Voinovich Vladimir. Monumental Propaganda

Overlook TP, 2000Vladimir Voinovich, author of the classic The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin, has long been acclaimed as perhaps the greatest living satirist of Russian literature. In Monumental Propaganda, he again launches a fearless and hilarious assault on the hypocrisies and corruptions of Soviet and post-Soviet Russia.
Once more, Voinovich demonstrates that he's the heir to the fine tradition of Russian satire. The book spans a period from the disavowal of Stalin up through the present time.since Voinovich's theme is that the true nature of the people never really changes, no matter how much history sweeps by.
He does this by painting the portrait of Aglaya Stepanovna, a confirmed Stalinist. Aglaya's unchanging devotion to Stalin, and specifically to an iron statue of Stalin (the "Monumental Propaganda" of the title). Aglaya's strength of character resists all developments of history - as the other characters change from corrupt communists to corrupt dissidents to corrupt capitalists, Aglaya remains the same. This very stasis throws the similarity of everyone else's actions into relief. (Goodreads Review)