Armageddon averted : the Soviet collapse, 1970-2000 / Stephen Kotkin.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kotkin, Stephen.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Communism--Soviet Union--History.

Communism.

Soviet Union--History--1953-1985.

Soviet Union.

Soviet Union--History--1985-1991.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xix, 245 pages, 16 pages of plates ) illustrations, maps, portraits.

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2001.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Using several dozen memoirs of insiders and many declassified documents, this volume narrates and explains not just the collapse of socialism but also of the Union and in a comparative framework shows how and why the two collapsed together.

In the Cold War era that dominated the second half of the 20th century, nobody envisaged that the collapse of the Soviet Union would come from within, still less that it would happen meekly, without global conflagration. In this compact book, Stephen Kotkin shows that the Soviet collapse resulted not from military competition but, ironically, from the dynamism of Communist ideology, the long-held dream for "socialism with a human face". The neo-liberal reforms in post-Soviet Russia never took place, nor could they have, given the Soviet-era inheritance in the social, political and economic landscape. Kotkin takes us deep into post-Stalin Soviet society and institutions, into the everyday hopes and secret political intrigues that affected 285 million people, before and after 1991. He conveys the high drama of a superpower falling apart while armed to the teeth with millions of loyal troops and tens of thousands of weapons of mass destruction. "Armageddon Averted" vividly demonstrates the overriding importance of history, individual ambition, geopolitics and institutions, and deftly draws out contemporary Russia's contradictory predicament.

Contents:

History’s cruel tricks

Reviving the dream

The drama of reform

Waiting for the end of the world

Survival and cannibalism in the rust belt

Democracy without liberalism?

Idealism and treason.

Notes:

Originally published: 2001.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780191539091

1-280-53435-4

9786610534357

0-19-153909-0

0-19-534706-4

1-60256-685-2

OCLC:

171572897