Book Description

The anthology Voices From The Past by the late Russian immigrant writer Orest M. Gladky presents a six-part collection of short stories preserving facts and thoughts about the tumultuous history of Russia—Soviet Union from 1917 to 1971. In the first Part of this stirring collection, “In Whose Name?”, stories follow the period when the civil war engulfed the Motherland and the White Army volunteers are defending Holy Russia from the Reds. In “The Dispossessed,” stories describe tragic times when Stalin reneges on the promise of the revolution—All land to the peasants—and launches an onslaught on peasants through forced farm collectivization and deportation of millions to Siberia. Stories in “I Believe” tell how the Communists imposed Marxist dogma to eradicate belief in God, they close churches, kill and send clergymen to the concentration camps and conduct relentless anti-religious propaganda. In the fourth part State secret police watchdogs relentlessly hound “The Enemies of the People” and send millions without trial to prisons and gulags. In “The Humdrum Life in Socialist Paradise” stories capture snapshots of ordinary citizens’ days in the Socialist-Communist state and their struggle to survive under Soviet rule and Bolshevik dictatorship. The last Part, “Behind the Iron Curtain,” tells with wry humor stories about events after World War Two, Cold War Years, and Collective Leadership in Soviet Union.