Children of the Arbat

I'm reading this, a paperback my husband found going through boxes in his parents' storage unit in Nashville--he bought it for a class in college.

Anyway, the book itself is very engaging. It's about the Soviet Union in the early '30s, just as Stalin is beginning his reign of terror. And it's making me tremendously grateful to be an American. How very sad; from everything I've read, NOTHING CHANGED in that country. They still had a stratified society with one ruler whose will was law; they simply called him Comrade instead of Tzar.