"Satter explores the moral and spiritual crisis of Russian society. He shows how it is possible for a government to deny the inherent value of its citizens and for the population to agree, and why so many Russians actually mourn the passing of the Soviet regime that denied them fundamental rights. Through a wide-ranging consideration of attitudes toward the living and the dead, the past and the present, the state and the individual, Satter arrives at a distinctive and important new way of understanding the Russian experience." -- From publisher's description.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 307-364) and index.

The statue of Dzerzhinsky Efforts to remember Butovo and Kommunarka St. Petersburg The appeal of communism The responsibility of the state The trial of the communist party

Moral choice under totalitarianism The roots of the communist idea Symbols of the past History The shadow of Katyn Vorkuta The odyssey of Andrei Poleshchuk.