Andrei Amalrik
Andrei Amalrik was a prominent Soviet dissident and writer, born on May 12, 1938, in Moscow, into a family deeply affected by the repressive policies of Joseph Stalin. His father, a World War II general, was imprisoned for criticizing Stalin, while other family members also faced severe consequences for opposing the regime. Amalrik pursued history at Moscow University but was expelled for his views, notably after his dissertation challenged the official narrative of Russian cultural heritage. In 1965, he was arrested and sentenced to exile for "parasitism," although he was a recognized writer caring for his ailing father.
Amalrik is best known for his influential essay "Will the Soviet Union Survive to 1984?" where he argued that the Soviet bureaucracy was bloated and lacked revolutionary spirit, predicting the system's eventual decay. His insights into the potential conflicts with China and the Soviet Union's decline were notably prescient. In addition to his political and historical writings, he expressed a passion for theater, influenced by absurdist playwrights. After being expelled from the Soviet Union in 1976, Amalrik lived in various countries until his untimely death in a car accident in 1980, an event that raised suspicions among his supporters.
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Andrei Amalrik
Author
- Born: May 12, 1938
- Birthplace: Moscow, Russia
- Died: November 12, 1980
- Place of death: Guadalajara, Spain
Biography
Born in Moscow on May 12, 1938, Andrei Amalrik came from a family of Soviet dissidents. His father, a Soviet general in World War II, criticized Joseph Stalin for his mishandling of the war, most especially in the dictator’s purge of the officer corps, which had led to critical strategic errors and numerous Soviet defeats. Even with the German army at the gates of Moscow, Stalin arrested the elder Amalrik and sent him to a concentration camp in 1941. A shortage of officers, however, caused him to be repatriated the following year and sent to the battle of Stalingrad, a deciding battle in the war, in which he valiantly proved himself a hero of the state. Two of Amalrik’s uncles were also arrested by Stalin: One was executed and the other was sent to a prison camp. Thus the younger Amalrik grew to manhood knowing much about the dangers inherent in opposing the Soviet state. In 1959, he enrolled at Moscow University and majored in history, as his father had done before him. The university expelled him, however, when, after writing a brilliant dissertation on the influence of Norse culture on Russian civilization, he ran afoul of officials for failure to follow the party line recognizing Russian culture as a product solely of the Slavic peoples. In 1965, the State arrested Amalrik for “parasitism” (having no regular employment) and sentenced him to two and a half years of exile and hard labor in Siberia. He was found guilty even though he was a writer, a legitimate occupation, and still cared for his invalid father. He returned to Moscow in 1966, when the courts reversed the decision. Three years later, Amakrik wrote the work for which would be famous: Will the Soviet Union Survive to 1984?, in which he changed the title’s date from 1980 to 1984 in order to suggest George Orwell’s famous work, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949). Arguing that the Soviet Union’s bureaucracy was too large and had lost its revolutionary zeal, Amalrik compared his own country to China, which, he suggested, would go through the same failures. He predicted a war between the two giant nations, one caused by expansion and the need for greater resources. His conclusions regarding the decay and collapse of the Soviet Union proved correct in numerous ways; his thesis was incorrect only in its prediction of the cause war with China. Besides political and historical essays, Amalrik possessed a love for theater, influenced most especially by the absurdists Eugene Ionesco and Samuel Beckett. He wrote several plays and poems. His poetry deals with the Russia’s pleasant people, their love for the earth, and their simple values. When the Soviet Union expelled him in 1976, he and wife lived in the Netherlands, France, and the United States. At a political conference in Spain in 1980, Amalrik died in a car accident, which many of his supporters regarded as suspicious.
