Organising Utopia; whip and gingerbread; party guidance; Soviet Parnassus; crimes and punishments; purity and profit; the threat of glasnost; the promise of perestroika. Appendix: facts and figures.

The USSR's Writer's Union, a form of cultural and political organization unknown in the West, has ruled every aspect of Russian writers' private and professional lives from the time of Stalin to the present day. This sophisticated and detailed study shows how the union has operated over the last five decades.