Writers such as Pasternak and Akhmatova were privately revered in these circles. But the real thaw began under the leadership of Nikita Khrushchev. The World Youth Festival in Moscow in 1957 produced an orgy, sometimes literally, of contacts with thousands of visiting foreigners including from the capitalist West. In a society where such meetings had been as unlikely as a total solar eclipse, that had a huge impact. So did a freer press: the hard-hitting mass-market newspaper,Izvestia, and brainy, liberal-minded periodicals such as Novy Mir. As cultural iconoclasm swelled, Stalinist clichés (and the hacks who produced them) began to tumble.

Other controversies raged too, such as “lyrics v physics”. One camp believed that science would perfect society. The other sought answers from art and literature. Disagreement over that ended friendships and marriages. As the mental wounds of terror and war began to heal, the hardy survivors of the 1930s began to speak more freely to their young counterparts. Growing knowledge of the lies and crimes of the past barely shook the new intelligentsia’s faith in the Soviet system. Their world view was still Marxist, their patriotism genuine. Yet in their self-awareness and sense of mission, Zhivago’s children began to resemble the Russian intelligentsia of a century before.

Mr Zubok poignantly details the lengthy and bitter decline that followed. The earthy Khrushchev resented the cultural elite’s pretensions. Party bureaucrats saw them as subversive. The crushing of the Prague Spring destroyed faith in the Soviet system, and the intelligentsia splintered. A growing camp favoured Russian traditions and even chauvinism, denouncing the others as disloyal and cosmopolitan (and Jewish). Some writers collaborated out of cowardice or cynicism; others emigrated. A lonely few became dissidents, focusing intensely on support from the West, largely detached from everyday life in their own country. Similar divisions remain in Russia now.

... contd.