In his novel The Noise of Time, Julian Barnes depicts the Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich as “a man standing by a lift, at his feet a small case containing cigarettes, underwear and tooth powder; standing there and waiting to be taken away”. He knows that it will soon be his turn to be arrested by Stalin’s secret police and is prepared for it.
Power in the Soviet Union had been seized by many who were uneducated and coarse, driven by a vindictiveness amplified by the sense that they were merely taking what was rightfully theirs. Shostakovich, along with writers such as Leonid Andreyev, Ivan Bunin, Alja Rachmanowa and others left strikingly similar depictions of the upheaval caused by the Stalinist purges: society was divided and riven by fear, anxiety, acts of revenge, lists of inconvenient people, destruction. Brute force prevailed over talent, expertise and education. The winner took all.
