Red Plenty: Inside the Fifties' Soviet Dream, By Francis Spufford
Dreamers of the world, united
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.As odd as it sounds today, there was a time in the late Fifties when it seemed as though the USSR, freed from Stalin's authoritarian grip, would beat capitalism at its own game, and socialists around the world allowed themselves to dream of a futuristic utopia.
In Red Plenty, the historian Francis Spufford weaves fact and fiction to conjure the moment when communism was in the ascendant. The book is rigorously researched and inventively conceived, but the author, like the Marxist mathematicians whose stories he tells, often gets bogged down in the dull fine print of the planned economy. Cold War enthusiasts will be enthralled, but casual readers get little (surplus) value for their money.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments