Iurii Solomonovich Krymov is known mainly for one work, the novella Tanker "Derbent" (1938; translated, 1944), which became the model of socialist-realist writing. Nevertheless, he also attempted in his other works to portray some of the darker aspects of life in the Soviet Union during the 1930s. He was a man who combined his experiences as an engineer with his writing in order to depict the era in which he lived, thus imparting to it a sense of reality in spite of the strong demands of Soviet ideology. Krymov describes the main goals of his life and work--to portray the spirit of competition within the great collective of the Soviet Union: "In 1930 I finished university and began work at a construction site of a radio [transmitting] station. In the course of the two years that I spent on the construction site, my basic world view was formed. These were years...