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1-Page Summary of Secondhand Time
Overview
If you suddenly found out everything you knew was wrong, how would you feel? How would your memory of the past change? What new things could you learn from this experience to help adapt to a new world order?
This is exactly what happened to the people of Russia. They were born into a society governed by a Communist regime that upheld state ideology as though it were religious doctrine and suppressed other views. In a short period in the early 1990s, that entire structure vanished. This should have been a relief, right? Here we’ll get to know the feelings of the people who lived through the transition from Soviet Union to Russia and other states when Communism died out. From interviews conducted between 1991 and 2012, we glean fascinating insights into ordinary people’s lives during this time period. These are voices usually left out of history books or forgotten after major events take place; they’re also not often heard in our own country’s political debates today with all their talk about socialism vs capitalism (a debate which is largely meaningless because both systems ultimately lead us down similar paths).
The author will explain why the victims of the Soviet gulags continued to support Communism, even after they were released from their labor camps. He’ll also discuss how people chose suicide at the fall of the Soviet Union and how one man continued to drink vodka with his colleague who had made his life hell.
Big Idea #1: Perestroika brought monumental changes to Soviet Russia.
On August 19, 1991, a group known as the General Committee on State Emergency (GKChP) attempted to stage a coup in Moscow while President Mikhail Gorbachev was away. However, they failed and thousands of people took to the streets to protest against the GKChP.
Soon enough, the soldiers sided with the protesters, and Gorbachev’s government backed down. He had his vice president arrested on charges of treason. The next day, he dissolved the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This ended communism in Russia forever.
For many years, Russia had been going through a process of reform. This period was called perestroika. In 1991, the Soviet Union dissolved and this led to economic hardship in some countries that were part of it.
Let’s review. Perestroika began in 1985, and Gorbachev launched reforms to open up the political system.
Imagine if you lived in Moscow when the Soviet Union collapsed. You would have felt like a weight was lifted off your shoulders as censorship ended and books were published again. It seemed like things were going to be better, but Russia is big and it wasn’t just made up of city slickers. Most people lived in villages and held their Communist values close to heart.
The people who were against perestroika couldn’t have predicted what happened after the coup and dissolution of the Communist Party. Instead of evolving into a humane socialism, they veered headfirst and unprepared into a different world: capitalism.
Big Idea #2: Even today the effects of perestroika divide Russians.
The author wanted to hear from people who had experienced communism first-hand. She found that many Russians were deeply upset about the system, even though they acknowledged it was not perfect. For example, there were informants and labor camps, but on the other hand, there was also compassion and camaraderie. The author interviewed a woman named Elena Yurievna who saw both sides of communism because she lived through it herself as a secretary in Moscow at the time.
The Soviet Union was dissolved when Yeltsin became president. He gave power to the elite, which brought about a new era of capitalism. It is different from what Elena is used to because it values money over other things like art or literature. However, there are people who think that Gorbachev didn’t accomplish his goals and led them astray by starting perestroika, but Anna thinks differently. She remembers the time before perestroika fondly and still respects him for trying to make their country better.
