This is a monumental novel, worthy of the description that has sometimes been applied to it of being the twentieth century's War and Peace. It details a range of suffering and cruelties, both large and petty, on all sides. Many of the day to day details of Stalinism are here: the constant presence of denunciations and the way small events can make or break someone's life, such as the central character of Viktor Shtrum falling due to his contacts with non-Russian scientists and then rising after a telephone call from Stalin praising his work, or Krymov being arrested and beaten up despite his years of loyal service and belief in the cause. Other particularly memorable sequences include the gas chamber scenes and the dialogue between a Nazi officer and Soviet prisoner Mostovskoy as the former tries and nearly succeeds in convincing his captive that Nazism and Communism are marching in the same direction.
I generally find descriptions of actual battle scenes fairly tedious to read, but they are there as they should be and due attention is paid to the significance of Stalingrad as the turning point in leading to the defeat of Nazism.
From the Soviet regime's point of view it is hardly surprising Suslov told Grossman it could not be published for 200 years as it goes well beyond criticism of Stalin and destroys the whole raison d'etre of the Soviet regime. In this respect it goes beyond the much better known Doktor Zhivago, an excellent novel but probably more famous in the West very largely because of the superb David Lean film. For me, Life and Fate tops Pasternak's novel as the best Russian novel of the Soviet era.
