Bitter Waters is Gennady Andreev-Khomiakov?s eyewitness account of life in the Soviet Union during the tumultuous 1930s, a time when titanic forces were shaping the course of Russian history. Forced collectivization, Five Year Plans, purges, and the phony achievements of ?shock worker brigades? are only part of this story. Using this memoir of his youth to explore every aspect of Stalinist society, Andreev-Khomiakov exposes the Soviet economy to be little more than a web of corruption?a system that only functioned through bribery, barter, and brute force.