Red Plenty - Francis Spufford



If I told you that one of the dramatic highlights of Red Plenty is an upgrade to a Siberian viscose works, you might jump to the conclusion that it has niche appeal. But thanks to the literary wizardry of Francis Spufford this event is genuinely an enthralling plot point, and only one of many he uses to bring to life how Russian society operated in the Khrushchev era.

As if the subject wasn't risky enough, Spufford decided not to write the conventional history he was planning and instead made what he describes as a "Russian fairytale", a kind of heightened-reality novelisation of history. It may sound unappealingly quirky but it works brilliantly because it's a perfect fit for the story he's telling. It could easily have ended up like one of those TV history shows where actors prance about in period costume while a voiceover explains what's really going on, but it is much more immersive than that. There are real lives being lived here, albeit fairytale real lives.

This is a story about the whole of Russian society, from the Politburo to the collective farms, from the central planners to the maternity wards. But above all it is a story about the scientists and engineers who believed that they could make the planned economy work, and make the Soviet Union the richest country in the world, if only their cybernetic theories were put into practice. For a time it looked like they might get their chance, and Red Plenty charts how hopes rose that they really could overtake the West, as well as how their dream eventually unravelled.

Everything about this book is fascinating, up to and including the copious endnotes, where Spufford describes where he has deviated from reality and elaborates on the economic and mathematical ideas of the time. And to top it all, there are plenty of Soviet Jokes.

The Red Plenty website is at redplenty.com.

Comments

  1. In Soviet Russia, economic and mathematical ideas elaborate you.

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