# Soviet dissidents who challenged the Kremlin

An episode of [HistoryExtra podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/256580326), 9 Sep 2025, 52 min.

Audio: https://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/pdst.fm/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.megaphone.fm/NSR6049641847.mp3?updated=1757444303

In the years following Stalin’s death in 1953, a new phenomenon emerged within the Soviet Union: so-called 'dissidents'. Preferring to think of themselves as 'rights defenders', these individuals advocated a form of 'civil obedience' – a demand that the state abide by its own constitution and the basic rights and freedoms it promised on paper. Historian Benjamin Nathans speaks to Danny Bird about his Cundill Prize-nominated book To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause, which examines this extraordinary movement. To find out more about the Cundill History Prize, go to https://www.cundillprize.com/ (Ad) Benjamin Nathans is the author of To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement (Princeton University Press, 2024). Buy it now from Amazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Success-Our-Hopeless-Cause-Dissident-ebook/dp/B0CW1FHMSQ/?tag=bbchistory045-21&ascsubtag=historyextra-social-histboty. The HistoryExtra podcast is produced by the team behind BBC History Magazine. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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