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Title: A classic reminder of the Soviet system
Review: As in his more famous "Life and Fate," Grossman does a brilliant job getting into the minds of a variety of Soviet characters who are forced to deal with Stalin's brutal system and its aftermath. It is enlightening for those of us in the West to realize that, unlike the Germans after the fall of Hitler, the Russian people never had "closure" with their even bloodier past. Grossman shows us the thinking, not only of the released prisoners of the gulag, but the soul-searching of the men and women who denounced them or who merely stood by.
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