Masha Gessen: Perfect Rigour: A Genius and the Mathematical Breakthrough of the Century
This is a story about one person, but there is a lot of background information on doing math in Soviet Union.
Thanks! Since that's in English, I will take at least a look at it.
Gessen does not strike me as a reliable source, so for now I am completely discounting everything you said about it, in favor of what I have heard directly from Russian mathematicians, which is a lot less extreme.
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