Book Review: "The Russians," by Hedrick Smith (1976)

Paperback cover of "The Russians," by Hedrick Smith, 1976.

Publicity photo of Hedrick Smith for "The Russians." Photo by Jill Krementz.

When Hedrick Smith’s book “The Russians” was published in 1976, it gave American readers a taste of what life was like inside the Soviet Union. In “The Russians” Smith paints a vivid portrait of the culture of the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev’s rule. Smith was the Moscow bureau chief for The New York Times from 1971-74, and in 1974 he won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his articles about life in the Soviet Union. I was lucky enough to intern for Hedrick Smith during college in the fall of 2001, as he was finishing up the excellent documentary “Rediscovering Dave Brubeck.” Smith’s most recent book is 2012’s “Who Stole the American Dream?” a very important book that I reviewed here.  

 “The Russians” is a large book, 680 pages in the original paperback edition, and Smith covers just about every imaginable aspect of Soviet society. I learned something new on every page of this book. I can’t accurately summarize all of the different parts of the book in this review, so I’ll focus on the sections that I enjoyed reading the most. 

While reading “The Russians” I was very struck by how completely the Soviet government controlled society and everyday life. Smith chronicled how the government censored the information that citizens had access to, which ranged from not informing citizens about wildfires raging only 15-20 miles outside of Moscow, to the heartbreaking story of a man whose daughter died in a plane crash, which he only learned of by going to the airport police-who only told him about the crash on the condition that he keep the news confidential. Because people had so little access through the state-run media to any kind of meaningful information, either about their own country or any others, the government was able to better control the population. This total control over information even extended to seemingly mundane things. For example, while Smith was in Moscow in 1973, the government published the first telephone directory in 15 years. Smith writes, “The problem with this phone book, as with so many desirable items in the Soviet Union, is that supply made not even the barest pretense of satisfying demand. For a city of eight million people, the printers published 50,000 phone books.” (p.472) 

I knew that Soviet citizens had very little political freedom, but I didn’t realize how many perks the elite members of the Communist Party enjoyed. Smith deftly exposes one of the many contradictions in Soviet society: that the supposedly classless society was actually just as stratified between the haves and have-nots as the West was, if not more so. Members of the elite were granted access to special stores where they could buy goods not available to other citizens. Elites also had opportunities to travel abroad, which meant that they had access to foreign goods, and work abroad was often paid in special “certificate rubles” which could be used in special stores and had more purchasing power than ordinary rubles. There was also little chance of upward mobility in the Soviet system-if you weren’t a Party member you didn’t have much of a chance of making a decent living. 

Political dissent in the Soviet Union was given very little chance to exist. As Smith shows, the temporary “thaw” in Soviet culture under Khrushchev in the 1950’s and 60’s was quickly replaced by the cold chilliness of the Brezhnev era. Under Brezhnev dissenters were rather quickly neutered by being sent to the labor camps of Siberia or exiled to the West. The methods of dealing with dissenters were not as cruel as they had been under Stalin, but the Soviet government was extremely effective at shutting down any dissenting points of view. 

Smith wrote about how it was not the KGB that most ordinary Soviet citizens feared. “For the quiet erosion of the spirit that takes place daily is caused more by the petty tyrants of Soviet life-the rigid little bureaucrats and the self-appointed busybodies who use infinite regulations and documents to harass, humble and hound the man in the street.” (p.352)

One of the most memorable parts of “The Russians” details Smith’s “interview” with the famed dissident writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. It was forbidden for foreign journalists to meet with Solzhenitsyn, as the Soviet government was very angry about his anti-Communist novels that explored the terrors of the Stalin regime. Smith and Bob Kaiser of The Washington Post went to Solzhenitsyn’s apartment to interview him, but when they arrived they found that Solzhenitsyn had already written the interview, both question and answers, for them. Smith writes, “I was stunned. What an irony, I thought. This is the way it is done at Pravda and here is Solzhenitsyn, whose entire being reverberates with his furious battle against censorship, a man who in the great tradition of Pushkin and Dostoyevsky had dared to assert the writer’s independence, producing a prepackaged interview. How could he be so blind or so vain? I thought of walking out.” (p.562) But Kaiser convinced Smith to read the hefty 25-page “interview” that Solzhenitsyn had written, which proved difficult because Solzhenitsyn was such a Slavophile that he wrote in an archaic style of Russian that used only “pure” Russian words, and not words that were derived from other languages. Solzhenitsyn also insisted that both papers, The New York Times and The Washington Post, print all of his 7,500 word “interview,” which had lengthy sections defending his ancestors from slander that Pravda was printing at the time. Smith explained that not even the U.S. President was guaranteed that his every word would be published in newspapers. Eventually a compromise was reached with Solzhenitsyn, and he agreed to answer some questions. Solzhenitsyn was eventually exiled by the Soviet government in 1974, and he settled in Vermont, despite his dislike of the West and material culture. Oddly enough, when Solzhenitsyn returned to Russia in 1994, he briefly hosted a TV talk show. 

Although parts of “The Russians” are inevitably dated, Smith’s deep insights into Russia and the Russian character make the book still very relevant today. It’s a shame that it’s out of print, it really deserves to be re-issued and enjoy wider circulation. Hedrick Smith is a great writer, and he crafts many memorable sentences throughout “The Russians.” One of my favorite passages is his spot-on comments about Soviet architecture:

“The newer subdivisions are a forest of massive prefab apartment blocks, numbing in their monotony (and duplicated in cities all across the country), pockmarked and graying with the instant aging that afflicts all Soviet architecture. They are left naked without grass or shrubbery or shutters or flower boxes, like fleets of dowdy ocean liners gone aground on some barren shore and dwarfing their passengers with their inhuman scale.” (p.140) 

Smith also uses as an epigraph for one of his chapters a very apt quote, which still does a good job of summing up Russia in the 21^st century:

“Russians have gloried in the very thing foreigners criticized them for-blind and boundless devotion to the will of the monarch, even when in his most insane flights he trampled underfoot all the laws of justice and humanity.” Nikolai Karamzin, Russian historian, 1766-1826. (p.320)

If you’re interested in Soviet history, or in Russian culture, Hedrick Smith’s “The Russians” is an excellent book that I would highly recommend.

Book Review: "Who Stole the American Dream?" by Hedrick Smith (2012)

"Who Stole the American Dream?" by Hedrick Smith, 2012.

Hedrick Smith

Hedrick Smith’s 2012 book “Who Stole the American Dream?” is a powerful look at the way things have shifted against the middle class over the last 40 years in America. It’s an important book that everyone interested in American politics or economics should read. 

Hedrick Smith is a veteran journalist who worked for The New York Times for 26 years. While he was with the Times Smith was a part of the team that broke the Pentagon Papers story and won a Pulitzer Prize in 1971. In 1974 Smith won the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for his stories reporting from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. His work in the Soviet Union was the basis for his 1976 best-seller “The Russians.” Smith’s other books include “The Power Game,” his seminal study of political power in Washington, D.C., “The New Russians,” and “Rethinking America.” Since retiring from The New York Times, Smith has produced many documentaries for PBS. 

I was an intern in Hedrick Smith’s office during the fall of 2001. While I was there I helped work on Smith’s documentary “Rediscovering Dave Brubeck,” which I would highly recommend to any jazz fan. While I interned at Hedrick Smith Productions, I saw first-hand Smith’s tireless work ethic and his dedication to journalism. He’s won two Pulitzer Prizes, but he’s not just resting on his laurels.

Smith’s reporting for “Who Stole the American Dream?” is deep and incisive. He weaves the threads of his story together very well, writing in clear prose that is easy to understand. The book covers a lot of ground, but Smith excels in presenting the reader with the most relevant points in each chapter. The book is separated into short sections that make for quick reading.

Smith does a great job of showing how many government policies over the last 40 years have favored the rich at the expense of the middle class and the poor. As Smith writes in the Prologue:

“This book sets out to describe how, over the past four decades, we came to this point-how we became two such polarized and dissimilar Americas, how the great economic and political divide affects the lives of individual Americans, and how we might, through changed policies and a revival of citizen action, restore our unity and reclaim the American Dream for average people.” (Prologue, p. xix) 

In the first chapter, Smith stresses the influence of the Powell Memorandum, which was a call by lawyer Lewis Powell in 1971 for increased activism of business to strength their position and influence within government. At the time, Powell was a corporate lawyer, but a few months later he would be named to the Supreme Court by President Richard Nixon. The Powell Memorandum was written to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and it was not meant for public consumption at the time. The memorandum said, in part, “Business must learn the lesson…that political power is necessary.” (P.7) During the 1970’s business interests would take Powell’s message to heart as they began to lobby Congress in much greater numbers than ever before. 

Smith then chronicles how the middle class grew and flourished in the decades following World War II, and how the middle class’s earnings have stagnated over the last 30 years. As he writes, “…while productivity was rising close to 3 percent a year, hourly wages of the average worker, adjusted for inflation, were essentially flat, the same in 2011 as in 1978. Three decades of getting nowhere.” (P.73)

But while the middle class has been treading water for 30 years, the wealthy have been getting richer and richer, as compensation for CEOs of companies has skyrocketed over the last 40 years. Smith writes, “In the 1970s, the Federal Reserve reported that chief executives at 102 major companies were paid $1.2 million on average, adjusted for inflation, or roughly 40 times an average full-time worker’s pay. But by the early 2000s, CEOs at big companies had enjoyed such a meteoric rise that their average compensation topped $9 million a year, or 367 times the pay of the average worker.” (P.59) CEOs certainly have a right to be well compensated for their work, but the way their pay has skyrocketed is outrageous. CEO stock options have also skyrocketed in the last few decades. The thought is that CEOs will do a better job of leading the company if they have more of a stake in that company. Which is rather ridiculous, as pure self-interest will keep a CEO doing their job as best they can. The suggestion that CEOs need the extra incentive provided by stock options to do the best for their company is absurd. 

Smith also writes about Congress, and how politicians are more beholden to special interests than actual voters. The reality of politics today is that money buys you access to a politician, and access gets you influence. And since special interests are contributing more to PACs than middle class and lower class voters, the special interests have more influence than ordinary voters. Gun control is a recent example of an issue where the majority of people want action, but Congress was unable and unwilling to do anything substantive on the issue. The will of a majority was thwarted by a powerful minority. 

Smith details how Congress used to work in the 1950’s and 1960’s, as politicians from both parties would frequently work together to craft legislation. Compromise was essential, and there were more moderate politicians in both parties. In contrast, Congress now is extremely dysfunctional, and is barely able to pass any kind of legislation. Compromise has become a dirty word. Filibusters, and the threat of them, have become much more common. Thomas Mann of the Brookings Institution says of the Senate: “In the 1960s, about 8 percent of significant legislation was subject to delaying tactics like filibusters or holds. It is now about 70 percent. Obstructionism is now the hallmark of the Senate.” (P. 322) 

 While it’s true that Democrats have become slightly more liberal, it’s also very true that the Republican Party has shifted steadily to the right since the 1960’s. Moderate Republicans are now an endangered species. One of the key moments in the Republican Party’s shift to the right was the 1964 nomination of Barry Goldwater as the Republican candidate for President. Smith and other authors have highlighted this turning point as the moment when the right wing started to take over the party. Even though Goldwater lost to Lyndon Johnson in a landslide, it was the moment when the right wing first asserted itself. When moderate Republican Nelson Rockefeller was booed by Goldwater supporters at the 1964 convention, it marked the beginning of a huge change in the Republican Party. 

In Part 4 of the book, Smith discusses many of the things that have caused the middle class to lose their wealth, from the subprime mortgage crisis, to Wal-Mart and other companies moving good jobs overseas. There was a time when companies were actually concerned about the welfare of their employees. Now the focus is often only on the bottom line of the balance sheet.

“Who Stole the American Dream?” is a book that should make you angry. It should make you think about what’s happened in the country over the last 40 years, and how the wealth disparity in this country is growing larger and larger. You should get indignant about the status quo as you read this book. My high school Social Studies teacher Mr. Anderson would always say to us “Be indignant!” He wanted us to have a reaction to current events, and Hedrick Smith wants us to have a similar reaction to his book.

In the final section of “Who Stole the American Dream?” Smith focuses on possible solutions to the problem and how we can rebuild the middle class. None of the solutions he proposes are easy, and none of them will be a quick fix. Some of them require direct citizen action. It might not be easy, but there are ways that we can change things in this country and take action to help rebuild the middle class. 

Personally, I think that Hedrick Smith hit the nail on the head with “Who Stole the American Dream?” He accurately diagnoses many of the maladies that plague our country today. He describes how we’ve gotten there over the last 40 years, and what can be done to change it. We would all do well to listen to him.