Keeping Faith with the Party

Adler's insightful analyses of the views and attitudes of Communist camp survivors not just demonstrate, but help to understand the profound effects of Soviet ideology on those who had adopted it. They underscore that a central source of the Soviet system's power, stability, and tenacity lay in the immaterial promise inherent in this ideology – the promise of answers to individuals' quest for meaning and purpose.

* H-Soz-u-Kult *

In sum, this is a beautifully written book that should be read by all serious scholars of the post-Stalin Soviet Union.

* Slavic Review *

Through her own interviews with survivors, as well as an examination of published and unpublished memoirs, Adler astutely argues that these experiences are important for understanding how and why the memory of Stalin's Terrror and the Gulag remains ambivalent today. . . . Recommended.

* Choice *

Nanci Adler continues her impressive research into life after the Gulag in her latest monograph, Keeping Faith with the Party. . . . In the burgeoning field of Gulag studies, Adler's book is a welcomed reminder that we still have much to learn from the memoirs themselves, even as we continue to mine the archives for useful information.

* The Russian Review *

Adler's book is bustling with creativity and ideas. It is a welcome addition to the excellent scholarship on this period for anyone with an interest in trauma, memory and the search for a useable past.

* European History Quarterly *

With a deft and sympathetic touch, Adler paints vivid portraits of survivors who made sense of their own fate by clinging to a belief in the worthiness of the Communist cause and the virtue of the Soviet Communist Party.

* Gulag Studi