The House of Government

The epic story of an enormous Soviet apartment building where Communist true believers lived before their destruction

The House of Government is unlike any other book about the Russian Revolution and the Soviet experiment. Written in the tradition of Tolstoy's War and Peace, Grossman's Life and Fate, and Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, Yuri Slezkine's gripping narrative tells the chilling true story of an enormous Moscow apartment building where Soviet leaders and their families lived until hundreds of these Bolshevik true believers were led, one by one, to prison or to their deaths in Stalin's purges. Drawing on letters, diaries, and interviews with survivors, and featuring hundreds of rare photographs, this epic story weaves together biography, literary criticism, architectural history, and fascinating new theories of revolutions, millennial prophecies, and reigns of terror. The result is an unforgettable saga of a building that, like the Soviet Union itself, became a haunted house, forever disturbed by the ghosts of the disappeared.

"Written in the tradition of Tolstoy's War and Peace, Grossman's Life and Fate, and Solzhenitsyn's The Gulag Archipelago, Yuri Slezkine's ... narrative tells the true story of the residents of an enormous Moscow apartment building where top Communist officials and their families lived before they were destroyed in Stalin's purges. [An] ... account of the personal and public lives of Bolshevik true believers, the book begins with their conversion to Communism and ends with their children's loss of faith and the fall of the Soviet Union"--Provided by publisher.
Yuri Slezkine is the Jane K. Sather Professor of History at the University of California, Berkeley. His books include The Jewish Century (Princeton), which won the National Jewish Book Award.
Honorable Mention for the 2019 Laura Shannon Prize in Contemporary European Studies, Nanovic Institute, University of Notre Dame
One of the Economist.com Wise Words 2017 Books of the Year in History
One of the Millions.com "A Year in Reading 2017: Stephen Dodson"
One of the Times Colonist Favorite Books of 2017 (chosen by Adrian Dix)
One of London Review Bookshop's Best History Books, Christmas 2017
One of Mosaic's Best Books of 2018 (Ruth Wisse)
One of Open Letters Monthly's "Our Year in Reading 2017
One of The Australian's Books of the Year 2017 (chosen by Louis Nowra)
One of The Guardian's Best Books of 2017
One of The New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2017
One of The Spectator 2017 Books of the Year
One of The Times Literary Supplement's Books of the Year 2017
One of World's 2017 Books of the Year in "History"
Selected as a New York Times Editors' Choice, Aug 24, 2017
Selected for Le Monde's "Monde des livres" 2017 (chosen by Nicolas Weill)
Shortlisted for the 2018 Pushkin House Russian Book Prize
Winner of the 2018 George L. Mosse Prize, American Historical Association
Winner of the 2018 Norris and Carol Hundley Award, Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association
Winner of the 2018 PROSE Award in World History, Association of American Publishers