Why didn’t we put Stalin on trial? I’ll tell you why… In order to condemn Stalin, you’d have to condemn your friends and relatives along with him. The people closest to you. I’ll tell you about my own family. My father was arrested in 1937 and, thank God, came back after doing ten years in the camps. He returned eager to live. He himself was amazed that he still wanted to after everything that he’d seen. This wasn’t the case with everyone, not by a long shot…My generation grew up with fathers who’d either returned from the camps or the war. The only thing they could tell us about was violence. Death. They rarely laughed and were mostly silent. They drank…and drank…until they finally drank themselves to death. The other option…the people who were never arrested spent their whole lives fearing arrest. This wouldn’t be for a month or two, it would go on for years—years! And if they didn’t get time, they’d wonder, “Why did they arrest everybody but me? What am I doing wrong?” They could put you in prison or they could put you to work for the NKVD.

The party requests, the party commands. It’s not a pleasant choice to have to make, but many were forced to make it. As for the executioners…the everyday ones, not the monsters… our neighbor Yuri turned out to have been the one who informed on my father. For nothing, as my mother would say. I was seven. Yuri would take me and his kids fishing and horseback riding. He’d mend our fence. You end up with a completely different picture of what an executioner is like—just a regular person, even a decent one…a normal guy…They arrested my father, then a few months later, they took his brother. When Yeltsin came to power, I got a copy of his file, which included several informants’ reports. It turned out that one of them had been written by Aunt Olga…his niece. A beautiful woman, full of joy…a good singer…By the time I found out, she was already old. I asked her, “Aunt Olga, tell me about 1937.” “That was the happiest year of my life. I was in love.” My father’s brother never returned. Vanished. We still don’t know whether it was in jail or the camps. It was hard for me, but I asked her the question that had been tormenting me, “Aunt Olga, why did you do it?” “Show me an honest person who survived Stalin’s time.” [He is silent.] Then there was Uncle Pavel who served in the NKVD in Siberia…When it comes down to it, there is no such thing as chemically pure evil. It’s not just Stalin and Beria, it’s also our neighbor Yuri and beautiful Aunt Olga.