Steve Smith
In this beautifully crafted and deeply researched book, Diane P. Koenker explores with characteristic subtlety the social world of Soviet printers, reconstructing their responses to the drama of revolution and socialist modernization. In the richest study to date of the meanings of class in the Soviet Union, she reveals the complexity of printers' identities, engaging with issues of production, consumption, 'participatory dictatorship,' gender, generation, language and culture. It is a wonderful achievement.
Christine D. Worobec
In a compelling and erudite exploration of the multiplicity of printers' voices and identities, Diane P. Koenker examines the ways in which printers fashioned a masculine working-class culture that co-opted some elements of the proletarian ideal but rejected others as they sought to preserve their individualism, boisterous behavior, and quest for material security. The focus on workers' everyday resistance to and negotiation with the regime challenges traditional understandings of NEP and the so-called 'Great Turn' in significant ways.
Daniel Orlovsky
Diane P. Koenker applies the categories of labor history, classical and post-modern, to life under socialism in the Soviet 1920s. Through the experience of printers, Koenker explores working-class organizations, identities, cultures, and relationships to authority. Koenker proves that the printers managed to maintain a sense of class identity in the face of mounting state claims that often denied them the fruits of their own proletarian revolution.
