In the years following Stalin’s death in 1953, a new phenomenon emerged within the Soviet Union: so-called 'dissidents'. Preferring to think of themselves as 'rights defenders', these individuals advocated a form of 'civil obedience' – a demand that the state abide by its own constitution and the basic rights and freedoms it promised on paper. Historian Benjamin Nathans speaks to Danny Bird about his Cundill Prize-nominated book To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause, which examines this extraordinary movement.
Find out more about the Cundill History Prize
Benjamin Nathans is the author of To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement (Princeton University Press, 2024)
