 15 years ago) or moral rot (as argued by [a:Arnold Kling|349362|Arnold Kling|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1472692617p2/349362.jpg]) or by of the failure of central planners to conduct effective economic management without market prices (as predicted by Mises and argued contra Caplan by a number of Austrian econ scholars including [a:Boettke|523381|Peter J. Boettke|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1361896378p2/523381.jpg], [a:Leeson|1619931|Peter T. Leeson|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png],[a:Gordon|5297859|David Gordon|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png], and [a: Stringham|18133057|Edward Stringham|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] ).
Here Spufford draws upon an impressive amount of scholarship- a bibliography this large is quite rare for a work of fiction- to construct a series of illuminating story arcs showing how the rise and fall of linear programming (impressive in itself as a method of coordinating production that is still in use by firms around the world) led to a death spiral of skewed incentives and black markets running on political privilege.
While it would be too much to say he has 'proved' that the two competing scenarios offered by political economists fit together, I think Spufford has demonstrated that it is probable they did.
In short: Prices are a knowledge surrogate. Abolishing prices in a command economy just means you are creating black markets that run on 'pull' instead of money. The politics of pull cannibalizes existing social infrastructure and real capital.
Having listened to interviews with the author, it's clear that he has absolutely no idea what he has accomplished here in this regard. It's unfortunate, because he seems to have fairly parochial view of pro-market economic theory from across the pond. That being said, it's unclear whether the book would have benefited from an increased awareness of the debate. Probably not, is my guess.
What is probably of greater interest to the general public is the way in which Spufford sheds light on the evolving expectations of Soviet citizens toward social order and living conditions.
We are in a habit of condemning American consumerism as a sort of shadow of the excesses of American capitalism while imagining that those living under other systems are motivated by different ambitions than our own. As it turns out, historical Marxists are not admirable anti-materialist/anti-consumerists who are willing to suffer monastic privation for the good of the social order. The reality is that the Soviets themselves were just as interested in consumption, possibly more so, than their American counterparts.
In fact, many of them were aware of the horrible atrocities of earlier regimes and justified their theft, murders, and enforced poverty on the basis that these were simply early steps needed to get the economic engine going- and soon, even this year maybe! we'll overtake those capitalists in the west.
(For an even earlier look at this sentiment, I suggest the book [b:Red Star|400399|Red Star|Alexandr Bogdanov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1391055952l/400399._SX50_.jpg|389821]. It's an early Bolshevist science fiction story about the promises of wealth and prosperity that would undoubtedly grow abundantly after the revolution.)
As for the book itself as a piece of literature, the writing is engaging in style and content. I have two complaints.
The first is that I don't like how he write women. There seems to be a stereotype at play where the men are all rather straightforward and simple while the women are complex. Additionally, there is an uncomfortable passage where a politically connected man sabotages the career of a woman and has her labeled as a 'manageable' risk so that the authorities will hand him her leash. By doing this he becomes her only eligible husband. The woman, who previously despised him, finds this manipulation arousing.
Possible? Yes- plausible even. But totally out of place here.
My second complaint is that he uses Russian fairy tales as analogs for Soviet promises of prosperity. He dumps on fairy tales in general quite a bit in the introduction and emphasizes that they were therapeutic/escapist lies to soften the harsh reality of life in Russia.
Anyone familiar with Russian fairy tales should be skeptical of this. I love fairy tales and found this gloss very grating.
He also seems to read fairy tales through a very [a:Campbellian|20105|Joseph Campbell|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1429114498p2/20105.jpg] lens, focusing mostly on the fairy tales with a clear protagonist that might be [b:the hero on his journey|588138|The Hero With a Thousand Faces|Joseph Campbell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442885694l/588138._SY75_.jpg|971054]. This is consistent with Spufford's [b:other book on Christian apologetics|15929332|Unapologetic Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense|Francis Spufford|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1354217748l/15929332._SX50_.jpg|21680097], where he also uses "fairy tale" as a pejorative for religious sentimentality.
But stories that fit this mold are a tiny minority of Russian fairy tales.
Spufford lists two sources for his perspective on fairy tales. One is, appropriately, the [a:Afanas’ev|500718|Alexander Afanasyev|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1224085557p2/500718.jpg] book now available as the Pantheon book of [b:Russian Fairy Tales|164695|Russian Fairy Tales|Alexander Afanasyev|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1506160458l/164695._SY75_.jpg|159010] with which I am quite familiar. The other is [b:an analysis|2947887|The World Of The Russian Fairy Tale|Maria Kravchenko|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|2977334] from a [a:strict historicist|1273512|Maria Kravchenko|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] from the 40s that has been out of print since the 80s. Spufford appears to get his views from the historicist because you'd have to mutilate the hell out the of Afanas'ev collection to fit his bizarre take.
In reality, Russian fairy tales are bleak. If they are therapeutic it is not because they are escapist, because they are not. And not only that, they are full of irony ([b:Литературократия|33642190|Литературократия|Михаил Берг|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1483119025l/33642190._SY75_.jpg|54494498]) and distrust of authority- two enduring features of Russian literature that had to be continually subverted by the Soviet state in order to sustain their project.
(In short, read Chesterton and fairy tales and especially Chesterton on fairy tales so you don't let authors like Spufford make them out to be worthless.)
Overall, this book is a real treasure.
Who would have thought that a politically progressive British author would write a popular history that would actually, in the form of a narrative, successfully bridge the opposing accounts of various academic factions arguing over whether the USSR collapse was caused by poor incentives (as argued by [a:Bryan Caplan|373203|Bryan Caplan|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1257402293p2/373203.jpg] 15 years ago) or moral rot (as argued by [a:Arnold Kling|349362|Arnold Kling|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1472692617p2/349362.jpg]) or by of the failure of central planners to conduct effective economic management without market prices (as predicted by Mises and argued contra Caplan by a number of Austrian econ scholars including [a:Boettke|523381|Peter J. Boettke|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1361896378p2/523381.jpg], [a:Leeson|1619931|Peter T. Leeson|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png],[a:Gordon|5297859|David Gordon|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/m_50x66-82093808bca726cb3249a493fbd3bd0f.png], and [a: Stringham|18133057|Edward Stringham|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] ).
Here Spufford draws upon an impressive amount of scholarship- a bibliography this large is quite rare for a work of fiction- to construct a series of illuminating story arcs showing how the rise and fall of linear programming (impressive in itself as a method of coordinating production that is still in use by firms around the world) led to a death spiral of skewed incentives and black markets running on political privilege.
While it would be too much to say he has 'proved' that the two competing scenarios offered by political economists fit together, I think Spufford has demonstrated that it is probable they did.
In short: Prices are a knowledge surrogate. Abolishing prices in a command economy just means you are creating black markets that run on 'pull' instead of money. The politics of pull cannibalizes existing social infrastructure and real capital.
Having listened to interviews with the author, it's clear that he has absolutely no idea what he has accomplished here in this regard. It's unfortunate, because he seems to have fairly parochial view of pro-market economic theory from across the pond. That being said, it's unclear whether the book would have benefited from an increased awareness of the debate. Probably not, is my guess.
What is probably of greater interest to the general public is the way in which Spufford sheds light on the evolving expectations of Soviet citizens toward social order and living conditions.
We are in a habit of condemning American consumerism as a sort of shadow of the excesses of American capitalism while imagining that those living under other systems are motivated by different ambitions than our own. As it turns out, historical Marxists are not admirable anti-materialist/anti-consumerists who are willing to suffer monastic privation for the good of the social order. The reality is that the Soviets themselves were just as interested in consumption, possibly more so, than their American counterparts.
In fact, many of them were aware of the horrible atrocities of earlier regimes and justified their theft, murders, and enforced poverty on the basis that these were simply early steps needed to get the economic engine going- and soon, even this year maybe! we'll overtake those capitalists in the west.
(For an even earlier look at this sentiment, I suggest the book [b:Red Star|400399|Red Star|Alexandr Bogdanov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1391055952l/400399._SX50_.jpg|389821]. It's an early Bolshevist science fiction story about the promises of wealth and prosperity that would undoubtedly grow abundantly after the revolution.)
As for the book itself as a piece of literature, the writing is engaging in style and content. I have two complaints.
The first is that I don't like how he write women. There seems to be a stereotype at play where the men are all rather straightforward and simple while the women are complex. Additionally, there is an uncomfortable passage where a politically connected man sabotages the career of a woman and has her labeled as a 'manageable' risk so that the authorities will hand him her leash. By doing this he becomes her only eligible husband. The woman, who previously despised him, finds this manipulation arousing.
Possible? Yes- plausible even. But totally out of place here.
My second complaint is that he uses Russian fairy tales as analogs for Soviet promises of prosperity. He dumps on fairy tales in general quite a bit in the introduction and emphasizes that they were therapeutic/escapist lies to soften the harsh reality of life in Russia.
Anyone familiar with Russian fairy tales should be skeptical of this. I love fairy tales and found this gloss very grating.
He also seems to read fairy tales through a very [a:Campbellian|20105|Joseph Campbell|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1429114498p2/20105.jpg] lens, focusing mostly on the fairy tales with a clear protagonist that might be [b:the hero on his journey|588138|The Hero With a Thousand Faces|Joseph Campbell|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442885694l/588138._SY75_.jpg|971054]. This is consistent with Spufford's [b:other book on Christian apologetics|15929332|Unapologetic Why, Despite Everything, Christianity Can Still Make Surprising Emotional Sense|Francis Spufford|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1354217748l/15929332._SX50_.jpg|21680097], where he also uses "fairy tale" as a pejorative for religious sentimentality.
But stories that fit this mold are a tiny minority of Russian fairy tales.
Spufford lists two sources for his perspective on fairy tales. One is, appropriately, the [a:Afanas’ev|500718|Alexander Afanasyev|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1224085557p2/500718.jpg] book now available as the Pantheon book of [b:Russian Fairy Tales|164695|Russian Fairy Tales|Alexander Afanasyev|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1506160458l/164695._SY75_.jpg|159010] with which I am quite familiar. The other is [b:an analysis|2947887|The World Of The Russian Fairy Tale|Maria Kravchenko|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/book/50x75-a91bf249278a81aabab721ef782c4a74.png|2977334] from a [a:strict historicist|1273512|Maria Kravchenko|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] from the 40s that has been out of print since the 80s. Spufford appears to get his views from the historicist because you'd have to mutilate the hell out the of Afanas'ev collection to fit his bizarre take.
In reality, Russian fairy tales are bleak. If they are therapeutic it is not because they are escapist, because they are not. And not only that, they are full of irony ([b:Литературократия|33642190|Литературократия|Михаил Берг|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1483119025l/33642190._SY75_.jpg|54494498]) and distrust of authority- two enduring features of Russian literature that had to be continually subverted by the Soviet state in order to sustain their project.
(In short, read Chesterton and fairy tales and especially Chesterton on fairy tales so you don't let authors like Spufford make them out to be worthless.)
Overall, this book is a real treasure.
adrianhon's review against another edition
4.0
A captivating tale of the brief moment of hope in the Soviet economic experiment, told through linked short stories. Not quite historical fiction, not quite non-fiction, but well-written and well-researched. I'd encourage anyone who's interested in alternatives to capitalism to read this book, even if it does seem odd.
My one criticism is that Spufford is a fan of the cold open for his short stories, which makes it unnecessarily difficult to figure out where the hell the story is set and who it's about at first.
My one criticism is that Spufford is a fan of the cold open for his short stories, which makes it unnecessarily difficult to figure out where the hell the story is set and who it's about at first.
weemadando's review against another edition
4.0
A real heartbreaker of a book, about what should have been and what happened instead.
ellimister's review against another edition
2.0
Still not sure what all the excitement was about. It’s possible I missed something in my reading but this collection of chronological short stories didn’t appeal to me. I almost stopped several times. After finishing it, I wish I would have so I could have moved on to the next book sooner.