Publisher’s Weekly BookLife names Building Blocs by John S Reuther an editor’s pick
Reuther’s brisk, illuminating memoir charts two unpredictable transitions: first, this scion of a storied labor family’s coming of age in the Soviet Union, where he was a pioneer in the opening of international trade; and second, Russia’s transformation from closed Communist state to volatile capitalist experiment. Reuther—the son of Victor Reuther, a prominent international labor organizer whose commitment to democratic socialism made the entire family a political target—grew up under the shadow of surveillance and credible assassination threats, a tense atmosphere that underscores the cost of political conviction and sharpens early chapters heady with mid-century notables. That background makes his eventual immersion in Soviet and post-Soviet Russia especially striking, as history upends expectations. He first ventures east as a student of U.S.-Soviet relations, disillusioned with the U.S. government in the Vietnam era. Eventually, he facilitates global commerce and real estate deals, helps international companies manage “the boys”—the KGB and the CIA—and works on behalf of a U.S. embassy that once viewed him with suspicion.
Reuther balances striking detail, hard-earned insight, and storytelling momentum, moving quickly through college, early activism, marriage, and professional risk-taking, mirroring the instability of the world he inhabits. The uneasy period of de-Stalinization and later economic collapse comes to tense and vivid life, as do the prevailing corruption, back-room deals, and, after the thaw, Wild West lawlessness. As he helps direct the first joint U.S.–Russian real estate venture, boardroom negotiations bleed into street-level intimidation. Reuther deftly reveals large systems—political, economic, ideological—through compelling incidents.
Building Blocs captures and analyzes moments of terror and opportunity, breakthroughs and assassinations, and “the burgeoning involvement of the various factions of the Russian Mafia in all aspects of Moscow life.” The fast pace occasionally sacrifices deeper emotional engagement, but that headlong momentum reinforces the sense of lives and deals shaped by upheavals that demanded constant risk and nimble negotiation. A revealing, exciting read.
Takeaway: Illuminating ground-level view of business in post-Soviet Russia.
Comparable Titles: Charles Hecker’s Zero Sum, Ben Mezrich’s Once Upon a Time in Russia.