Benjamin Nathans, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement

Benjamin Nathans' groundbreaking work, 'To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause,' reveals that the Soviet dissident movement, emerging from 1965 to 1985, was a strategic and legally grounded challenge to the regime. Nathans demonstrates that activists, led by figures like Alexander Esenin-Volpin, used Soviet legal frameworks, particularly demands for open trials and transparency, to expose the regime's hypocrisy. This approach, rooted in mathematical logic and cybernetics, confounded authorities accustomed to violence or conspiracy, leading to a 'chain reaction' of protests, petitions, and samizdat publications. The movement's resilience, despite severe repression—including psychiatric abuse and exile—culminated in symbolic acts like the 1968 Red Square demonstration against the Prague Spring invasion, foreshadowing Gorbachev's later glasnost reforms. Nathans' meticulous integration of memoirs, samizdat documents, KGB reports, and interviews constructs a nuanced narrative that underscores the movement's legal ingenuity and enduring impact on Soviet politics.

Rubenstein, J. (2025). Benjamin Nathans, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement. Journal of Cold War Studies, 27(3), 295–302. https://doi.org/10.1162/jcws.r.49