Editorial Review: The Soviet Network by Amerigo Merenda

The Soviet Network, by Amerigo Merenda, is a historical novel about the collapse of the Soviet Union. This is simultaneously a tense spy novel about a secret, underground network, working against the all-seeing Soviet government, as well as a message book highlighting governmental mistakes.

In this novel, readers meet resistors against the powerful state. Even though all readers go in knowing that the USSR was dissolved, readers don’t know whether these individual resistors will survive and flourish, accomplish their goals and escape Russia with their loved ones, or if they’ll face horrific consequences for their actions against the state, so it’s a tense historical novel with danger and twists. The KGB is a formidable enemy in this book, as the resistors risk their life and safety against a totalitarian regime. The Soviet Network has many elements of a successful, tense spy thriller while leading to larger social questions.

The setting is where this novel shines. There’s a commitment to the details of daily Soviet life that worked well to set the scenes about family and romantic relationships into a broader historical context. Readers discover the wide gaps between the oligarchs, party members with power, and the struggling workers. International fiction, in general, allows readers to learn about a new culture and lifestyle, and the descriptions here of different aspects of Soviet life and of the lengths these rebels would go to for social change, demonstrate that for readers. Because the setting is so vivid, particularly the fears of surveillance and secret police, we are invited to consider how we would feel and act in similar circumstances.

Readers can enjoy this for the tense story and the complicated, often conflicted relationships between the characters, but at the same time, it’s clearly a book with a message to readers. The Soviet Network draws comparisons between the USSR and the current American government, guiding readers to appreciate the American democratic system. By using a fictionalized account of real political structures and historical events, this novel aims to show the value of democracy and individual freedom. At times, the author more directly compares the current situation in the United States to the historical situation in Russia, and asks more direct questions of the reader. This book highlights class differences in both countries, between wealthy and struggling citizens, and then asks readers to consider the values and morals that created these gaps. Through the experiences and goals of fictional characters, the novel expresses the real value of personal freedom. This is a message novel and not a textbook, though, and can just be enjoyed as a story of rebels against the state.

Overall,The Soviet Network is a thought-provoking historical novel, with thriller elements and moral questions. Good fiction can open minds by introducing readers to customs, beliefs, and values found in a different society, and by reading these kinds of novels, readers can learn not just facts about other countries, but consider wider questions of how and why. With so many shadowy villains in general Cold War spy fiction, it was particularly interesting to be led to consider nuanced beliefs in this novel, and to think about real lives in the USSR.