Official reaction soon turned against the book, and Dudintsev suffered years of poverty, and was only able to publish occasional works.

[1] While travelling, Dudintsev heard a story about a worker who could not convince his superiors that he had discovered a valuable nickel deposit, because the discovery went against Soviet dogma.

[2] However, Dudintsev had great difficulty finding a publisher willing to print the novel, and the manuscript languished until Communist Party First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev delivered his Secret Speech in February 1956, attacking Stalinization.

[2] However, Khrushchev accused Dudintsev of taking "a malicious joy in describing the negative sides of Soviet life".

[1] In 1987, after the onset of Perestroika, he published The White Robes, a fictionalized version of the devastation which Trofim Lysenko wreaked on Soviet genetic study, and received the USSR State Prize for it the following year.