The October Revolution of 1917 began the movement towards what became the USSR. Socially, culturally, and geopolitically, everything changed. And those changes had a worldwide impact. Crime fiction that takes place during the Soviet years shows what Soviet life was like and can give the reader a sense of that time, place, and culture.

For example, William Ryan has written a series featuring Moscow CID Captain Alexei Korolev. In the first novel, The Holy Thief, it’s 1937, and World War II looms on the horizon. Stalin is firmly in command, and any hint of disagreement with the government, with Soviet life, or with Stalin can get a person arrested. People are encouraged to denounce friends, family members, and work colleagues, so no-one can really be trusted. Against this background, Korolev is tasked to show that there is no crime in the Soviet Union, because everyone’s needs are met. That proves to be difficult when a body is found in a church. Korolev will have to work very carefully and quietly to solve this case, and he’s expected to find the answers the government wants. If not, he faces terrible consequences. Throughout the series, Korolev must balance solving crimes (to show that Soviet justice keeps people safe) with avoiding embarrassing the government (in case anyone in the Party is implicated). It’s a difficult and dangerous task.

Catherine Merridale’s Moscow Underground takes us to 1934 Moscow. Stalin is consolidating his power, and everyone knows that those who fall afoul of him or his inner circle risk everything. A new subway system is being constructed, so workers can get to their jobs more efficiently. In the course of building the subway, the body of an academic called Andrei Dovlatov is discovered. He’d been consulting with the government on certain relics and other prized antiques, but he’s been brutally murdered. A minor legal bureaucrat called Anton Markovich is persuaded to ask some questions about the murder. It’s first believed that a fifteen-year-old delinquent called Fedor Limonchik is responsible, but Markovich doesn’t think it’s as simple as that. As he looks into the matter, Markovich finds several dangerous smugglers and other criminals who want nothing more than to hide the matter. Any one of them could be the killer. And always, the secret police are ready to arrest anyone they deem as ‘dangerous.’ So Markovich will have to investigate carefully.

In Tom Rob Smith’s Child 44, the first of his Demidov trilogy, we meet MGB Agent Leo Demidov. As a State Security Agent, his job is to carry out whatever arrests he is told to make. Thus far, he’s always done what he was told, and he’s more or less a ‘model citizen.’ But this is 1945, in Stalin’s Soviet Union, and anyone can be denounced, arrested, and imprisoned, or far worse. So when Demidov finds himself on the wrong side of some important people, he and his wife Raisa are banished to a small town, where they have to make do with nearly nothing. In the meantime, there is a series of terrible child murders across Russia. They’re all connected, but Demidov cannot investigate them openly. Officially, there is no crime in the Soviet Union, so it would be impossible for anyone to commit multiple murders. Little by little, as cautiously as possible, Demidov looks for the truth, but he’ll have to be careful if he’s going to stay alive.

Martin Cruz Smith’s Arkady Renko series begins with Gorky Park. It’s the late 1970s, and Renko is a Russian Soviet Federalist police officer. He is assigned to investigate the murders of two men and a woman whose bodies have been discovered in Moscow’s Gorky Park. As he investigates, Renko finds connections between the victims and some highly placed people. He finds corruption among those people and discovers that some of them will do anything it takes to keep their positions. The other ten novels in this series show how the Soviet Union changed over time and what happened after its dissolution. The series ends after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Taken as a whole, the series gives a picture of the Soviet Union and the later Russian Federation over the years.

Stuart Kaminsky’s 16-novel Porfiry Rostnikov series begins with 1981’s Rostnikov’s Corpse/Death of a Dissident. Rostnikov is a Moscow police inspector during a time when it is not safe to go up against the government. He is tasked with solving the murder of a dissident called Aleksander Granovsky. The victim was murdered in his locked apartment, and it’s not clear how anyone got in and out again without being observed by the KGB, who were watching the apartment. It’s a difficult case in and of itself – a sort of ‘locked room’ case – and it’s not made any easier by the fact that the Soviet authorities want Rostnikov to sign off on their explanation of events. That means he’s expected to leave the KGB and anyone involved with them out of his investigation. Rostnikov persists, though, and when there’s a second murder, it’s clear that this isn’t just a case of a state-sanctioned ‘hit.’

The Soviet years brought about drastic changes on just about every level. We’re arguably still seeing the effects of those changes more than thirty-five years after the dissolution of the USSR. So it’s no wonder that crime fiction explores that era.

*NOTE: The title of this post is the title of a Beatles song.