A Review of Benjamin Nathans, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2024, XIV+797 pp.

Abstract

The book by Benjamin Nathans suggests an innovative approach to the study of Soviet dissidence of the 1960s and 1970s. Political protest is presented as a multifaceted communication in which such important concepts as freedom, law, civil rights, responsibility, and political participation are redefined between the dissidents, representatives of party and state power, KGB officers, and the public inside and outside the USSR. The results of this redefinition formed the basis for a specific dissident repertoire of contention based on nonviolence, publicity, and appeals to existing legal norms. The author invites attention not only to the recognised heroes of the dissident movement — those who, through their writings and actions, shaped and represented the ethos of nonviolent resistance to the Soviet regime — but also to a broader circle of its supporters — people who were involved in networks of solidarity and mutual aid. This broadening of the phenomenon’s scope, coupled with fresh interpretations of key milestones in Soviet dissidence, makes the book a significant event in the historiography of late Soviet society.