In this historically authentic novel, the author speaks about a child, born into the tumult of World War II, who grows up in the harsh tyranny of the Soviet Union. In detail, it describes formation of the child’s character under conditions of totalitarianism. The book presents many dramatic and didactic episodes of everyday life of young and mature ordinary people who live in the socialist system. The book tells how it is possible for a child to develop an independent and freedom-loving character despite the realities of country, which lives according Marxism-Leninism principles. The author closely follows life of the main hero; thoughtfully focusing on the ways in which the hero’s perilous circumstances expedited his maturation from cheerful youth to wise adolescent. The hero eventually discovers his father is really an anti-Communist, and furthermore he learns about the cruel dysfunction of Soviet authoritarianism and rampant anti-Semitism. The author sharply parses the elitist hypocrisy that under-girded the Soviet Union’s propaganda about egalitarian sacrifice—while so much of the country starve, a small ruling portion lives like rubber barons.
