Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was unexpectedly confronted by a dissident movement that captured the world鈥檚 imagination. Demanding that the Kremlin obey its own laws, an improbable band of Soviet citizens held unauthorized public gatherings, petitioned in support of arrested intellectuals, and circulated banned samizdat texts. Soviet authorities arrested dissidents, subjected them to bogus trials and vicious press campaigns, sentenced them to psychiatric hospitals and labor camps, sent them into exile鈥攁nd transformed them into martyred heroes. Against all odds, the dissident movement undermined the Soviet system and unexpectedly hastened its collapse. Taking its title from a toast made at dissident gatherings, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause is a definitive history of a remarkable group of people who helped change the twentieth century.
An extraordinary account of the Soviet dissident movement, Nathan鈥檚 book also shows how dissidents spearheaded the struggle to break free of the USSR鈥檚 totalitarian past, a struggle that continues in Putin鈥檚 Russia鈥攁nd that is deeply entangled with European society today.
Benjamin Nathans, who has just won the 2025 Pulitzer Prize will be speaking with Maike Lehmann.