True. With Gennady and Sofia, she could tell herself that they betrayed both country and cause to the Americans. But this man wasn‘t, and together with Philip reminding her what they originally had signed up for and how following orders always was a choice she really had the question staring her in the face - how was this murder of a comrade (literally) in any way justified by her old ideals?
It‘s also a generational difference, I think. Gabriel followed orders even if that meant killing a friend he knew to be innocent. He lived to regret it, but he did it, like anyone in the Stalin era who remained within the system and survived. And Claudia was formed by the same era. Philip and Elizabeth are a generation later - that brief glimpse of Gorbachev on tv reminded me of him mentioning in his memoirs that the rumors about Chruschev’s speech at the 22nd Party Congress denouncing Stalin were one of THE big experiences/revelations for him as a young man.
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timeasmymeasure
Re: My review
Date: 2018-05-17 03:21 pm (UTC)It‘s also a generational difference, I think. Gabriel followed orders even if that meant killing a friend he knew to be innocent. He lived to regret it, but he did it, like anyone in the Stalin era who remained within the system and survived. And Claudia was formed by the same era. Philip and Elizabeth are a generation later - that brief glimpse of Gorbachev on tv reminded me of him mentioning in his memoirs that the rumors about Chruschev’s speech at the 22nd Party Congress denouncing Stalin were one of THE big experiences/revelations for him as a young man.