Dancing on Thin Ice

Arkady Polishchuk’s memoir of life as a Russian dissident uses an icepick forged of sardonic wit and personal experience to pierce deep into the hide of the Soviet system. [...] The book takes a sharp look at the dysfunction of the [U.S.S.R.], offering details that no one in the West could imagine. [...] An important memoir by a fearless man.
– Susan Waggoner, Foreword Reviews
How did a Soviet Jewish dissident, raised an atheist communist, come to be a powerful voice on behalf of Russian evangelical Christians? […] It’s a true story of Cold War bravery and danger.
– Howard Lovy, Publishers Weekly
Dancing on Thin Ice is a book by a dissident about dissidents. Arkady Polishchuk helped to break the silence of Western politicians and recognize the plight of persecuted Evangelicals in the Soviet Union. The memoir tells us about past events, about the KGB use of media outlets, but its subject certainly does not belong to history. It remains relevant today, while dissidents in different countries continue their struggle for human rights and liberty, their own and ours.
– Dr. Yuri Yarim-Agaev, Scientist and human rights activist; Member, Moscow Helsinki Group; President, Center for Democracy in the USSR
Skillfully written and a page-turner, Arkady Polishchuk's memoir is about making a free man out of a slave and about the price an individual is prepared to pay for his freedom in today's tumultuous world. It helps to understand the processes taking place in modern Russia and its internal and external policies, including the aggressive attempts being made to revive Russia as a superpower. As an elite Russian journalist, Arkady Polishchuk rebelled and, despite facing formidable forces of the state secret police, found himself fighting the brutal regime. Among unique factors of his life were working with Soviet spies, attending anti-Semitic trials and at the same time collecting information on the persecution of Russian Evangelicals. Polishchuk's is a unique story, a Russian Jew dedicating his life to help his Russian Evangelical friends, and even working for a time with an American Evangelical mission.
– Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky, candidate for the Russian Presidency in 2008 and author of To Build a Castle: My Life as a Dissenter -- Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovsky
Polishchuk describes much of his life with a chuckle. He says that the book is, in part, meant to convey the absurdity of the Soviet experience. But he acknowledges the deadly serious stakes dissidents and religious groups — like the evangelical Christian community he came to sympathize with — faced under the Communist Party. [...] Polischuk became a vocal advocate for evangelical Christians in Russia through his career as a journalist and lecturer working with Radio Free Europe and Amnesty International.
– Washington Jewish Week
The author has a tenacious eye, magnificent sense of humor, and deep understanding of the realities of Russian life under the rule of both Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. Even for me, who was an active participant in the dissident and Zionist movements in the USSR of those years, many of the events described here by the author were novelties. Dancing on Thin Ice is exciting and mentally stimulating reading.
– Eduard Kuznetsov, author of Prison Diaries
The books that really stimulated thinking and kept me up at night countless times are those I take personally. [...] I recognize the settings, I commiserate with people, I know how horrible it is to feel stuck there. I could not sleep after The Russians by Hedrick Smith; Putin’s Russia by Anna Politkovskaya; and Dancing On Thin Ice by Arkady Polishchuk [...] The depressing surroundings of Polishchuk’s life might be hard to believe for a Western person—but it is re-counted with such journalistic vision and style that reading the book is both enlightening and entertaining.
– Fiona Citkin, Thrive Global
[He writes] with literary skill worthy of an I. J. Singer. [...] No dry facts or a brief review of his books could ever capture Arkady’s luminous nature.
—Juliana Geron Pilon, Israel Journal of Foreign Affairs