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• Introduction: A puzzle
• Perestroika
• Release
• Revolutions
• Separatism
• Crossroads
• Leviathan
• Standoff
• Devolution
• Consensus
• Conspiracy
• Junta
• Demise
• Cacophony
• Independence
• Liquidation
• Conclusion

A major study of the collapse of the Soviet Union-showing how Gorbachev's misguided reforms led to its demise "A deeply informed account of how the Soviet Union fell apart."-Rodric Braithwaite, Financial Times "[A] masterly analysis."-Joshua Rubenstein, Wall Street Journal In 1945 the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four-million strong, five-thousand nuclear-tipped missiles, and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the twentieth century. Thirty years on, Vladislav Zubok offers a major reinterpretation of the final years of the USSR, refuting the notion that the breakup of the Soviet order was inevitable. Instead, Zubok reveals how Gorbachev's misguided reforms, intended to modernize and democratize the Soviet Union, deprived the government of resources and empowered separatism. Collapse sheds new light on Russian democratic populism, the Baltic struggle for independence, the crisis of Soviet finances-and the fragility of authoritarian state power.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

A major study of the collapse of the Soviet Union-showing how Gorbachev's misguided reforms led to its demise "A deeply informed account of how the Soviet Union fell apart."-Rodric Braithwaite, Financial Times "[A] masterly analysis."-Joshua Rubenstein, Wall Street Journal In 1945 the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four-million strong, five-thousand nuclear-tipped missiles, and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the twentieth century. Thirty years on, Vladislav Zubok offers a major reinterpretation of the final years of the USSR, refuting the notion that the breakup of the Soviet order was inevitable. Instead, Zubok reveals how Gorbachev's misguided reforms, intended to modernize and democratize the Soviet Union, deprived the government of resources and empowered separatism. Collapse sheds new light on Russian democratic populism, the Baltic struggle for independence, the crisis of Soviet finances-and the fragility of authoritarian state power.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Part 1: Hope and hubris, 1983-90
• Perestroika
• Release
• Revolutions
• Separatism
• Crossroads
• Leviathan
• Part 2: Decline and downfall, 1991
• Standoff
• Devolution
• Consensus
• Conspiracy
• Junta
• Demise
• Cacophony
• Independence
• Liquidation

A major study of the collapse of the Soviet Union-showing how Gorbachev's misguided reforms led to its demise "A deeply informed account of how the Soviet Union fell apart."-Rodric Braithwaite, Financial Times "[A] masterly analysis."-Joshua Rubenstein, Wall Street Journal In 1945 the Soviet Union controlled half of Europe and was a founding member of the United Nations. By 1991, it had an army four-million strong, five-thousand nuclear-tipped missiles, and was the second biggest producer of oil in the world. But soon afterward the union sank into an economic crisis and was torn apart by nationalist separatism. Its collapse was one of the seismic shifts of the twentieth century. Thirty years on, Vladislav Zubok offers a major reinterpretation of the final years of the USSR, refuting the notion that the breakup of the Soviet order was inevitable. Instead, Zubok reveals how Gorbachev's misguided reforms, intended to modernize and democratize the Soviet Union, deprived the government of resources and empowered separatism. Collapse sheds new light on Russian democratic populism, the Baltic struggle for independence, the crisis of Soviet finances-and the fragility of authoritarian state power.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction Part I: Short course in the History of the Soviet Hippie Movement and Its Sistema
• 1: Origins
• 2: Consolidation
• 3: Maturity
• 4: Ritualization Part II: How Soviet Hippies and Late Socialism Made Each Other
• 5: Ideology
• 6: Kaif
• 7: Materiality
• 8: Madness
• 9: Gerla Epilogue.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Flowers through Concrete: Explorations in Soviet Hippieland takes the reader on a journey into the lives and thoughts of Soviet hippies. In the face of disapproval and repression, they created a version of Western counterculture, skillfully adapting to, manipulating, and shaping their late socialist environment. Flowers through Concrete takes its readers into the underground hippieland and beyond, situating the world of hippies firmly in late Soviet reality and offering both an unusual history of the last Soviet decades as well as a case study of transnational youth culture and East-West globalization. Flowers through Concrete is based on over a hundred interviews, declassified documents, and private archives hidden for many decades. It tells the almost forgotten story of how hippie communities sprang up across the Soviet Union in the late-60s, often under the tutelage of the rebellious offspring of privileged households at the heart of the Soviet establishment. It charts how these communities linked up to create an impressive network with elaborate customs and rituals, ensuring its survival for more than two decades. Flowers through Concrete recounts not only a compelling story of survival against the odds - hippies who were harassed by police, shorn of their hair by civilian guards, and confined in psychiatric hospitals by doctors who believed non-conformism was a symptom of schizophrenia - but also advances a surprising argument. It suggests that the land of Soviet hippies and the world of late socialism were not entirely incompatible, but in fact meshed surprisingly well. Ultimately, it was not the KGB but the arrival of capitalism in the 1990s that ended the Soviet hippie sistema.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction Part I: Short course in the History of the Soviet Hippie Movement and Its Sistema
• 1: Origins
• 2: Consolidation
• 3: Maturity
• 4: Ritualization Part II: How Soviet Hippies and Late Socialism Made Each Other
• 5: Ideology
• 6: Kaif
• 7: Materiality
• 8: Madness
• 9: Gerla Epilogue.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Flowers through Concrete: Explorations in Soviet Hippieland takes the reader on a journey into the lives and thoughts of Soviet hippies. In the face of disapproval and repression, they created a version of Western counterculture, skillfully adapting to, manipulating, and shaping their late socialist environment. Flowers through Concrete takes its readers into the underground hippieland and beyond, situating the world of hippies firmly in late Soviet reality and offering both an unusual history of the last Soviet decades as well as a case study of transnational youth culture and East-West globalization. Flowers through Concrete is based on over a hundred interviews, declassified documents, and private archives hidden for many decades. It tells the almost forgotten story of how hippie communities sprang up across the Soviet Union in the late-60s, often under the tutelage of the rebellious offspring of privileged households at the heart of the Soviet establishment. It charts how these communities linked up to create an impressive network with elaborate customs and rituals, ensuring its survival for more than two decades. Flowers through Concrete recounts not only a compelling story of survival against the odds - hippies who were harassed by police, shorn of their hair by civilian guards, and confined in psychiatric hospitals by doctors who believed non-conformism was a symptom of schizophrenia - but also advances a surprising argument. It suggests that the land of Soviet hippies and the world of late socialism were not entirely incompatible, but in fact meshed surprisingly well. Ultimately, it was not the KGB but the arrival of capitalism in the 1990s that ended the Soviet hippie sistema.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

This film finds acclaimed director Vitaly Mansky at home with a man who helped to shape the 20th-century: Mikhail Gorbachev. The Soviet leader was acclaimed as the architect of Glasnost and Perestroika, policies that gave the citizens of the Soviet Union a chance to be free. He even tore down the Berlin Wall. But at the same time, under his rule, the Chernobyl nuclear facility exploded and its destruction was concealed. Citizens demanding independence in the Baltic states died. Soldiers wielding shovels brutally suppressed protesters in Tbilisi. Soviet tanks killed peaceful demonstrators in Baku. Under Gorbachev, the Soviet empire collapsed. He is now condemned by his own people. This intimate portrait finds Gorbachev living alone in an empty house outside Moscow, still carrying the burdens of his past

• Introduction I. The Origin of the Political Institution of Second Secretaries The Pre-war Legacy and the Baltic Factor Institutions of the Representative of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Bureau II. The Department of Organisational Party Work of the Central Committee of the CPSU The Department The Sector Instructors of the Department 'Birds of a Feather' III. The Establishment of the Political Institution of the Second Secretary The Establishment of the Institution of Second Secretaries: Circumstances and Reasons The Contract between the Central and the Local Nomenklatura and the Birth of the institution of the Second Secretary Second Secretaries Arrive in Central Asia, Moldavia, Estonia and Armenia IV. A Collective Biography of Second Secretaries V. A Representative of the Centre in a National Republic: Behavioural Contexts and the Strategies of the Second Secretary Nationalism An Intermediary in Ethnic Conflicts 'Local Peculiarities' and Language: Nationalism for the Second Secretaries Nikolai Belukha's Understanding of Nationalism The Second Secretary's Communication with the Centre Behavioural Strategies of the Second Secretary The Perception of Time and the Behaviour of the Second Secretary The System of Second Persons The Second Secretary and Party Discourse VI. Being the Second in a Republic: Concord and Conflicts with the First Secretary The All-Union Level The First 'Chooses' the Second The Role of the Second in Appointing the First The Second's Opportunities to Eliminate the First The First Dismisses the Second The Internal Level Conflicts between the First and the Second Secretaries Family and Neighbourhood Conclusion.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Second Secretary of the Central Committee of a Soviet republic does not sound a very important position, but as this book shows it was an extremely important role, one that helped hold the Soviet Union together and helped to keep it going for so long. The key was that Second Secretaries were both members of a Soviet republic's ruling body and at the same time members of the All-Union ruling elite - they were often characterised as Moscow's governor generals. This book examines how the position of Second Secretary was established by Khrushchev in the 1950s, explores how it took on increasingly important political functions representing Moscow's interests in the republics and the republics' interests in Moscow, and discusses how the conflicts, inherent in the role, developed. The book also provides biographical details of the people who held the position and argues that the role was extremely effective in managing what could otherwise have been very difficult relationships between centre and periphery.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction
• 1. First Steps
• 2. Graduate Studies: A Double Miracle
• 3. Immersion: Daily Life in Khrushchev's Russia
• 4. Expulsion: Cultural Trends, Literary Friends, and the Sharp Edges of the Soviet State
• 5. The Emergence of Dissent: Bringing Dissidents and the Emerging Human Rights Movement to the World's Attention
• 6. The Other
• '68: Upheaval in the Soviet Bloc and the Chronicle of Current Events
• 7. Two Early Giants of Soviet Dissent: Marchenko and Grigorenko
• 8. Confronting the Naysayers in the West
• 9. "The Mental State of Such People Is Not Normal": Exposing the Political Abuse of Psychiatry
• 10. Dignity under Persecution: Dissent among the Ethnic Minorities
• 11. Religious Persecution, Religious Dissent
• 12. Fighting on Old and New Fronts: 1968 to 1983
• 13. Publishing Samizdat in the West
• 14. Dissent and Reform under Gorbachev: Uncertain Terrain
• 15. Upending Manufactured Schizophrenia
• 16. The End: RIP USSR, 1917 to 1991 Some Conclusions Works by Peter Reddaway Cited in This Volume, by Year Notes Subject Index Names Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

The nearly forgotten story of Soviet dissidents. It has been nearly three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union enough time for the role that the courageous dissidents ultimately contributed to the communist system's collapse to have been largely forgotten, especially in the West. This book brings to life, for contemporary readers, the often underground work of the men and women who opposed the regime and authored dissident texts, known as samizdat, that exposed the tyrannies and weaknesses of the Soviet state both inside and outside the country. Peter Reddaway spent decades studying the Soviet Union and got to know these dissidents and their work, publicizing their writings in the West and helping some of them to escape the Soviet Union and settle abroad. In this memoir he captures the human costs of the repression that marked the Soviet state, focusing in particular on Pavel Litvinov, Larisa Bogoraz, General Petro Grigorenko, Anatoly Marchenko, Alexander Podrabinek, Vyacheslav Bakhmin, and Andrei Sinyavsky. His book describes their courage but also puts their work in the context of the power struggles in the Kremlin, where politicians competed with and even succeeded in ousting one another. Reddaway's book takes readers beyond Moscow, describing politics and dissident work in other major Russian cities as well as in the outlying republics.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: A matter of life and death
• The Russian White House under siege
• A new Russia is born from the flames
• Cooperation with the post-socialist states
• Putting out fires in conflict zones
• Reinventing relationships with the West and East
• Shared fate : foreign policy and domestic politics
• Balkan complications
• The battle for the Kremlin
• Opportunities and anxieties
• The end of the beginning
• Epilogue: Can Russian democracy rise again?

Andrei Kozyrev was foreign minister of Russia under President Boris Yeltsin from August 1991 to January 1996. During the August 1991 coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev, he was present when tanks moved in to seize the Russian White House, where Boris Yeltsin famously stood on a tank to address the crowd assembled. He then departed to Paris to muster international support and, if needed, to form a Russian government-in-exile. He participated in the negotiations at Brezhnev's former hunting lodge in Belazheva, Belarus where the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus agreed to secede from the Soviet Union and form a Commonwealth of Independent States. Kozyrev's pro-Western orientation made him an increasingly unpopular figure in Russia as Russia's spiraling economy and the emergence of ultra-wealthy oligarchs soured ordinary Russians on Western ideas of democracy and market capitalism. The Firebird takes the reader into the corridors of power to provide a startling eyewitness account of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the struggle to create a democratic Russia in its place, and how the promise of a better future led to the tragic outcome that changed our world forever.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: A matter of life and death
• The Russian White House under siege
• A new Russia is born from the flames
• Cooperation with the post-socialist states
• Putting out fires in conflict zones
• Reinventing relationships with the West and East
• Shared fate : foreign policy and domestic politics
• Balkan complications
• The battle for the Kremlin
• Opportunities and anxieties
• The end of the beginning
• Epilogue: Can Russian democracy rise again?

Andrei Kozyrev was foreign minister of Russia under President Boris Yeltsin from August 1991 to January 1996. During the August 1991 coup attempt against Mikhail Gorbachev, he was present when tanks moved in to seize the Russian White House, where Boris Yeltsin famously stood on a tank to address the crowd assembled. He then departed to Paris to muster international support and, if needed, to form a Russian government-in-exile. He participated in the negotiations at Brezhnev's former hunting lodge in Belazheva, Belarus where the leaders of Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus agreed to secede from the Soviet Union and form a Commonwealth of Independent States. Kozyrev's pro-Western orientation made him an increasingly unpopular figure in Russia as Russia's spiraling economy and the emergence of ultra-wealthy oligarchs soured ordinary Russians on Western ideas of democracy and market capitalism. The Firebird takes the reader into the corridors of power to provide a startling eyewitness account of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the struggle to create a democratic Russia in its place, and how the promise of a better future led to the tragic outcome that changed our world forever.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction by Mark Lipovetsky The Man Who Couldn't Die.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In the chaos of early-1990s Russia, the wife and stepdaughter of a paralyzed veteran conceal the Soviet Union's collapse from him in order to keep him-and his pension-alive until it turns out the tough old man has other plans. Olga Slavnikova's The Man Who Couldn't Die tells the story of how two women try to prolong a life-and the means and meaning of their own lives-by creating a world that doesn't change, a Soviet Union that never crumbled. After her stepfather's stroke, Marina hangs Brezhnev's portrait on the wall, edits the Pravda articles read to him, and uses her media connections to cobble together entire newscasts of events that never happened. Meanwhile, her mother, Nina Alexandrovna, can barely navigate the bewildering new world outside, especially in comparison to the blunt reality of her uncommunicative husband. As Marina is caught up in a local election campaign that gets out of hand, Nina discovers that her husband is conspiring as well-to kill himself and put an end to the charade. Masterfully translated by Marian Schwartz, The Man Who Couldn't Die is a darkly playful vision of the lost Soviet past and the madness of the post-Soviet world that uses Russia's modern history as a backdrop for an inquiry into larger metaphysical questions.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

'A gem of a book, informative, companionable, sometimes funny, and wholly original. MacLean must surely be the outstanding, and most indefatigable, traveller-writer of our time' John le Carre In 1989 the Berlin Wall fell. In that euphoric year Rory MacLean travelled from Berlin to Moscow, exploring lands that were - for most Brits and Americans - part of the forgotten half of Europe. Thirty years on, MacLean traces his original journey backwards, across countries confronting old ghosts and new fears: from revanchist Russia, through Ukraine's bloodlands, into illiberal Hungary, and then Poland, Germany and the UK. Along the way he shoulders an AK-47 to go hunting with Moscow's chicken Tsar, plays video games in St Petersburg with a cyber-hacker who cracked the US election, drops by the Che Guevara High School of Political Leadership in a non-existent nowhereland and meets the Warsaw doctor who tried to stop a march of 70,000 nationalists. Finally, on the shores of Lake Geneva, he waits patiently to chat with Mikhail Gorbachev. As Europe sleepwalks into a perilous new age, MacLean explores how opportunists - both within and outside of Russia, from Putin to Home Counties populists - have made a joke of truth, exploiting refugees and the dispossessed, and examines the veracity of historical narrative from reportage to fiction and fake news. He asks what happened to the optimism of 1989 and, in the shadow of Brexit, chronicles the collapse of the European dream.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Through interviews with leading participants on both sides, prominent Russian journalist Galina Sapozhnikova captures the political and human dimensions of betrayal and disillusionment that led to the collapse of the USSR, the 20th century's greatest experiment in social engineering, and what happened to the men and women who struggled to destroy or save it. Termed "color" revolutions by the worldwide media as most were designated colors, these various; movements developed in several societies in the former Soviet Union and the Baltic states during the early 2000s. In reality, they were US intelligence operations which covertly instigated, supported and infiltrated protest movements with a view to triggering regime change under the banner of a pro-democracy uprising . The objective was to manipulate elections, initiate violence, foment social unrest and use the resulting protest movement to topple an existing government in order goal to install a compliant pro-US government. How has all that worked out in Lithuania? What happened to the pro-democracy forces and to those they defeated in the aftermath? What was the role of Gorbachev? Was Eugene Sharp implicated behind the scenes in this grand show of historic transformation? What happened to the Lithuanians, who didn't agree to the USSR's dissolution? How did the political shape-shifters act; the former Komsomol and Communist Party executives, who took high posts in the new "democratic" governments? This book not only exposes the tactical stages in the process of regime change, but also sheds light on how these events play out, post regime-change, when the dust in the eyes of many has cleared. It is key to grasping the template that today underlies similar events in Libya, Syria, Ukraine and likely elsewhere, going forward. To date, this book has been published in Lithuanian, Russian and Italian.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Operation discreditation
• The Lithuanian syndrome 25 years later
• And then they called for Ded Moroz
• The great Lithuanian witch hunt
• Romantics vs. traitors
• The Lithuanian underground
• Homeland or death?
• And if you run out of enemies
• Without a homeland
• The consequences of one event.

Through interviews with leading participants on both sides, prominent Russian journalist Galina Sapozhnikova captures the political and human dimensions of betrayal and disillusionment that led to the collapse of the USSR, the 20th century's greatest experiment in social engineering, and what happened to the men and women who struggled to destroy or save it. Termed "color" revolutions by the worldwide media as most were designated colors, these various; movements developed in several societies in the former Soviet Union and the Baltic states during the early 2000s. In reality, they were US intelligence operations which covertly instigated, supported and infiltrated protest movements with a view to triggering regime change under the banner of a pro-democracy uprising . The objective was to manipulate elections, initiate violence, foment social unrest and use the resulting protest movement to topple an existing government in order goal to install a compliant pro-US government. How has all that worked out in Lithuania? What happened to the pro-democracy forces and to those they defeated in the aftermath? What was the role of Gorbachev? Was Eugene Sharp implicated behind the scenes in this grand show of historic transformation? What happened to the Lithuanians, who didn't agree to the USSR's dissolution? How did the political shape-shifters act; the former Komsomol and Communist Party executives, who took high posts in the new "democratic" governments? This book not only exposes the tactical stages in the process of regime change, but also sheds light on how these events play out, post regime-change, when the dust in the eyes of many has cleared. It is key to grasping the template that today underlies similar events in Libya, Syria, Ukraine and likely elsewhere, going forward. To date, this book has been published in Lithuanian, Russian and Italian.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction by Mark Lipovetsky The Man Who Couldn't Die.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In the chaos of early-1990s Russia, the wife and stepdaughter of a paralyzed veteran conceal the Soviet Union's collapse from him in order to keep him-and his pension-alive until it turns out the tough old man has other plans. Olga Slavnikova's The Man Who Couldn't Die tells the story of how two women try to prolong a life-and the means and meaning of their own lives-by creating a world that doesn't change, a Soviet Union that never crumbled. After her stepfather's stroke, Marina hangs Brezhnev's portrait on the wall, edits the Pravda articles read to him, and uses her media connections to cobble together entire newscasts of events that never happened. Meanwhile, her mother, Nina Alexandrovna, can barely navigate the bewildering new world outside, especially in comparison to the blunt reality of her uncommunicative husband. As Marina is caught up in a local election campaign that gets out of hand, Nina discovers that her husband is conspiring as well-to kill himself and put an end to the charade. Masterfully translated by Marian Schwartz, The Man Who Couldn't Die is a darkly playful vision of the lost Soviet past and the madness of the post-Soviet world that uses Russia's modern history as a backdrop for an inquiry into larger metaphysical questions.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

The social history of how western rock music spread like a virus across the Iron Curtain, becoming the symbol of freedom under the Soviet regime. And how it helped end the Cold War.

• The perils of perestroika
• Reinforcing reform
• The satellite explosion
• Cultural chaos
• Re-mapping the world
• Combined space strategy
• The cross-cultural consensus
• Communicating the consensus
• Power to the people.

First published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: "Gorbachev is hard to understand"
• Childhood, boyhood, and youth: 1931-1949
• Moscow State University: 1950-1955
• Climbing the ladder: 1955-1969
• Regional party boss: 1969-1978
• Return to Moscow: 1978-1985
• What is to be done? 1985-1986
• Onto the world stage: March 1985-December 1986
• Two scorpions in a bottle: 1987
• Who's afraid of Nina Andreyeva? 1988
• Before the storm: 1987-1988
• Summits galore: 1987-1988
• 1989: triumph and trouble at home
• 1989: triumph and trouble abroad
• Coming apart? 1990
• Coming together? 1990
• To the coup: January-August 1991
• The coup: August 1991
• Final days: August-December 1991
• Out of power: 1991-2000
• Conclusion: understanding Gorbachev.

When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, the USSR was one of the world's two superpowers. By 1989, his liberal policies of perestroika and glasnost had permanently transformed Soviet Communism, and had made enemies of radicals on the right and left. By 1990 he, more than anyone else, had ended the Cold War, and in 1991, after barely escaping from a coup attempt, he unintentionally presided over the collapse of the Soviet Union he had tried to save. In the first comprehensive biography of the final Soviet leader, William Taubman shows how a peasant boy became the Soviet system's gravedigger, how he clambered to the top of a system designed to keep people like him down, how he found common ground with America's arch-conservative president Ronald Reagan, and how he permitted the USSR and its East European empire to break apart without using force to preserve them. Throughout, Taubman portrays the many sides of Gorbachev's unique character that, by Gorbachev's own admission, make him "difficult to understand." Was he in fact a truly great leader, or was he brought low in the end by his own shortcomings, as well as by the unyielding forces he faced? Drawing on interviews with Gorbachev himself, transcripts and documents from the Russian archives, and interviews with Kremlin aides and adversaries, as well as foreign leaders, Taubman's intensely personal portrait extends to Gorbachev's remarkable marriage to a woman he deeply loved, and to the family that they raised together. Nuanced and poignant, yet unsparing and honest, this sweeping account has all the amplitude of a great Russian novel.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

This study analyses the newly available statistical evidence on income distribution in the former Soviet Union both by social group and by republic, and considers the significance of inequalities as a factor contributing to the demise of the Communist regime. Among the topics covered are wage distribution (interbranch and skill differentials and distribution in terms of gender, education, and age), income distribution for the former USSR as a whole, and wage and income distribution patterns for each republic, with analysis of regional differences.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• A call to arms
• Extending hands of friendship
• A Juneau peacenik in the Kremlin
• Swimming against the current
• Historic flight approved
• Friendship flight to tomorrow
• Dramatic reversal
• Soviets return the favor
• Breaking the ice
• Adventure diplomacy across the Strait
• Deception on Diomede
• From Uelen to Vladivostok
• Visa-free reunification
• Golden Samovar Service
• Open for business
• Beyond the coup
• University of Alaska teaches Capitalism 101
• Oil in Sakhalin, flush toilets in Chukotka
• The thrill is gone
• Mercy mission to Magadan
• Always keep talking
• Detained in the Bering Strait
• A special Alaska-Russia affinity.

Just five years after a Soviet missile blew a civilian airliner out of the sky over the North Pacific, an Alaska Airlines jet braved Cold War tensions to fly into tomorrow. Crossing the Bering Strait between Alaska and the Russian Far East, the 1988 Friendship Flight reunited Native peoples of common languages and cultures for the first time in four decades. It and other dramatic efforts to thaw what was known as the Ice Curtain launched a thirty-year era of perilous, yet prolific, progress.Melting the Ice Curtain tells the story of how inspiration, courage, and persistence by citizen-diplomats bridged a widening gap in superpower relations. David Ramseur was a first-hand witness to the danger and political intrigue, having flown on that first Friendship Flight, and having spent thirty years behind the scenes with some of Alaska's highest officials. As Alaska celebrates the 150th anniversary of its purchase, and as diplomatic ties with Russia become perilous, Melting the Ice Curtain shows that history might hold the best lessons for restoring diplomacy between nuclear neighbors.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Preface Acknowledgments About the Author
• Chapter 1: Executive Power in Russian Politics What Does Executive Leadership Mean in the Russian Context? Authoritarian Modernizers: The Prototype Characteristics of Authoritarian Modernizers What Can We Learn from Past "Executives"? Earlier Authoritarian Modernizers The Brezhnev Era: The Long Calm before the Storm The Uncertain Interregnum: Andropov and Chernenko
• Chapter 2: The Gorbachev Presidency The Starting Point: What Gorbachev Intended Gorbachev's Rise to Power From General Secretary to President The Reform Agenda: Politics and Policy Glasnost The Economy: Perestroika Judicial Reform Foreign Policy Political Reform: Democratization Democratization of the Communist Party The Gorbachev Presidency The Presidency of the Russian Federation The Battle of the Presidents Gorbachev as an Authoritarian Modernizer
• Chapter 3: The Yeltsin Presidency, 1991-1993 Yeltsin's Path to Moscow From Outcast to President The President Becomes a President A Real President Gets a Real Nation Personal Rivalries Economic Reforms as a Political Issue Yeltsin's Economic Reforms: Phase I (1991-1993) The Reform of the Party-State National Identity and the Union Treaty Judicial Reform The President and the Legislature Foreign Policy Yeltsin as an Authoritarian Modernizer: A Preliminary Assessment
• Chapter 4: Yeltsin and Russia Reborn The Presidency and the Legislature Judicial Reform The 1993 Duma Elections The 1995 Duma Elections The 1996 Presidential Election The Second Term: From Victory to Resignation Yeltsin's Economic Reforms: Phase II (1994-1999) Foreign Policy The First Chechen War The December 1999 Duma Elections Yeltsin's Surprise Resignation Yeltsin as an Authoritarian Modernizer: A Final Assessment
• Chapter 5: Putin I, 2000-2008 The 2000 Presidential Election Vladimir Putin: From Spy Novels to the Kremlin The Putin Formula The Putin Presidency Emerges from Yeltsin's Shadow Outside the Garden Ring: "Managing" the New Democracy The Presidency and the Legislature: The 2003 Duma Elections Judicial Reform The 2004 Presidential Election The Rules and the Game Change The Run-Up to the 2008 Presidential Election The 2007 Duma Elections Putin's Economic Reforms Foreign Policy The Second Chechen War The 2008 Presidential Election Putin as an Authoritarian Modernizer
• Chapter 6: The "Tandem" Dmitry Medvedev: Putin's Friend from Leningrad Governing the Nation in Tandem Medvedev and Putin in Tandem Factional Realities Medvedev and Economic Reform Medvedev and Political Modernization Judicial Reform Foreign Policy The Russian-Georgian War Medvedev and the Legislature: The 2011 Duma Elections The Duma Election and Voting Fraud The 2012 Presidential Election Election Results Medvedev as an Authoritarian Modernizer
• Chapter 7: Putin II, 2012- The "New" Cabinet Putin II: Old and New Realities Maintaining the Balance within the Garden Ring Controlling the Opposition The Economy: Prosperity and Modernity Foreign Policy Crimea and Ukraine Russian Foreign Policy and the World The Three Arenas of Russian Politics Inside the Garden Ring: Factional Politics in Putin II A Note on the Siloviki Outside the Garden Ring: Politics in the Rest of the Russian Federation The Authoritarian Modernizer Revisited The Legal System and the Courts Connecting Those Inside and Outside the Garden Ring Political Parties Civil Society Control of the Media The Leadership Cult as a Connection Putin as an Authoritarian Modernizer
• Chapter 8: The Future(s) of Russian Politics The Future of the Russian Presidency(ies) What Will Drive Change? Changes in the Nature of Factional Politics Changes in the Nature of Electoral Politics at the National, Regional, and Local Levels Politics Moves to the Street: A Color Revolution or Moscow Spring What Is a Color Revolution? A Russian Color Revolution? Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Author Donald Kelley highlights the presidency as a work in progress shaped by the demands of creating political, economic, and social stability while simultaneously institutionalizing democratic rule. By setting the presidency within a longer historical context, Kelley traces the evolution of Russian politics from the late Soviet Union to the Russian Federation, showing how the future development of the presidency is dependent on other features of the political system.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. Diplomacy and Democratic Reforms
• 2. The August 1991 Coup : The Breaking Point
• 3. Anatomy of a Lost Decade, 1992-2000
• 4. How the System Really Works
• 5. Inside the Secret Police State
• 6. Strangling Democracy
• 7. The New Russian Imperialism.

Elite-level Soviet politics, privileged access to state secrets, knowledge about machinations inside the Kremlin-such is the environment in which Andrei A. Kovalev lived and worked. In this memoir of his time as a successful diplomat serving in various key capacities and as a member of Mikhail Gorbachev's staff, Kovalev reveals hard truths about his country as only a perceptive witness can do. In Russia's Dead End Kovalev shares his intimate knowledge of political activities behind the scenes at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Kremlin before and after the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991, including the Russia of Vladimir Putin. Kovalev analyzes Soviet efforts to comply with international human-rights obligations, the machinations of the KGB, and the link between corrupt oligarchs and state officials. He documents the fall of the USSR, the post-Soviet explosion of state terrorism and propaganda, and offers a nuanced historical explanation of the roots of Russia's contemporary crisis under Vladimir Putin. This insider's memoir provides a penetrating analysis of late-Soviet and post-Soviet Russian politics that is pungent, pointed, witty, and accessible. It assesses the current dangerous status of Russian politics and society while illuminating the path to a more just and democratic future.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. Diplomacy and Democratic Reforms
• 2. The August 1991 Coup : The Breaking Point
• 3. Anatomy of a Lost Decade, 1992-2000
• 4. How the System Really Works
• 5. Inside the Secret Police State
• 6. Strangling Democracy
• 7. The New Russian Imperialism
• Conclusion
• Cast of Characters.

"An internal account of the political activities taking place inside the Kremlin from the fall of the USSR under the administration of Gorbachev to the future of Russia under Putin"--Provided by publisher.
"Elite-level Soviet politics, privileged access to state secrets, knowledge about machinations inside the Kremlin--such is the environment in which Andrei A. Kovalev lived and worked. In this memoir of his time as a successful diplomat serving in various key capacities and as a member of Mikhail Gorbachev's staff, Kovalev reveals hard truths about his country as only a perceptive witness can do. In Russia's Dead End Kovalev shares his intimate knowledge of political activities behind the scenes at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Kremlin before and after the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991, including the Russia of Vladimir Putin. Kovalev analyzes Soviet efforts to comply with international human-rights obligations, the machinations of the KGB, and the link between corrupt oligarchs and state officials. He documents the fall of the USSR, the post-Soviet explosion of state terrorism and propaganda, and offers a nuanced historical explanation of the roots of Russia's contemporary crisis under Vladimir Putin. This insider's memoir provides a penetrating analysis of late-Soviet and post-Soviet Russian politics that is pungent, pointed, witty, and accessible. It assesses the current dangerous status of Russian politics and society while illuminating the path to a more just and democratic future"--Provided by publisher.

• The Great Patriotic War, 1939-1945
• Post-war Stalinism, 1945-1953
• The thaw, 1953-1964
• Stability or stagnation, 1964-1985
• Restructuring and openness, 1985-1991
• The crocodile smiles : Soviet satirical cartoons and social reform
• The Yeltsin era in Russia, 1991-2000
• Vladimir Putin and the resurgence of Russia, 2000-2015.

"Utilizing a wide range of primary sources including both texts and images, this book tells the story of Soviet and Russian history from multiple viewpoints, enabling students to develop interpretive skills. Each document is carefully chosen and contextualized to promote class discussion on a variety of critical topics"--Provided by publisher.

• Swan song and surprise
• Bush's rise
• Gorbachev at the UN
• "We know what works"
• The pause
• "A special relationship there"
• Cheney rises and the pause ends
• From a funeral to a riot
• Crackdown
• Untying the knot
• Eastern Europe aboil
• Another border opens
• "It has happened"
• Germans pause ... and act
• Malta
• Not one inch eastward
• Camp David
• Concession
• "This will not stand"
• With us, or not against us
• The New World Order
• "Disunion is a fact"
• "I have signed it".

"The untold story of how George H. W. Bush faced a critical turning point of history--the end of the Cold War--based on unprecedented access to heretofore classified documents and dozens of interviews with key policymakers"-- Provided by publisher.
"Based on unprecedented access to previously classified documents and dozens of interviews with key policymakers, here is the untold story of how George H. W. Bush faced a critical turning point of history, the end of the Cold War. The COLLAPSE OF THE Soviet Union was the greatest shock to international affairs since World War II. In that perilous moment, Saddam Hussein chose to invade Kuwait, China cracked down on its own pro-democracy protesters, and regimes throughout Eastern Europe teetered between democratic change and new authoritarian rule. President Bush faced a world in turmoil that might easily have tipped into an epic crisis. As presidential historian Jeffrey Engel reveals in this page-turning, inside-the-Oval-Office history, Bush rose to the occasion brilliantly. Using handwritten letters and direct conversations--some revealed here for the first time--with heads of state throughout Asia and Europe, Bush knew when to push, when to cajole, and when to be patient. The United States could not impose its will on every nation, but Bush knew when it was essential to rally a coalition to force Iraq out of Kuwait. He knew he could not stop China from cracking down on dissent, but he could help Germany transition from two states into one, bloodlessly. He kept NATO alive and guided the United States from a moment of great peril to the pinnacle of global power. Based on previously classified documents, and interviews with all of the principals, When the World Seemed New is a riveting, fly-on-the-wall account of a president with his calm hand on the tiller, guiding the nation through a pivotal time."--Dust jacket flap.

• Youth
• War
• Khrushchev's speech
• Columbia University
• Trouble
• Canada
• Back home
• The December 1985 Memorandum
• Relations with Gorbachev
• Glasnost'
• Need of a fundamental break
• Role in foreign policy
• The 1939 Secret Protocol
• Attitude toward the United States
• Advocating presidency
• Accusations of treason
• Bolshevik crimes
• Dissolution of the Soviet Union
• Private life
• The August 1991 Coup
• Yakovlev's final thoughts about Russia and Russians
• Death.

A significant political figure in twentieth-century Russia, Alexander Yakovlev was the intellectual force behind the processes of perestroika (reconstruction) and glasnost (openness) that liberated the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from Communist rule between 1989 and 1991. Yet, until now, not a single full-scale biography has been devoted to him. In his study of the unsung hero, Richard Pipes seeks to rectify this lacuna and give Yakovlev his historical due. Yakovlev's life provides a unique instance of a leading figure in the Soviet government who evolved from a dedicated Communist and Stalinist into an equally ardent foe of everything the Leninist-Stalinist regime stood for. He quit government service in 1991 and lived until 2005, becoming toward the end of his life a classical western liberal who shared none of the traditional Russian values. Pipes's illuminating study consists of two parts: a biography of Yakovlev and Pipes's translation of two important articles by Yakovlev. It will appeal to specialists and students of Soviet and post-Soviet studies, government officials involved with foreign policy, and general readers interested in the history of Russia and the Soviet Union.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Prologue. Two Treaties, Two Eras 1
• 1. First Visit to the USSR: Things Are Not as They Seem 5
• 2. Leonid Brezhnev: Power and Stagnation 9
• 3. Repression and Resistance 22
• 4. The Nixon Years 41
• 5. A Tale of Two Cities: Vladivostok and Helsinki 63
• 6. The Unhappy Presidency of Jimmy Carter 76
• 7. Two Crises and an Olympiad 96
• 8. Interregnum: Andropov in Power 114
• 9. Ronald Reagan's First Administration 128
• 10. Eagle vs. Bear: US and Soviet Approaches to Strategic Arms Control 145
• 11. Mikhail Gorbachev 165
• 12. Gorbachev Ascendant 184
• 13. New Kid on the Block: Gorbachev Emerges in US-Soviet Relations 196
• 14. "I Guess I Should Say Michael": The Turn in US-Soviet Relations 213
• 15.
• 1989: Year of Miracles or Time of Troubles? 242
• 16. Stumbling toward Collapse: Gorbachev's Final Eighteen Months 270
• 17. The August Coup 294
• 18. Red Star Falling 312
• 19. Why Did the USSR Collapse? 322 Postscript 339 Notes 351 Bibliography 383 Index 399.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

When the United States and the Soviet Union signed the first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks accords in 1972 it was generally seen as the point at which the USSR achieved parity with the United States. Less than twenty years later the Soviet Union had collapsed, confounding experts who never expected it to happen during their lifetimes. In From Washington to Moscow veteran US Foreign Service officer Louis Sell traces the history of US-Soviet relations between 1972 and 1991 and explains why the Cold War came to an abrupt end. Drawing heavily on archival sources and memoirs-many in Russian-as well as his own experiences, Sell vividly describes events from the perspectives of American and Soviet participants. He attributes the USSR's fall not to one specific cause but to a combination of the Soviet system's inherent weaknesses, mistakes by Mikhail Gorbachev, and challenges by Ronald Reagan and other US leaders. He shows how the USSR's rapid and humiliating collapse and the inability of the West and Russia to find a way to cooperate respectfully and collegially helped set the foundation for Vladimir Putin's rise.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

*Longlisted for the 2017 CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger for best thriller* 'Even better than Child 44' Daily Telegraph 'Peppered with memorable characters, carved with precision, ... highly recommended' Shots Magazine 'Given that the definitive thriller in 1980's Moscow already exists (Gorky Park), Moskva looks like a crazy gamble. But it's one that comes off' Sunday Times 'A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma . . .' January, 1986. A week after disgraced Intelligence Officer Tom Fox is stationed to Moscow the British Ambassador's fifteen-year-old daughter goes missing. Fox is ordered to find her, and fast. But the last thing the Soviets want is a foreign agent snooping about on their turf. Not when a killer they can't even acknowledge let alone catch is preparing to kill again . . . A Cold War thriller haunted by an evil legacy from the Second World War, Moskva is a journey into the dark heart of another time and place. 'Mesmerising, surefooted, vividly realised . . . something special in the arena of international thrillers' Financial Times 'A compulsive and supremely intelligent thriller from a master stylist' Michael Marshall, author of The Straw Men 'A blizzard of exciting set pieces, superbly realized' Daily Telegraph.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• * To my readers * Preface: Perestroika and the future * Trying to bury me * I After Perestroika * II Whither Russia? * III Today's uneasy world * Conclusion * Reflections of an optimist * Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Originally published in Russian as Posle Kremlya, Moskva: Ves Mir, 2014.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
After years of rapprochement, the relationship between Russia and the West is more strained now than it has ever been in the past 25 years. Putin's motives, his reasons for seeking confrontation with the West, remain for many a mystery. Not for Mikhail Gorbachev. In this new work, Russia's elder statesman draws on his wealth of knowledge and experience to reveal the development of Putin's regime and the intentions behind it. He argues that in order to further his own personal power, Putin has corrupted the achievements of perestroika and created a system which offers no future for Russia. Faced with this, Gorbachev advocates a radical reform of politics and new fostering of pluralism and social democracy. Gorbachev's insightful analysis moves beyond internal politics to address wider problems in the region, including the Ukraine conflict, as well as the global challenges of poverty and climate change. Above all else, he insists that solutions are to be found by returning to the atmosphere of dialogue and cooperation which was so instrumental in ending the Cold War. This book represents the summation of Gorbachev's thinking on the course that Russia has taken since 1991 and stands as a testament to one of the greatest and most influential statesmen of the 20th century.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Russia in the global system : history or geography?
• The czarist empire versus the colonial empires
• Thirty years of critique of the Soviet system (1960-1990)
• Lenin and Stalin : facing the challenge of the century
• Out of the tunnel?
• The Ukrainian crisis and the return of fascism in contemporary capitalism
• Assessment and perspectives.

Out of early twentieth-century Russia came the world's first significant effort to build a modern revolutionary society. According to Marxist economist Samir Amin, the great upheaval that once produced the Soviet Union has also produced a movement away from capitalism - a long transition that continues even today. In seven concise, provocative chapters, Amin deftly examines the trajectory of Russian capitalism, the Bolshevik Revolution, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the possible future of Russia - and, by extension, the future of socialism itself. Amin manages to combine an analysis of class struggle with geopolitics - each crucial to understanding Russia's singular and complex political history. He first looks at the development (or lack thereof) of Russian capitalism. He sees Russia's geopolitical isolation as the reason its capitalist empire developed so differently from Western Europe, and the reason for Russia's perceived "backwardness." Yet Russia's unique capitalism proved to be the rich soil in which the Bolsheviks were able to take power, and Amin covers the rise and fall of the revolutionary Soviet system. Finally, in a powerful chapter on Ukraine and the rise of global fascism, Amin lays out the conditions necessary for Russia to recreate itself, and perhaps again move down the long road to socialism. Samir Amin's great achievement in this book is not only to explain Russia's historical tragedies and triumphs, but also to temper our hopes for a quick end to an increasingly insufferable capitalism. This book offers a cornucopia of food for thought, as well as an enlightening means to transcend reductionist arguments about "revolution" so common on the left. Samir Amin's book - and the actions that could spring from it - are more necessary than ever, if the world is to avoid the barbarism toward which capitalism is hurling humanity.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Einführung / Hanns Jürgen Küsters
• Der Zerfall des Sowjetimperiums
• Von der Stagnation zum Verfall : Kennzeichen der sowjetischen Wirtschaft der 1980er Jahre / Stefan Karner
• Gorbachev, ideology, and the end of the cold war / Stephen E. Hanson
• The Warsaw Pact Alliance, 1985-1991 : reform, adaptation, and collapse / Mark Kramer
• Der Warschauer Pakt im Zeichen von Gorbatschows Perestroika 1985-1991 / Gerhard Wettig
• Der Weg zur Friedlichen Revolution
• The Summit talks between Gorbachev and Reagan, Bush / Jack Matlock, Jr.
• Die Deutschen und Gorbatschow 1987 bis 1989 : West- und ostdeutsche Perzeptionen zwischen Kontinuität und Wandel / Hermann Wentker
• Die sowjetische Perzeption der "Wende" in Ungarn und Polen / Peter Ruggenthaler
• Sowjetische Deutschlandpolitik der Ära Gorbatschow / Manfred Wilke
• Herbstrevolution und Nachrichtendienst : das stille Ableben der Geheimpolizeien in der DDR im Laufe des Jahres 1989 / Thomas Wegener Friis und Helmut Müller-Enbergs
• Vom Mauerfall zur Wiedervereinigung
• Helmut Kohl, der Mauerfall und die Wiedervereinigung 1989-90 / Hanns Jürgen Küsters
• Britain, Margaret Thatcher, and the end of the cold war / Anne Deighton
• How Kohl and Gorbachev wrapped up German Unification while Bush ensured NATO's perpetuation beyond the cold war / Kristina Spohr
• Autoren Verzeichnis.

• Youth
• War
• Khrushchev's speech
• Columbia University
• Trouble
• Canada
• Back home
• The December 1985 Memorandum
• Relations with Gorbachev
• Glasnost'
• Need of a fundamental break
• Role in foreign policy
• The 1939 Secret Protocol
• Attitude toward the United States
• Advocating presidency
• Accusations of treason
• Bolshevik crimes
• Dissolution of the Soviet Union
• Private life
• The August 1991 Coup
• Yakovlev's final thoughts about Russia and Russians
• Death.

A significant political figure in twentieth-century Russia, Alexander Yakovlev was the intellectual force behind the processes of perestroika (reconstruction) and glasnost (openness) that liberated the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe from Communist rule between 1989 and 1991. Yet, until now, not a single full-scale biography has been devoted to him. In his study of the unsung hero, Richard Pipes seeks to rectify this lacuna and give Yakovlev his historical due. Yakovlev's life provides a unique instance of a leading figure in the Soviet government who evolved from a dedicated Communist and Stalinist into an equally ardent foe of everything the Leninist-Stalinist regime stood for. He quit government service in 1991 and lived until 2005, becoming toward the end of his life a classical western liberal who shared none of the traditional Russian values. Pipes's illuminating study consists of two parts: a biography of Yakovlev and Pipes's translation of two important articles by Yakovlev. It will appeal to specialists and students of Soviet and post-Soviet studies, government officials involved with foreign policy, and general readers interested in the history of Russia and the Soviet Union.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• This work provides an examination of US refugee policy since the 1960s, particularly as it has been applied to Cuba, Haiti and Central America. The authors also address world-wide refugee problems, proposing ideas for the 21st century.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This work provides an examination of US refugee policy since the 1960s, particularly as it has been applied to Cuba, Haiti and Central America. The authors also address world-wide refugee problems, proposing ideas for the 21st century.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

"A highly original narrative history by The Economist's Moscow bureau chief that does for modern Russia what Evan Osnos did for China in The Age of Ambition. The end of communism and breakup of the Soviet Union was a time of euphoria around the world, but Russia today is violently anti-American and dangerously nationalistic. So how did we go from the promise of those heady days to the autocratic police state of Putin's new Russia? The Invention of Russia is a breathtakingly ambitious book that reaches back to the darkest days of the Cold War to tell the story of the fight for the soul of a nation. With the deep insight only possible of a native son, Arkady Ostrovsky introduces us to the propagandists, oligarchs and fixers who have set Russia's course since the collapse of the Soviet Union, inventing a new and more ominous identity for a country where ideas are all too often wielded like a cudgel"--Provided by publisher.

• Introduction
• 1. Russians and Serbs in the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia: grounds for comparison and alternative explanations
• 2. States, nations, and nationalism: a Weberian view
• 3. Empire, state, and nation in Russia and Serbia
• 4. Communism and nationalism: Russians and Serbs in the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia
• 5. The nation as a community of shared memories and common political destiny: Russians and Serbs in literary narratives
• Conclusion
• Postscript.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This book examines the role of Russian and Serbian nationalism in different modes of dissolution of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia in 1991. Why did Russia's elites agree to the dissolution of the Soviet Union along the borders of Soviet republics, leaving twenty-five million Russians outside of Russia? Conversely, why did Serbia's elite succeed in mobilizing Serbs in Croatia and Bosnia for the nationalist cause? Combining a Weberian emphasis on interpretive understanding and counterfactual analysis with theories of nationalism, Veljko Vujacic highlights the role of historical legacies, national myths, collective memories, and literary narratives in shaping diametrically opposed attitudes toward the state in Russia and Serbia. The emphasis on the unintended consequences of communist nationality policy highlights how these attitudes interacted with institutional factors, favoring different outcomes in 1991. The book's postscript examines how this explanation holds up in the light of Russia's annexation of Crimea.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: The Theory and Practice of Predicting Political Change
• 1. Theories of Political Change and Prediction of Change: Methodological Problems
• 2. Oligarchic Petrification or Pluralistic Transformation: Paradigmatic Views of the Soviet Union in the 1970s
• 3. Paradigms and the Debate on Relations with the Soviet Union: Detente, New Internationalism, and Neoconservatism
• 4. The Reagan Administration and the Soviet Interregnum: Accelerating the Demise of the Communist Empire
• 5. Acceleration: Tinkering Around the Edges, 1985-1986
• 6. Perestroika: Systemic Change, 1987-1989
• The Unintended Consequences of Radical Transformation: Losing Control of the Revolution and the Collapse of the Soviet Union, 1990-1991
• 8. Reflections on Predictive Failures.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Washington's failure to foresee the collapse of its superpower rival ranks high in the pantheon of predictive failures. The question of who got what right or wrong has been intertwined with the deeper issue of "who won" the Cold War. Like the disputes over "who lost" China and Iran, this debate has been fought out along ideological and partisan lines, with conservatives claiming credit for the Evil Empire's demise and liberals arguing that the causes were internal to the Soviet Union. The intelligence community has come in for harsh criticism for overestimating Soviet strength and overlooking the symptoms of crisis; the discipline of "Sovietology" has dissolved into acrimonious irrelevance. Drawing on declassified documents, interviews, and careful analysis of contemporaneous literature, this book offers the first systematic analysis of this predictive failure at the paradigmatic, foreign policy, and intelligence levels. Although it is focused on the Soviet case, it offers lessons that are both timely and necessary.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Cover; Contents; Acknowledgments; Preface: Encounters with a Declining Power; Abbreviations.

Soviet foreign policy changed dramatically in the 1980s. The shift, bitterly resisted by the country's foreign policy traditionalists, ultimately contributed to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War. In Changing Course, Sarah Mendelson demonstrates that interpretations that stress the impact of the international system, and particularly of U.S. foreign policy, or that focus on the role of ideas or politics alone, fail to explain the contingent process of change. Mendelson tells a story of internal battles where ""misfit"" ideas--ones that severely challenged th

This 1994 documentary, Coversations with Gorbachev, by Rosemarie Reed helps shed light oin world events, from the first-hand perspective of Mikhail Gorbachev, interviewed by Professor of Russian and Soviet Studies at NYU and Princeton Dr. Stephen F. Cohen.

• The last summit. Meeting in Moscow ; The party crasher ; Chicken Kiev
• The tanks of August. The prisoner of the Crimea ; The Russian rebel ; Freedom's victory
• A countercoup. The resurgence of Russia ; Independent Ukraine ; Saving the empire
• Soviet disunion. Washington's dilemma ; The Russian ark ; The survivor
• Vox populi. Anticipation ; The Ukrainian referendum ; The Slavic trinity
• Farewell to the empire. Out of the woods ; The birth of Eurasia ; Christmas in Moscow.

On Christmas Day, 1991, President George H. W. Bush addressed the nation to declare an American victory in the Cold War: earlier that day Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned as the first and last Soviet president. The enshrining of that narrative, one in which the end of the Cold War was linked to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the triumph of democratic values over communism, took centre stage in American public discourse immediately after Bush's speech and has persisted for decades, with disastrous consequences for American standing in the world.As Prize-winning historian Serhii Plokhy reveals in The Last Empire , the collapse of the Soviet Union was anything but the handiwork of the United States. On the contrary, American leaders dreaded the possibility that the Soviet Union, weakened by infighting and economic turmoil, might suddenly crumble, throwing all of Eurasia into chaos. Bush was firmly committed to supporting his ally and personal friend Gorbachev, and remained wary of nationalist or radical leaders such as recently elected Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Fearing what might happen to the large Soviet nuclear arsenal in the event of the union's collapse, Bush stood by Gorbachev as he resisted the growing independence movements in Ukraine, mouldova, and the Caucasus. Plokhy's detailed, authoritative account shows that it was only after the movement for independence of the republics had gained undeniable momentum on the eve of the Ukrainian vote for independence that fall that Bush finally abandoned Gorbachev to his fate.Drawing on recently declassified documents and original interviews with key participants, Plokhy presents a bold new interpretation of the Soviet Union's final months and argues that the key to the Soviet collapse was the inability of the two largest Soviet republics, Russia and Ukraine, to agree on the continuing existence of a unified state. By attributing the Soviet collapse to the impact of American actions, US policy makers overrated their own capacities in toppling and rebuilding foreign regimes. Not only was the key American role in the demise of the Soviet Union a myth, but this misplaced belief has guided, and haunted, American foreign policy ever since.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

On Christmas Day, 1991, President George H. W. Bush addressed the nation to declare an American victory in the Cold War: earlier that day Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned as the first and last Soviet president. The enshrining of that narrative, one in which the end of the Cold War was linked to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the triumph of democratic values over communism, took centre stage in American public discourse immediately after Bush's speech and has persisted for decades, with disastrous consequences for American standing in the world.As Prize-winning historian Serhii Plokhy reveals in The Last Empire , the collapse of the Soviet Union was anything but the handiwork of the United States. On the contrary, American leaders dreaded the possibility that the Soviet Union, weakened by infighting and economic turmoil, might suddenly crumble, throwing all of Eurasia into chaos. Bush was firmly committed to supporting his ally and personal friend Gorbachev, and remained wary of nationalist or radical leaders such as recently elected Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Fearing what might happen to the large Soviet nuclear arsenal in the event of the union's collapse, Bush stood by Gorbachev as he resisted the growing independence movements in Ukraine, mouldova, and the Caucasus. Plokhy's detailed, authoritative account shows that it was only after the movement for independence of the republics had gained undeniable momentum on the eve of the Ukrainian vote for independence that fall that Bush finally abandoned Gorbachev to his fate.Drawing on recently declassified documents and original interviews with key participants, Plokhy presents a bold new interpretation of the Soviet Union's final months and argues that the key to the Soviet collapse was the inability of the two largest Soviet republics, Russia and Ukraine, to agree on the continuing existence of a unified state. By attributing the Soviet collapse to the impact of American actions, US policy makers overrated their own capacities in toppling and rebuilding foreign regimes. Not only was the key American role in the demise of the Soviet Union a myth, but this misplaced belief has guided, and haunted, American foreign policy ever since.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. Introduction
• pt. I. Breznev's Containment Policy. 2. The Soviet Union's China Strategy, 1969-79. 3. The Sino-Soviet Conflict in Perspective
• pt. II. The Road to Beijing. 4. Leadership Change in the USSR and Sino-Soviet Relations, 1980-85. 5. Pressures for Continuity and Change in Soviet China Policy in the Early 1980s. 6. From Rapprochement to Normalization. 7. The Gorbachev Revolution and China Policy
• pt. III. Toward Sino-Russian Partnership. 8. Sino-Russian Relations in the Yeltsin Era. 9. Moscow and the Border Regions Debate Russia's China Policy.

Examining Russian-Chinese relations from Moscow's perspective, this important study illuminates the forces driving Moscow's China policy from 1969 to the 1990s, and concludes that the future of the partnership depends on forces of change.

• 1. Introduction
• pt. I. Breznev's Containment Policy. 2. The Soviet Union's China Strategy, 1969-79. 3. The Sino-Soviet Conflict in Perspective
• pt. II. The Road to Beijing. 4. Leadership Change in the USSR and Sino-Soviet Relations, 1980-85. 5. Pressures for Continuity and Change in Soviet China Policy in the Early 1980s. 6. From Rapprochement to Normalization. 7. The Gorbachev Revolution and China Policy
• pt. III. Toward Sino-Russian Partnership. 8. Sino-Russian Relations in the Yeltsin Era. 9. Moscow and the Border Regions Debate Russia's China Policy.

Examining Russian-Chinese relations from Moscow's perspective, this important study illuminates the forces driving Moscow's China policy from 1969 to the 1990s, and concludes that the future of the partnership depends on forces of change.

• CONTENTS INTRODUCTION
• PART I. MODERNITY AND MYTH
• CHAPTER 1. Modernity and Its Projects
• Modernity, Colonization, and Globalization
• Multiple Modernities and Cultural Hybridization
• Modernization through Internal Colonization
• The Myth of Enlightenment
• CHAPTER 2. Deconstructing Mythologies
• Roland Barthes's Mythologies
• The Schizophrenia of the Network
• The Idea of Framing
• Frame Analysis of Modernization Myths
• PART II. SOVIET MODERNITY
• CHAPTER 3. The Rise and Fall of an Alternative Project
• Great Transformation
• Stagnation and Gorbachev Reforms
• CHAPTER 4. The Discourses of Perestroika
• Democracy
• Market
• The United States
• PART III. THE VERNACULAR VS. THE ELITE
• On Methodology
• CHAPTER 5. Mythologizing Democracy
• Intellectual Mythology: The Highway of Civilization
• Vernacular Mythology: Power to the People!
• CHAPTER 6. Mythologizing the Market
• Intellectual Mythology: The invisible Hand
• Vernacular Mythology: Enriching Working People
• CHAPTER 7. Mythologizing the United States: The Horn of Plenty PART IV. THE SCHIZOPHRENIA OF PERESTROIKA
• CHAPTER 8. The Twilight Zone
• The Spirit of Hopelessness
• World Risk Society
• The Logic of Both / And
• CHAPTER 9. Schizophrenia as a Communicative Disorder
• Double Bind
• Network Schizophrenia and the Public Sphere
• CHAPTER 10. Personal Reflections
• CONCLUSION
• BIBLIOGRAPHY
• Primary Sources: Media Articles
• Secondary Sources
• APPENDIX A . Research Design
• Data Collecting
• Coding
• APPENDIX B . Statistical Results.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

The purpose of The Mythologies of Capitalism and the End of the Soviet Project is to show that in order to understand popular disillusionment with democratization, liberalization, and other transformations associated with the attempts of non-Western societies to appropriate the ideas of Western modernity, one must consider how these ideas are mythologized in the course of such appropriations. Olga Baysha argues that the seeds of popular post-revolutionary frustration should be sought in pre-revolutionary discourses on democracy, liberalism, and other concepts of Western modernity that are produced outside local contexts and introduced through the channels of global communication and the interpretations of politicians, activists, and experts. Analyzing the opinions of working people and intellectuals published in two Ukrainian newspapers of perestroika times, the author shows how the concepts of democracy, the market, and the West acquired schizophrenic mythical significations. The study is situated within the context of Ulrich Beck's theory of world risk society and Gregory Bateson's theory of schizophrenia as communicative disorder. The author argues that schizophrenic mythologies constructed through globalized networks can lead to disorientation, frustration, and the sense of uncertainty and insecurity on the part of mass publics.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Preface
• Chapter 1. Turning Points of Russia's Reforms: Generation Changes and Shifting Trajectories
• Chapter 2. The Point of Departure: Late-Soviet Negative Consensus
• Chapter 3. Perestroika: From Revival to Collapse
• Chapter 4. Post-Soviet Challenges: Difficult Choices During the "Triple Transition"
• Chapter 5. The Roaring Nineties
• Chapter 6. Unfree Market Economy under Autocracy Bibliography.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Reexamining Economic and Political Reforms in Russia, 1985-2000: Generations, Ideas, and Changes analyzes the impact of generational changes and ideational changes on major political and economic reforms conducted in Russia during the late twentieth century. This book examines how the policy agenda was shaped by the ideas of the generations' representatives for the "sixtiers" and "seventiers." Representatives of the generation of "sixtiers" conducted reforms from 1985 to 1991 and invested major efforts in political liberalization but did not pay enough attention to economic reforms. On the other hand, the reformers from the generation of "seventiers, " who were in charge of policy making from 1991 to 1998, were genuinely oriented toward market building but rather insensitive to the democratization of the political regime. This book explores how these differences in ideational agendas produced inconsistent and controversial outcomes from both stages of reforms.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Cover; Contents;
• 1. Perspectives on Civil-Military Relations in the Soviet Union.

How much power does the Soviet military exert on the politics of the Kremlin? This is one of the most controversial questions in the study of the Soviet Union, here addressed by eight top Western specialists on Soviet politics and security policy. While the authors assert that the civil-military relationship has been less turbulent than often believed, they also point out that Gorbachev's reforms threaten the system of buffers that have until now shielded the military-industrial world from disruption and change. Introduced by Timothy Colton's essay, ""Perspectives on Civil-Military Re

• Cover; Contents;
• 1. Perspectives on Civil-Military Relations in the Soviet Union.

How much power does the Soviet military exert on the politics of the Kremlin? This is one of the most controversial questions in the study of the Soviet Union, here addressed by eight top Western specialists on Soviet politics and security policy. While the authors assert that the civil-military relationship has been less turbulent than often believed, they also point out that Gorbachev's reforms threaten the system of buffers that have until now shielded the military-industrial world from disruption and change. Introduced by Timothy Colton's essay, ""Perspectives on Civil-Military Re

• Cover; Contents; Preface; Acknowledgments; Abbreviations;
• 1. Soviet Intellectuals in the Soviet Structure: Love-Hate Relationships with the Political Elite ;
• 2. The Intellectuals' Values and Orientations: Between Hedonism and Altruism;
• 3. The Intellectuals' Subculture: A Quest;
• 4. Soviet Intellectuals: Oppositional Views and Inconsistent Political Behavior;
• 5. The 1960s: The Heroic Age of Soviet Intellectuals;
• 6. Liberal Socialism: The Main Ideological Trend of the 1960s;
• 7. Intellectuals in the Time of Political Reaction;
• 8. Russophile Ideology: A Trend That Rose to Dominance in the 1970s.

• 9. Intellectuals Live in the Chosen Land: Gorbachev's GlasnostConclusion; References; Name Index; Subject Index.

In this unprecedented work on the status and role of intellectuals in Soviet political life, a former Soviet sociologist maps out the delicate, often paradoxical, ties between the political regime and the creative thinkers who play a major part in the movement toward modernization. Beginning with Stalin, Vladimir Shlapentokh explores the mutual need and antagonism that have existed between political leaders and intellectuals. What emerges is a fascinating portrayal of the Soviet intellectual network since the 1950s, which touches on such topics as the role of literature and film in politica.

• Cover; Contents; Preface; Acknowledgments; Abbreviations;
• 1. Soviet Intellectuals in the Soviet Structure: Love-Hate Relationships with the Political Elite ;
• 2. The Intellectuals' Values and Orientations: Between Hedonism and Altruism;
• 3. The Intellectuals' Subculture: A Quest;
• 4. Soviet Intellectuals: Oppositional Views and Inconsistent Political Behavior;
• 5. The 1960s: The Heroic Age of Soviet Intellectuals;
• 6. Liberal Socialism: The Main Ideological Trend of the 1960s;
• 7. Intellectuals in the Time of Political Reaction;
• 8. Russophile Ideology: A Trend That Rose to Dominance in the 1970s.

• 9. Intellectuals Live in the Chosen Land: Gorbachev's GlasnostConclusion; References; Name Index; Subject Index.

In this unprecedented work on the status and role of intellectuals in Soviet political life, a former Soviet sociologist maps out the delicate, often paradoxical, ties between the political regime and the creative thinkers who play a major part in the movement toward modernization. Beginning with Stalin, Vladimir Shlapentokh explores the mutual need and antagonism that have existed between political leaders and intellectuals. What emerges is a fascinating portrayal of the Soviet intellectual network since the 1950s, which touches on such topics as the role of literature and film in politica.

• Introduction / Dorothy S. McClellan
• State of the Soviet Union : view from the ivory tower / Dorothy S. McClellan and James E. McClellan, Jr
• Moral and spiritual changes / Howard L. Parsons
• Coaching Soviet baseball : excerpts from a sociologist's journal / William J. Byrne III
• Perestroika and ideology / John J. Neumaier
• Russia between the Union and the Commonwealth : new Carpetbaggers and old dreams / Carla Lipsig-Mumme
• Worker self-management in Soviet theory and practice / Aaron Bindman
• The crisis of Soviet legitimacy / Herman Schwendinger and Julia Schwendinger
• Moscow memoir : on the status of women / Freda Casner
• Perestroika and the internationalization of Russian higher education : the summer of 1990 / Donald A. Biggs
• Perestroika in philosophy : report from Moscow State University / Dorothy S. McClellan and James E. McClellan, Jr
• Why, when and how we lost Russia / James E. McClellan, Jr
• The universality of liberal capitalism and the possibility of renewed socialism : reflections on the Soviet coup of August 1991 / James Lawler.

"This book provides an intimate look at how Americans resident in the Soviet Union in its final days described its fall. Their accounts range from concrete portrayals of individuals to theoretical discussions of ideology, economy, gender equality, capitalism and socialism, producing a multifaceted portrait of this extraordinary moment in world history"-- Provided by publisher.

• List of illustrations. List of Contributors. Foreword by Bridget Kendall. Introduction by Irina Prokhorova. LATE
• 1989: A TIMELINE: 'If Lenin Were Alive Today, He Would Have Known What to Do' - Aleksey Yurchak. JANUARY: My Diary for January 1990 - Mark Kharitonov. FEBRUARY: The Year of Utopias Realised: Schools, Teachers and Educational Reformers in 1990 - Tamara Eydelman. MARCH: The Irrational in Society: Diagnoses of 1990 - Pavel Romanov and Yelena Yarskaya-Smirnova. APRIL: The Shock of Irrevocability - Hasan Guseynov. MAY: Ends and Means: Initial Ideas, Institutions That Win - Vitaliy Yelizarov. JUNE: The Beginning of the End: Notes of an Eyewitness, Edited by an Historian, Being the Same Person - Marietta Chudakova. JULY: Ideological Construction of a Party Spectrum: The False Start of 1990 - Vadim Goncharov. Free Flight: The Rebirth of Soviet Aeronautics - Svetlana Koroleva. Trade Unions in
• 1990: An Involved Observer's View - Sergey Khramov. AUGUST: The Funeral of Food, or The Soviet Shopping Basket in 1990 - Sergey Karnaukhov. SEPTEMBER: The Russian Orthodox Church in 1990 - Nikolai Mitrokhin. OCTOBER: An Interview with Vladimir Pozner. Frozen Experiences, or Local Television Reporting in 1990 - Pavel Pavlov. NOVEMBER: The Miners in 1989
• -1990: A Venture into National Politics - Sergey Turkin. DECEMBER: History as Economics, or A Journey from 1921 to 1906 via 1990 - Olesya Kirchik. Afterword: The Challenge of Recent History - Irina Prokhorova. Appendix: Illustration Source Notes. Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Although 1989 and 1991 witnessed more spectacular events, 1990 was a year of embryonic change in Russia: Article 6 of the constitution was abolished, and with it the Party's monopoly on political power. This fascinating collection of documentary evidence crystalises the aspirations of the Russian people in the days before Communism finally fell. It charts - among many other social developments - the appearance of new political parties and independent trade unions, the rapid evolution of mass media, the emergence of a new class of entrepreneurs, a new openness about sex and pornography and a sudden craze for hot-air ballooning, banned under the Communist regime. 1990 is a reminder of the confusion and aspirations of the year before Communism finally collapsed in Russia, and a tantalising glimpse of the paths that may have been taken if Yeltsin's coup had not forced the issue in 1991.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Twenty-five years after Gorbachev came to power and two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the questions that were behind the reform efforts at the start of Perestroika are still relevant: how to modernise the economy, and how to recreate a basis for political legitimacy? The wave of 'Colour Revolutions' that precipitated regime change in Eastern Europe, starting in Serbia, and later in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan, were carried out in the name of democratic legitimacy, and in order to fight corruption. The current debate in Moscow under the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev revolves around the same idea: what is the way forward for Russia's modernisation, economically and politically? This volume brings together six experts on East Europe and the former Soviet Union to compare and evaluate the evolution of ideas behind Gorbachev's reforms, Yeltsin's transition, and the more recent wave of the Colour Revolutions. It does not propose a coherent regard to these historic events, but rather dispersed discussion from various perspectives tracing the contradictory development of ideas of reform, the transformation of the notion of revolution, on the role of civil society, and individual chapters from the four cases of Colour Revolutions. Contributors: Catherine Samary, Jean-Arnault Derens, Ghia Nodia, Dominique Arel, Anara Tabyshalieva.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Preface
• Notes on Contributors
• 1. Introduction 2. The Consolidation of Gorbachev's Political Power - a Springboard for Reform? Iain Elliot 3. Industrial Planning - Forwards or Sideways? David A. Dyker 4. Agriculture the Permanent Crisis David A. Dyker 5. Gorbachev and the World - the Economic Side Alan H. Smith 6. Gorbachev and the World - the Political Side Zdenek Kavan 7. Conclusions David A. Dyker.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Gorbachev's accession to General Secretary promised great changes to the Soviet Union and its relationship with the rest of the world. This book, first published in 1987, discusses the problems faced by Gorbachev when he entered office and how he planned to tackle them. Gorbachev was a figure of genuine debate in the mid-1980s, raising doubts from Western specialists regarding his radicalism and ability to reform the Soviet economic system in particular. Here, Dyker and his colleagues assess the changes Gorbachev had already made to consolidate his power base, alongside those that he was proposing to make to agriculture, industry and foreign relations at the time of publication. The book speculates about how Gorbachev might implement his proposed political and economic reforms, what opposition he might encounter and how successful he would be. A fascinating insight into Soviet economic and political policy in the years leading up to the Union's collapse, this work will be of particular importance to students and academics researching the personality of Gorbachev and the political and economic history of the Soviet Union.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• List of Tables Acknowledgements Abbreviations Introduction
• 1. The Conference as an institution
• 2. The Conference as a policy choice: the CPSU Conference, 1905-1941
• 3. The rhetoric of reform or a consolidation of power? Gorbachev's defeat of left and right at the Nineteenth CPSU Conference, June 1988
• 4. Keeping the 'Outer Empire' in step with the CPSU: Gorbachev's policy of fraternal party alignment via the NPC 1987-8
• 5. Purging party factions: the HSWP National Conference, May 1988
• 6. Consolidating federal party unity at the LCY Conference, May 1988
• 7. Too little, too late: The PUWP Conference, 4-5 May 1989 Conclusion.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

This book looks at the liberalisation process in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) during the period 1987-1989, focusing on Gorbachev's initiative to encourage perestroika in all the fraternal regimes of CEE outside the Soviet Union. Archival materials, interviews and textual analysis identify a joint initiative 1987-1989 among these fraternal communist parties to perpetuate the one-party system. For this purpose, fraternal parties were expected to follow the example of the CPSU in convening the national party conference, an all-party meeting on a similar scale to the five-yearly congress, and yet mysteriously, one which was barely described in the Party Statutes and rarely convoked. Gorbachev made use of CEE dependence on the Soviet Union for energy supplies to ensure that at least some fraternal parties followed his line. This book will be of interest to those studying the transition process in CEE, democratisation, comparative politics more generally and students of research methods.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• ""Cover""; ""CONTENTS""; ""ACKNOWLEDGMENTS""; ""INTRODUCTION""; ""PART ONE: REVOLUTIONS, IDEAS, AND THE END OF THE SOVIET UNION""; ""1 The “Mysteryâ€? of the Soviet Collapse and the Theory of Revolutions""; ""2 For Truth and Goodness: The Credos of Glasnost""; ""PART TWO: ĐšTO Mб? WHO ARE WE?""; ""3 Inside the “Deafened Zoneâ€?""; ""4 In Search of History""; ""5 “The Innocent, the Slandered, the Exterminatedâ€?""; ""6 The Peasant Hecatomb""; ""7 The Unraveling of the Legitimizing Myths, I: Food, Housing, Medical Care, the “Golden Childhood, â€? and the Standard of Living""

• ""8 The Unraveling of the Legitimizing Myths, II: Progress, the “State of Workers and Peasants, â€? Equality, “Freedom from Exploitation, â€? Novocherkassk""""9 The Unraveling of the Legitimizing Myths, III: The Great Patriotic War""; ""10 The “Immoralâ€? Economy""; ""11 The “Disintegration of Soulsâ€?: Homo Sovieticus""; ""PART THREE: ĐšTO BĐ?HOBAT? WHO IS TO BLAME?""; ""12 The House That Stalin Built: The Master State and Its Political Economy""; ""13 “De-individualization, â€? the “Original Sin, â€? and the Nationalization of Conscience""

• ""PART FOUR: ĐTO Đ?EĐ?ATĐƠ? WHAT IS TO BE DONE?""""14 Stalin, Memory, Repentance, Atonement""; ""15 The “Spirit of Freedomâ€? and the Power of Nyet""; ""16 The Freedom Canon: Mandelstam, Dombrovsky, Solzhenitsyn, Platonov, Grossman""; ""17 In Manâ€?s Image, I: “Privatizingâ€? the State and Economy""; ""18 In Manâ€?s Image, II: The Empire, the “Garrison State, â€? and the World""; ""Epilogue""; ""GLASNOSTâ€?S SIGNPOSTS: THE THEMES AND THE TEXTS""; ""GLASNOSTâ€?S TROUBADOURS""; ""NOTES""; ""BIBLIOGRAPHY""; ""INDEX""; ""A""; ""B""; ""C""; ""D""; ""E""; ""F""; ""G""; ""H""; ""I""; ""J""

• ""K""""l""; ""m""; ""n""; ""o""; ""p""; ""r""; ""s""; ""t""; ""u""; ""v""; ""w""; ""y""; ""z""

• Frontmatter
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part One: Revolutions, Ideas, and the End of the Soviet Union
• 1. The "Mystery" of the Soviet Collapse and the Theory of Revolutions
• 2. For Truth and Goodness: The Credos of Glasnost
• Part Two: Кto МыWho are We-- 3. Inside the "Deafened Zone"
• 4. In Search of History
• 5. "The Innocent, the Slandered, the Exterminated"
• 6. The Peasant Hecatomb
• 7. The Unraveling of the Legitimizing Myths, I: Food, Housing, Medical Care, the "Golden Childhood, " and the Standard of Living
• 8. The Unraveling of the Legitimizing Myths, II: Progress, the "State of Workers and Peasants, " Equality, "Freedom from Exploitation, " Novocherkassk
• 9. The Unraveling of the Legitimizing Myths, III: The Great Patriotic War
• 10. The "Immoral" Economy
• 11. The "Disintegration of Souls": Homo Sovieticus
• Part Three: Кto ВиhobatWho Is to Blame-- 12. The House That Stalin Built: The Master State and its Political Economy
• 13. "De-individualization, " the "Original Sin, " and the Nationalization of Conscience
• Part Four: Чto ДелатьWhat Is to Be Done-- 14. Stalin, Memory, Repentance, Atonement
• 15. The "Spirit of Freedom" and the Power of Nyet
• 16. The Freedom Canon: Mandelstam, Dombrovsky, Solzhenitsyn, Platonov, Grossman
• 17. In Man's Image, I: "Privatizing" the State and Economy
• 18. In Man's Image, II: The Empire, the "Garrison State, " and the World
• Epilogue
• Glasnost's Signposts: The Themes and the Texts
• Glasnost's Troubadours
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index.

Leon Aron considers the "mystery of the Soviet collapse" and finds answers in the intellectual and moral self-scrutiny of glasnost that brought about a profound shift in values. Reviewing the entire output of the key glasnost outlets in 1987-1991, he elucidates and documents key themes in this national soul-searching and the "ultimate" questions that sparked moral awakening of a great nation: "Who are we? How do we live honorably? What is a dignified relationship between man and state? How do we atone for the moral breakdown of Stalinism?"Contributing both to the theory of revolutions and history of ideas, Aron presents a thorough and original narrative about new ideas' dissemination through the various media of the former Soviet Union. Aron shows how, reaching every corner of the nation, these ideas destroyed the moral foundation of the Soviet state, de-legitimized it and made its collapse inevitable.&#160.

• Part One. Revolutions, Ideas, and the End of the Soviet Union: 1. The "mystery" of the Soviet collapse and the theory of revolutions; For truth and goodness: the credos of glasnost --Part Two. Who Are We?:Inside the "deafened zone"; In search of history; "The innocent, the slandered, the exterminated"; The peasant hecatomb; The unraveling of the legitimizing myths, I: food, housing, medical care, the "golden childhood", and the standard of living; The unraveling of the legitimizing myths, II: progress, the "state of workers and peasants", equality, "freedom from exploitation", Novocherkassk; The unraveling of the legitimizing myths, III: the Great Patriotic War; The "immoral" economy; The "disintegration of souls": homo sovieticus
• Part Three.Who is to blame?: The house that Stalin built: the master state and its political economy; De-individualization, the "original sin", and the nationalization of conscience
• Part Four. What Is to be Done?: Stalin, memory, repentance, atonement; The "spirit of freedom" and the power of nyet; The freedom canon: Mandelstam, Dombrovsky, Solzhenitsyn, Platonov, Grossman; In man's image, I: "privatizing" the state and economy; In man's image, II: the empire, the "garrison state", and the world
• Epilogue.

Leon Aron considers the "mystery of the Soviet collapse" and finds answers in the intellectual and moral self-scrutiny of glasnost that brought about a profound shift in values. Reviewing the entire output of the key glasnost outlets in 1987-1991, he elucidates and documents key themes in this national soul-searching and the "ultimate" questions that sparked moral awakening of a great nation: "Who are we? How do we live honorably? What is a dignified relationship between man and state? How do we atone for the moral breakdown of Stalinism?" Contributing both to the theory of revolutions and history of ideas, Aron presents a thorough and original narrative about new ideas' dissemination through the various media of the former Soviet Union. Aron shows how, reaching every corner of the nation, these ideas destroyed the moral foundation of the Soviet state, de-legitimized it and made its collapse inevitable.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Long before the tragedy of the 2011 nuclear disasters in Japan, the nuclear reactor at Chernobyl experienced an explosion, meltdown, fire, and massive release of radioactivity. Twenty-five years later, we still know very little about the event and its aftermath. Few of the professional papers describing the aftereffects of the disaster have been translated from Russian into English or distributed in the West. This is now remedied, with the publication of this definitive volume, based on original sources, and originally published in Russian. Alla A. Yaroshinskaya describes the human side of the disaster, with firsthand accounts by those who lived through the world's worst public health crisis. Chernobyl Crime without Punishment is a unique account of events by a reporter who defied the Soviet bureaucracy. The author presents an accurate historical record, with quotations from all the major players in the Chernobyl drama. It also provides unique insight into the final stages of Soviet communism. Yaroshinskaya describes actions after the disaster: how authorities built a new city for Chernobyl residents but placed it in a highly polluted area. She also details the actions of the nuclear lobby inside and outside the former Soviet Union. Bringing the book into the twenty-first century, the author reviews the latest medical data on Chernobyl people's health from the affected countries and from independent investigations; and states why there has been no trial of top officials who covered up Chernobyl and its disastrous consequences.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

This documentary recounts the critical last two years of the USSR and sheds light on events that led to the sudden collapse of one of the most totalitarian empires of the 20th century.

• The reluctant intervention
• The turn toward diplomacy
• Gorbachev confronts Afghanistan
• The national reconciliation campaign
• Engaging with the Americans
• The Army withdraws and the Politburo debates
• Soviet policy adrift.

The conflict in Afghanistan looms large in the collective consciousness of Americans. What has the United States achieved, and how will it withdraw without sacrificing those gains? The Soviet Union confronted these same questions in the 1980s, and Artemy Kalinovsky's history of the USSR's nine-year struggle to extricate itself from Afghanistan and bring its troops home provides a sobering perspective on exit options in the region. What makes Kalinovsky's intense account both timely and important is its focus not on motives for initiating the conflict but on the factors that prevented the Soviet leadership from ending a demoralizing war. Why did the USSR linger for so long, given that key elites recognized the blunder of the mission shortly after the initial deployment? Newly available archival material, supplemented by interviews with major actors, allows Kalinovsky to reconstruct the fierce debates among Soviet diplomats, KGB officials, the Red Army, and top Politburo figures. The fear that withdrawal would diminish the USSR's status as leader of the Third World is palpable in these disagreements, as are the competing interests of Afghan factions and the Soviet Union's superpower rival in the West. This book challenges many widely held views about the actual costs of the conflict to the Soviet leadership, and its findings illuminate the Cold War context of a military engagement that went very wrong, for much too long.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• The reluctant intervention
• The turn toward diplomacy
• Gorbachev confronts Afghanistan
• The national reconciliation campaign
• Engaging with the Americans
• The Army withdraws and the Politburo debates
• Soviet policy adrift.

The conflict in Afghanistan looms large in the collective consciousness of Americans. What has the United States achieved, and how will it withdraw without sacrificing those gains? The Soviet Union confronted these same questions in the 1980s, and Artemy Kalinovsky's history of the USSR's nine-year struggle to extricate itself from Afghanistan and bring its troops home provides a sobering perspective on exit options in the region. What makes Kalinovsky's intense account both timely and important is its focus not on motives for initiating the conflict but on the factors that prevented the Soviet leadership from ending a demoralizing war. Why did the USSR linger for so long, given that key elites recognized the blunder of the mission shortly after the initial deployment? Newly available archival material, supplemented by interviews with major actors, allows Kalinovsky to reconstruct the fierce debates among Soviet diplomats, KGB officials, the Red Army, and top Politburo figures. The fear that withdrawal would diminish the USSR's status as leader of the Third World is palpable in these disagreements, as are the competing interests of Afghan factions and the Soviet Union's superpower rival in the West. This book challenges many widely held views about the actual costs of the conflict to the Soviet leadership, and its findings illuminate the Cold War context of a military engagement that went very wrong, for much too long.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
Why did the USSR linger so long in Afghanistan? What makes this account of the Soviet-Afghan conflict both timely and important is its focus on the factors that prevented the Soviet leadership from ending a demoralizing and costly war and on the long-term consequences for the Soviet Union and the region.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Preface Words of Gorbachev World in Transition - The End of the Cold War Issyk-Kul Forum (Speech 20 October 1986) Murmansk Initiative (Speech 1 October 1987) Freedom of Choice (speech to 43rd U.N. General Assembly Session, 7 December 1988) Europe as a Common Home (Council of Europe 6 July 1989) Grim Legacy of Old (Speech at 28th Communist Party Congress 2 July 1990 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech (10 December 1990) Address to the Global Forum on Environment and Development for Survival (Moscow, 19 January 1990) The Nobel Lecture (Speech- 5 June 1991) Final Televised Address as President of the USSR (25 December 1991) Speech at the Opening of the Fourth International Global Forum of Spiritual and Parliamentary Leaders (20 April 1993) What Made Me a Crusader (Op-ed- Time Special Issue, November 1997) Nature Will Not Wait (World Watch Magazine, March/April 2001) Weapons of Mass Destruction: Free World The Importance of Chemical Weapons Abolition (Speech- Geneva Forum on the Worldwide Destruction of Chemical Weapons, 26 June 2003) Address for Second Rally for International Disarmament, Nuclear, Biological and Chemical (6-8 May 2008) The Nuclear Threat (Op-ed- Wall Street Journal, 31 January 2007) Speech at Overcoming Nuclear Dangers Conference (16 April 2009) Disarmament Lessons from the Chemical Weapons Convention (Op-ed- Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 16 June 2009) Two First Steps on Nuclear Weapons (op-ed- NY Times, 25 September 2009) Resetting the Nuclear Disarmament Agenda (Speech at the United Nations in Geneva, 5 October 2009) The Ice Has Broken (Op-ed- NY Times, 22 April 2010) Address for the Nobel Peace Laureates Forum (12-14 November 2010) The Senate's Next Task: Ratifying the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (op-ed- NY Times- 28 December 2010) Green Agenda Climate Challenge The New Path to Peace and Sustainability (Article- El Pais, 30 January 2004) A New Glasnost for Global Sustainability (Article- The Optimist April 2004) Energy Shift, Now (Forum 2004, 2 June 2004) The Third Pillar of Sustainable Development (Preface to Toward a Sustainable World: The Earth Charter in Action, 2005) The Lessons of Chernobyl (Interview- The Optimist April 2006) Interview with the House Magazine (2006) Foreword to Antarctica: The Global Warming (October 2006) Mikhail Gorbachev on World Food Crisis (Op-ed- Rossiskaya Gazeta daily 13 May 2008) Failure in Copenhagen would be 'catastrophic risk': Gorbachev (Interview- Agence France-Presse, 3 December 2009) Address to the Club of Rome (26 October 2009) Tear Down This Wall! And Save the Planet (Op-ed- The Times, 9 November 2009) Playing Russian Roulette with Climate Change (Op-ed- Project Syndicate, 3 December 2009) We Have a Real Emergency (Op-ed- NY Times, 9 December 2009) After Copenhagen: A New Leadership Challenge (Op-ed- GCI website, 22 December 2009) Let's Get Serious About Climate Talks (Op-ed- NY Times, 3 November 2010) Water for Peace A New Glasnost for Our Future: The Right to Water and Dignified Life (Speech- World Urban Forum, 13 September 2004) Our Common Future (Speech- La Plata Basin Dialogues, 12 September 2005) Access to Water is Not a Privilege, it's a Right (Article- The Optimist, 2005) All of Us Should be Ashamed (Op-ed- Financial Times, 21 March 2007) Climate Change and Water Security: Solving the Equation (Op-ed- Project Syndicate, 6 June 2007) Foreword to Water for Peace - Peace for Water (Article- 2008) Tomorrow May be Too Late to Address Water Crisis (Speech- 'Peace with Water' conference, 12 February 2009) The Right to Water (Op-ed- NY Times 16 July 2010) CSA Interview with Mikhail Gorbachev (Autumn 2010) Word on Gorbachev Contributors - Shimon Peres George Bush Sr. Ruud Lubbers F. W. de Klerk Dr. Jan Kulczyk Federico Mayor Zaragoza Mario Soares Maurice Strong Martin Lees Ted Turner Achim Steiner Diane Meyer Simon Dr. Ismail Serageldin Guido Pollice Rabbi Awraham Soetendorp Sir David King Shoo Iwasaki Jean-Michel Cousteau Steven Rockefeller Charles & Diane Gallagher Sergei Kapitsa Alexander Likhotal Pat Mitchell & Scott Seydel Ricardo Lagos Margaret Thatcher.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Mikhail Gorbachev is living proof that the word is mightier than the sword; that ideas, not armies, change the world. Dedicated to ridding humanity of the threat of nuclear annihilation, Gorbachev called for multilateral action to forge a common future at a time when the superpowers were at loggerheads. Two key words, Perestroika and Glasnost, characterised his philosophy - words that came to represent change and freedom in the universal consciousness. Gorbachev's radical thought ignited sweeping reforms in the Soviet Union, inspired liberation movements across Eastern Europe, and thawed decades of Cold War enmity. For Gorbachev, environmental matters have always been inextricably bound up with peace, security and social justice. The transition from head of state of the USSR to president of a non-governmental organisation, Green Cross International, was therefore a natural one. "Mikhail Gorbachev: Prophet for Change" traces the evolution of his vision, in particular the origins and outcomes of his environmental agenda, which belong to the important legacy of the changes Gorbachev initiated in the Soviet Union and the world. Without these critical initiatives, the many advances of today's global environmental movement would not have been possible. This anthology, featuring select speeches and writings, as well as tributes from political contemporaries and partners in the environmental and peace movements, has been compiled by Green Cross International to celebrate Gorbachev's 80th birthday. The tributes from colleagues and friends - ranging from political heavyweights George Bush and Margaret Thatcher to renowned champions of sustainability Maurice Strong and Achim Steiner - reflect the esteem in which Mikhail Gorbachev is held, and the special place he occupies in the history of our times.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

The implosion of the Soviet Union was the culmination of a gripping game played out between two men who intensely disliked each other and had different concepts for the future. Mikhail Gorbachev, a sophisticated and urbane reformer, sought to modernize and preserve the USSR; Boris Yeltsin, a coarse and a hard drinking "bulldozer, " wished to destroy the union and create a capitalist Russia. The defeat of the August 1991 coup attempt, carried out by hardline communists, shook Gorbachev's authority and was a triumph for Yeltsin. But it took four months of intrigue and double-dealing before the Soviet Union collapsed and the day arrived when Yeltsin could hustle Gorbachev out of the Kremlin, and move in as ruler of Russia. Conor O'Clery has written a unique and truly suspenseful thriller of the day the Soviet Union died. The internal power plays, the shifting alliances, the betrayals, the mysterious three colonels carrying the briefcase with the nuclear codes, and the jockeying to exploit the future are worthy of John Le Carre or Alan Furst. The Cold War's last act was a magnificent dark drama played out in the shadows of the Kremlin.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

In analyzing how economic crime was managed in Russia, from the Brezhnev era to the Yeltsin years, this book reveals the historical roots of the 'criminal problem' that has marked Russian politics since the late 1980s. During the closing decades of the Soviet regime, the daily struggle against shortages of goods and services precipitated a rapid increase in the black market and other underground practices, visible to all, but still deemed illegal. How did Soviet police officers and judges select the cases they dealt with on a daily basis? And how were the funds and manpower dedicated to combating 'economic crime' actually deployed? Law enforcement agencies also had to deal with the aftermath of Mikhail Gorbachev's liberal economic reforms. Russia's economy underwent far-reaching change, its judicial framework proved obsolete to combat the new challenges and its police woke up to the possibility of privatising or selling their professional knowhow. Drawing on first hand research and interviews with criminals and police officers, this scrupulous study investigates the changing nature of criminal law and policing before and after the fall of the Soviet state.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• The Soviet example
• Superpower similarities
• The collapse gap
• Collapse mitigation
• Adaptation
• Career opportunities
• Conclusion.

The United States is in steep decline. Plagued by runaway debt, a shrinking economy, and environmental catastrophes to rival Chernobyl, the United States has been retracing the trajectory of the Soviet Union in the early 1980s toward national bankruptcy and political dissolution. By comparing a collapse that has run its course to one that is now unfolding, Dmitry Orlov holds a unique lens up to America's present and future. As Orlov's predictions continue to come true, his writing continues to gain mainstream acceptance. This revised and updated edition of Reinventing Collapse examines the circumstances of the demise of the Soviet superpower and offers clear insights into how we might prepare for the events that are unfolding here. Orlov gives no quarter to prophets of doom and gloom, finding plenty of room for optimism, if only we focus our efforts on personal and cultural transformation instead of trying to perpetuate an impossible status quo. This challenging yet inspiring and surprisingly upbeat work is a must-read for anyone concerned about peak oil, the environment, geopolitics, international relations, and life in a resource-constrained world. Dmitry Orlov is an American engineer who was an eyewitness to the Soviet collapse and has written extensively on the subject of the impending collapse of the United States.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Partners
• Ronald Reagan, intelligence, William Casey, and CIA: a reappraisal / Nick Dujmovic
• U.S. intelligence estimates of the Soviet collapse: reality and perception / Bruce Berkowitz
• What should we expect from intelligence? / Gregory Treverton
• The Reagan Cold War timeline, 1981-89
• Declassified intelligence documents
• Symposium agenda and speaker biographies.

• Partners
• Ronald Reagan, intelligence, William Casey, and CIA: a reappraisal / Nick Dujmovic
• U.S. intelligence estimates of the Soviet collapse: reality and perception / Bruce Berkowitz
• What should we expect from intelligence? / Gregory Treverton
• The Reagan Cold War timeline, 1981-89
• Declassified intelligence documents
• Symposium agenda and speaker biographies.

• Introduction: Alternatives and Fates
• 1. Bukharin's Fate
• 2. The Victims Return: Gulag Survivors Since Stalin
• 3. The Tragedy of Soviet Conservatism
• 4. Was the Soviet System Reformable?
• 5. The Fate of the Soviet Union: Why Did It End?
• 6. Gorbachev's Lost Legacies
• 7. Who Lost the Post-Soviet Peace? About the Notes Notes Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In this wide-ranging and acclaimed book, Stephen F. Cohen challenges conventional wisdom about the course of Soviet and post-Soviet history. Reexamining leaders from Nikolai Bukharin, Stalin's preeminent opponent, and Nikita Khrushchev to Mikhail Gorbachev and his rival Yegor Ligachev, Cohen shows that their defeated policies were viable alternatives and that their tragic personal fates shaped the Soviet Union and Russia today. Cohen's ramifying arguments include that Stalinism was not the predetermined outcome of the Communist Revolution; that the Soviet Union was reformable and its breakup avoidable; and that the opportunity for a real post-Cold War relationship with Russia was squandered in Washington, not in Moscow. This is revisionist history at its best, compelling readers to rethink fateful events of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and the possibilities ahead. In his new epilogue, Cohen expands his analysis of U.S. policy toward post-Soviet Russia, tracing its development in the Clinton and Obama administrations and pointing to its initiation of a "new Cold War" that, he implies, has led to a fateful confrontation over Ukraine.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• The formative years, 1952-1989
• St. Petersburg years, 1990-96
• Putin in Moscow, 1996-99
• Putin at the helm, 1999-2000
• Putin's domestic politics and policies
• Putin's foreign policy.

Since Russian leader Vladimir Putin assumed power in August 1999, speculation about his character, motives, and plans for Russia's future has been rampant in the West. A portrait of Putin has emerged in the West that is one-dimensional, ill informed, and diametrically opposed to the image of Putin the majority of Russians hold. Even after he stepped down as president in May 2008, retaining a significant measure of power as prime minister under his hand-picked successor, President Dmitri Medvedev, Putin remains poorly understood. In this interpretive biography of Putin, Allen C. Lynch seeks to reconcile the two conflicting images and find out just where the truth lies about the man and the statesman. Westerners view Putin as an authoritarian holdover from the Soviet era who has clamped down on domestic opposition, freedom of the press, and other elements of a functioning democracy and who has relentlessly exerted Russian influence abroad, challenging the West and seeking to control its post-Soviet periphery. Most Russians, in contrast, are likely to be grateful to Putin for presiding over an economic recovery and reasserting Russian dignity on the world stage. A complete apprehension of the Russian leader, according to Lynch, requires an understanding of the way in which Putin's personal experiences and critical events in recent Russian history have shaped his outlook. Lynch convincingly demonstrates how a complex interplay of Russia's post-Soviet circumstances and the particular path of Putin's career have informed his choices as leader.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

Since Russian leader Vladimir Putin assumed power in August 1999, speculation about his character, motives, and plans for Russia's future has been rampant in the West. A portrait of Putin has emerged in the West that is one-dimensional, ill informed, and diametrically opposed to the image of Putin the majority of Russians hold. Even after he stepped down as president in May 2008, retaining a significant measure of power as prime minister under his hand-picked successor, President Dmitri Medvedev, Putin remains poorly understood. In this interpretive biography of Putin, Allen C. Lynch seeks to reconcile the two conflicting images and find out just where the truth lies about the man and the statesman. Westerners view Putin as an authoritarian holdover from the Soviet era who has clamped down on domestic opposition, freedom of the press, and other elements of a functioning democracy and who has relentlessly exerted Russian influence abroad, challenging the West and seeking to control its post-Soviet periphery. Most Russians, in contrast, are likely to be grateful to Putin for presiding over an economic recovery and reasserting Russian dignity on the world stage. A complete apprehension of the Russian leader, according to Lynch, requires an understanding of the way in which Putin's personal experiences and critical events in recent Russian history have shaped his outlook. Lynch convincingly demonstrates how a complex interplay of Russia's post-Soviet circumstances and the particular path of Putin's career have informed his choices as leader.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• A force that eluded control : the rise of the Moscow trade organizations
• Integrity and efficiency : the KGB's anticorruption war
• Who, how many, and how much? : corruption in the Moscow trade organizations
• The war the KBG lost
• Conclusion: Changes in the Moscow trade organizations
• Appendix: Officials charged with bribing deputy directors of the Administration for Food Product Trade Organizations.

The 1980s brought a whirlwind of change to Communist Party politics and the Soviet Republic. By mid-decade, Gorbachev\u2019s policies of perestroika and glasnost had opened the door to democratic reform. Later, mounting public unrest over the failed economy and calls for independence among many republics ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Often overlooked in these events, yet monumental to breaking the Communist Party\u2019s institutional stranglehold, were the KGB anti-corruption campaigns of 1982-1987. In this original study, Luc Duhamel examines the KGB at its pinnacle of power. The appointment of former KGB director Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party in 1982 marked the height of KGB influence. For the first time since Stalin, Beria, and the NKVD, there was now an unquestioned authority to pursue violators of Soviet law, including members of the Communist Party. Duhamel focuses on the KGB\u2019s investigation into Moscow\u2019s two largest trade organizations: the Chief Administration of Trade and the Administration of the Moscow Fruit and Vegetable Office. Like many of their Soviet counterparts, these state-controlled institutions were built on a foundation of bribery and favoritism among Communist Party members, workers, and their bosses. This book analyzes the multifarious networks of influence peddling, appointments, and clientelism that pervaded these trade organizations and maintained their ties to party officials. Through firsthand research into the archives of the Andropov-era KGB and the prosecutor general\u2019s office, Duhamel uncovers the indictment of thousands of trade organization employees, the reprimand of Communist Party members, and the radical change in political ideology manifested by these proceedings. He further reveals that despite aggressive prosecutions, the KGB\u2019s power would soon wither, as the agency came under intense scrutiny because of its violent methods and the ghosts of the NKVD. The reinstatement of Moscow city government control over the trade organizations, the death of Andropov, and the rising tide of democratic reform would effectively end the reign of the KGB and its anticorruption campaigns.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• A force that eluded control : the rise of the Moscow trade organizations
• Integrity and efficiency : the KGB's anticorruption war
• Who, how many, and how much? : corruption in the Moscow trade organizations
• The war the KBG lost
• Conclusion: changes in the Moscow trade organizations
• Appendix: officials charged with bribing deputy directors of the Administration for Food Product Trade Organizations.

The 1980s brought a whirlwind of change to Communist Party politics and the Soviet Republic. By mid-decade, Gorbachev\u2019s policies of perestroika and glasnost had opened the door to democratic reform. Later, mounting public unrest over the failed economy and calls for independence among many republics ended with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. Often overlooked in these events, yet monumental to breaking the Communist Party\u2019s institutional stranglehold, were the KGB anti-corruption campaigns of 1982-1987. In this original study, Luc Duhamel examines the KGB at its pinnacle of power. The appointment of former KGB director Yuri Andropov as general secretary of the Communist Party in 1982 marked the height of KGB influence. For the first time since Stalin, Beria, and the NKVD, there was now an unquestioned authority to pursue violators of Soviet law, including members of the Communist Party. Duhamel focuses on the KGB\u2019s investigation into Moscow\u2019s two largest trade organizations: the Chief Administration of Trade and the Administration of the Moscow Fruit and Vegetable Office. Like many of their Soviet counterparts, these state-controlled institutions were built on a foundation of bribery and favoritism among Communist Party members, workers, and their bosses. This book analyzes the multifarious networks of influence peddling, appointments, and clientelism that pervaded these trade organizations and maintained their ties to party officials. Through firsthand research into the archives of the Andropov-era KGB and the prosecutor general\u2019s office, Duhamel uncovers the indictment of thousands of trade organization employees, the reprimand of Communist Party members, and the radical change in political ideology manifested by these proceedings. He further reveals that despite aggressive prosecutions, the KGB\u2019s power would soon wither, as the agency came under intense scrutiny because of its violent methods and the ghosts of the NKVD. The reinstatement of Moscow city government control over the trade organizations, the death of Andropov, and the rising tide of democratic reform would effectively end the reign of the KGB and its anticorruption campaigns.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Religion, Empire and Homo Romanovicus/Pahlavicus
• Chapter 3: Westernisation, Authenticity, Revolution
• Chapter 4: Leninism-Khomeinism: Ideological Dimension
• Chapter 5: Leninism-Khomeinism: Institutionalised Revolution
• Chapter 6: Gorbachev-Khatami: The Human Factor
• Chapter 7: The Geopolitics of Reform
• Chapter 8: Gorbachev-Khatami: Battle for Glasnost
• Chapter 9: Gorbachev: Politics of Change
• Chapter 10: Khatami: Politics of Change
• Chapter 11: Conclusion.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Why is it important to compare the experiences, successes and difficulties of Mohammad Khatami and Mikhail Gorbachev, two leaders operating in very different political environments and cultures? Both men were products of two of the 20th century's most momentous revolutions and both sought to reform from within the contradictions and problems which these revolutions produced. Zhand Shakibi provides the first comparative analysis of Khatami and Gorbachev based on first-hand interviews and previously unpublished sources, revealing the extent of their common goals and predicaments. The importance of this study lies in its demonstration of how similar political features in completely different political environments can produce common political outcomes. This book is a fascinating resource for political scientists, international relations specialists and historians of 20th century politics.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: Religion, Empire and Homo Romanovicus/Pahlavicus
• Chapter 3: Westernisation, Authenticity, Revolution
• Chapter 4: Leninism-Khomeinism: Ideological Dimension
• Chapter 5: Leninism-Khomeinism: Institutionalised Revolution
• Chapter 6: Gorbachev-Khatami: The Human Factor
• Chapter 7: The Geopolitics of Reform
• Chapter 8: Gorbachev-Khatami: Battle for Glasnost
• Chapter 9: Gorbachev: Politics of Change
• Chapter 10: Khatami: Politics of Change
• Chapter 11: Conclusion.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Why is it important to compare the experiences, successes and difficulties of Mohammad Khatami and Mikhail Gorbachev, two leaders operating in very different political environments and cultures? Both men were products of two of the 20th century's most momentous revolutions and both sought to reform from within the contradictions and problems which these revolutions produced. Zhand Shakibi provides the first comparative analysis of Khatami and Gorbachev based on first-hand interviews and previously unpublished sources, revealing the extent of their common goals and predicaments. The importance of this study lies in its demonstration of how similar political features in completely different political environments can produce common political outcomes. This book is a fascinating resource for political scientists, international relations specialists and historians of 20th century politics.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Termites and Barking Dogs
• Chapter 2: Social Capital and Ideology
• Chapter 3: Two Scientists, Two Paths
• Chapter 4: Foreign Communists
• Chapter 5: Three Freelance Diplomats
• Chapter 6: A Civil Society: Elite Bears and Doves
• Chapter 7: Scientists and Weaponeers
• Chapter 8: In the Hands of Experts
• Chapter 9: Do Peace and Democracy Work?
• Chapter 10: The Soviet Peace Movement at the Time of the Coup
• Chapter 11: The End and the Beginning
• Chapter 12: From Below and Sideways
• Chapter 13: Social Traps-Toward an Explanation of Totalitarianism
• Chapter 14: Quest? What Quest? Conclusion Acknowledgments Bibliography.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

In The Russian Quest for Peace and Democracy, Metta Spencer recounts the political and military changes that have occurred in Russia up to mid-2010. Using hundreds of interviews she conducted with officials, dissidents, and liberal intellectuals, she describes the various groups, forces, and individuals that worked to liberalize the totalitarian Soviet Union and its fellow nations behind the Iron Curtain, and which ultimately brought about the dissolution of those repressive governments. Spencer identifies four political orientations to describe Soviet society: "Sheep, " ordinary citizens who accepted the undemocratic regime they lived in without challenging it; "Dinosaurs, " hard-line Communist officials; "Termites, " including Mikhail Gorbachev and his advisers and government; and "Barking Dogs, " a few hundred dissidents who made "a lot of noise" protesting, hoping to awaken a grass-roots demand for democracy. The strange rivalry between the Termites and Barking Dogs would ultimately doom perestroika. Spencer's research dispels the widely-held perception that US President Ronald Reagan "won" the Cold War by standing firm until the Soviet Union "blinked first." There are vitally important lessons to be learned from the Soviet period, about how to assist citizens of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes around the world. The irony is that transnational civil society organizations, major sources of the progress in Soviet Russia, are still needed today in authoritarian Russia, under Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, for totalitarianism remains a potential social trap. In The Russian Quest for Peace and Democracy, Metta Spencer suggests new ways of building urgently-needed social capital in today's Russia, where democracy has yet to flourish.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• List of Illustrations. Series Editor's Preface. Acknowledgments. Maps.
• 1. Introduction: World War II and the Remaking of the Soviet Union.
• 2. Reform, Reaction, Revolution.
• 3. From Plan to Market.
• 4. Structures of Society.
• 5. Public and Private.
• 6. Center and Periphery.
• 7. National Questions.
• 8. Geopolitical Imperatives.
• 9. From Isolationism to Globalization.
• 10. Conclusion: The Second Russian Revolution? Notes. Guide to Further Reading. Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Taking the achievements, ambiguities, and legacies of World War II as a point of departure, The Shadow of War: The Soviet Union and Russia, 1941 to the Present offers a fresh new approach to modern Soviet and Russian history. Presents one of the only histories of the Soviet Union and Russia that begins with World War II and goes beyond the Soviet collapse through to the early twenty-first century Innovative thematic arrangement and approach allows for insights that are missed in chronological histories Draws on a wide range of sources and the very latest research on post-Soviet history, a rapidly developing field Supported by further reading, bibliography, maps and illustrations.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Valdai
• Grandparents
• When parents were young
• Maria Fedorovna
• Our neighborhood
• Zhenia and Natasha
• Toys "r" us
• Daily life
• Watching Channel 1
• School
• Pioneer parade
• A trip to East Germany
• Polaroid picture
• Satan
• The door without a handle.

The Washington summit 20 years ago this month between Presidents George H.W. Bush and Mikhail S. Gorbachev brought dramatic realization on the American side of the severe domestic political pressures facing the Soviet leader, produced an agreement in principle on trade but no breakthrough on Germany, and only slow progress towards the arms race in reverse which Gorbachev had offered, according to previously secret Soviet and U.S. documents posted by the National Security Archive. The documents posted include Soviet memcons of the Washington summit itself (the American memcons remain classified today, in a surreal testimony to the decrepitude of the U.S. secrecy system), the preparatory documents from both Soviet and U.S. files for the preceding ministerial meeting in Moscow between Secretary of State James Baker and Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze (and Gorbachev), the National Security Directive signed by George H.W. Bush defining the American arms control goals and limits, the transcript of Kohl's call to Bush just before the summit on May 30, 1990, and the U.S. Embassy cables from Moscow about Gorbachev's political crisis before the summit and Soviet reaction afterwards, including the observation that the summit played in Moscow as if it were a political campaign against insurgent Russian politician Boris Yeltsin.

• 1989 : an introduction to an international history / Jeffrey A. Engel
• The transformation of Europe and the end of the Cold War / James J. Sheehan
• If a wall fell in Berlin and Moscow hardly noticed, would it still make a noise? / William Taubman and Svetlana Savranskaya
• Tiananmen and the fall of the Berlin Wall : China's path toward 1989 and beyond / Chen Jian
• Dreams of freedom, temptations of power / Melvyn P. Leffler.

This book shows how the leaders of the USA, Soviet Union, Europe (East and West), and China viewed the world in the aftermath of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Newly available records reveal what political leaders thought of the shattering, and largely unforeseen, events as they unfolded. Four leading scholars: Melvyn P. Leffler (US); Chen Jian (China); James J. Sheehan (Europe); and William Taubman (Soviet Union) reflect on the story and search for the lasting meaning of 1989.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Foreword - Mikhail Gorbachev and George P. Shultz Introduction The Making of Unwitting Human Rights Officials Soviet-U.S. Relations and Human Rights before Perestroika Enter Gorbachev The Human Rights Agenda Vienna The End of Perestroika Concluding Thoughts.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

A diplomatic memoir unlike any other, this volume takes the reader behind the scenes on both sides of the Cold War as two men form an unlikely partnership to help transform Soviet-American relations. When U.S. assistant secretary of state Richard Schifter first met Soviet deputy foreign minister Anatoly Adamishin to discuss human rights, the Reagan administration was still skeptical of Gorbachev's reformist credentials. But skepticism soon gave way not just to belief but to active support. Like their immediate superiors George Shultz and Eduard Shevardnadze, Schifter and Adamishin became partners in the process of rapprochement. Together, they helped free political prisoners, spur Jewish emigration, support perestroika against its domestic enemies, and contribute to the mutual trust that allowed the Cold War to end swiftly and peacefully. Each chapter consists of two parts, one by each author, that offer complementary perspectives on the same events. The result is a volume that reveals much about the policymaking process during a historic era and exemplifies the power of diplomatic negotiation. It also argues provocatively that once the Cold War had ended, U.S. assistance to the Soviet Union could have helped prevent Gorbachev's fall from power, which ultimately damaged the democratic cause in Russia.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Foreword By Leonidas Donskis Introduction
• Chapter 1: The Soviet Union on my mind
• Chapter 2: The Soviet Union in 1980
• Chapter 3: The world of couriers
• Chapter 4: Campaigning for dissidents
• Chapter 5: Demonstrating in Poland
• Chapter 6: Playing "musical chairs" with the WPA
• Chapter 7: The Soviet Union in 1985
• Chapter 8: Sleeping behind my desk
• Chapter 9: Intermission, and back to work
• Chapter 10: The gorillas of Sakharov
• Chapter 11: The mouse and the elephant
• Chapter 12: Playing chess in Athens
• Chapter 13: The Soviet Union in 1990
• Chapter 14: The doors are opened
• Chapter 15: Ukraine on the map
• Chapter 16: The Romanian marsh
• Chapter 17: Change of course in Bratislava
• Chapter 18: From black and white to shades of grey
• Chapter 19: From humanitarian aid to structural aid
• Chapter 20: Romance with the WPA
• Chapter 21: New style abuse
• Chapter 22: A successful failure
• Chapter 23: Renewed struggle with the WPA
• Chapter 24: Into prison
• Chapter 25: Becoming Lithuanian
• Chapter 26: Reforming against the wind
• Chapter 27: Looking back Epilogue Historical Data Index of Names.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

The book contains the memoirs of Robert van Voren covering the period 1977-2008 and provides unique insights into the dissident movement in the Soviet Union in the 1980s, both inside the country and abroad. As a result of his close friendship with many of the leading dissidents and his dozens of trips to the USSR as a courier, he had intimate knowledge of the ins and outs of the dissident movement and participated in many of the campaigns to obtain the release of Soviet political prisoners. In the late 1980s he became involved in building a humane and ethical practice of psychiatry in Eastern Europe and the (ex-) USSR, based on respect for the human rights of persons with mental illness. The book describes the dissident movement and many of the people who formed it, mental health reformers in Eastern Europe and the response of the Western psychiatric community, the battle with the World Psychiatric Association over Soviet, and later, Chinese political abuse of psychiatry, his contacts with former KGB officers and problems with the KGB's successor organization, the FSB. It also vividly describes the emotional effects of serving as a courier for the dissident movement, the fear of arrest, the pain of seeing friends disappear for many years into camps and prisons, sometimes never to return.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Part I. Russia Before 1980: 1. Muscovy and the West
• 2. Reform communism
• Part II. Gorbachev: 3. Pandora's box
• 4. Blindman's bluff
• 5. Squalid superpower
• Part III. Yeltsin: 6. Demolition and system building
• 7. Crisis management
• Part IV. Putin: 8. Authoritarian reconsolidation
• 9. Heritage and neglect
• Part V. Advance and Retreat: 10. Semblance of democracy
• 11. Social change and adaptation
• 12. International relations
• Part VI. Prospects: 13. Sustainable growth
• 14. Russia in the Chinese looking glass
• Glossary.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Russia Since 1980 recounts the epochal political, economic, and social changes that destroyed the Soviet Union, ushering in a perplexing new order. Two decades after Mikhail Gorbachev initiated regime-wrecking radical reforms, Russia has reemerged as a superpower. It has survived a hyperdepression, modernized, restored private property and business, adopted a liberal democratic persona, and asserted claims to global leadership. Many in the West perceive these developments as proof of a better globalized tomorrow, while others foresee a new cold war. Globalizers contend that Russia is speedily democratizing, marketizing, and humanizing, creating a regime based on the rule of law and respect for civil rights. Opponents counterclaim that Russia before and during the Soviet period was similarly misportrayed and insist that Medvedev's Russia is just another variation of an authoritarian 'Muscovite' model that has prevailed for over five centuries. The cases for both positions are explored while chronicling events since 1980.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Part I. Russia Before 1980: 1. Muscovy and the West
• 2. Reform communism
• Part II. Gorbachev: 3. Pandora's box
• 4. Blindman's bluff
• 5. Squalid superpower
• Part III. Yeltsin: 6. Demolition and system building
• 7. Crisis management
• Part IV. Putin: 8. Authoritarian reconsolidation
• 9. Heritage and neglect
• Part V. Advance and Retreat: 10. Semblance of democracy
• 11. Social change and adaptation
• 12. International relations
• Part VI. Prospects: 13. Sustainable growth
• 14. Russia in the Chinese looking glass
• Glossary.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Russia Since 1980 recounts the epochal political, economic, and social changes that destroyed the Soviet Union, ushering in a perplexing new order. Two decades after Mikhail Gorbachev initiated regime-wrecking radical reforms, Russia has reemerged as a superpower. It has survived a hyperdepression, modernized, restored private property and business, adopted a liberal democratic persona, and asserted claims to global leadership. Many in the West perceive these developments as proof of a better globalized tomorrow, while others foresee a new cold war. Globalizers contend that Russia is speedily democratizing, marketizing, and humanizing, creating a regime based on the rule of law and respect for civil rights. Opponents counterclaim that Russia before and during the Soviet period was similarly misportrayed and insist that Medvedev's Russia is just another variation of an authoritarian 'Muscovite' model that has prevailed for over five centuries. The cases for both positions are explored while chronicling events since 1980.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Part I. Russia Before 1980: 1. Muscovy and the West
• 2. Reform communism
• Part II. Gorbachev: 3. Pandora's box
• 4. Blindman's bluff
• 5. Squalid superpower
• Part III. Yeltsin: 6. Demolition and system building
• 7. Crisis management
• Part IV. Putin: 8. Authoritarian reconsolidation
• 9. Heritage and neglect
• Part V. Advance and Retreat: 10. Semblance of democracy
• 11. Social change and adaptation
• 12. International relations
• Part VI. Prospects: 13. Sustainable growth
• 14. Russia in the Chinese looking glass
• Glossary.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Russia Since 1980 recounts the epochal political, economic, and social changes that destroyed the Soviet Union, ushering in a perplexing new order. Two decades after Mikhail Gorbachev initiated regime-wrecking radical reforms, Russia has reemerged as a superpower. It has survived a hyperdepression, modernized, restored private property and business, adopted a liberal democratic persona, and asserted claims to global leadership. Many in the West perceive these developments as proof of a better globalized tomorrow, while others foresee a new cold war. Globalizers contend that Russia is speedily democratizing, marketizing, and humanizing, creating a regime based on the rule of law and respect for civil rights. Opponents counterclaim that Russia before and during the Soviet period was similarly misportrayed and insist that Medvedev's Russia is just another variation of an authoritarian 'Muscovite' model that has prevailed for over five centuries. The cases for both positions are explored while chronicling events since 1980.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: Alternatives and Fates
• 1. Bukharin's Fate
• 2. The Victims Return: Gulag Survivors Since Stalin
• 3. The Tragedy of Soviet Conservatism
• 4. Was the Soviet System Reformable?
• 5. The Fate of the Soviet Union: Why Did It End?
• 6. Gorbachev's Lost Legacies
• 7. Who Lost the Post-Soviet Peace? About the Notes Notes Index.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

With conflicts again dividing Russia and the United States, the need for balanced, accessible scholarship that benefits from new materials and critical perspectives is imperative. In seven lucid, groundbreaking essays, Stephen F. Cohen questions many conventional assumptions about the course of Soviet history, the fall of communism, and the effect of Russia's policies at home and abroad.Written for specialists and general readers, Cohen's essays are framed by a chronological narrative that focuses on key turning points and lost alternatives. Beginning with Stalin's preeminent challenger and victim, Nikolai Bukharin, and the unexpected return of millions of survivors of Stalin's terror under Nikita Khrushchev, Cohen shows how their tragic fates shaped the latter-day Soviet Union. Turning to more recent events, he examines the political fates of the Soviet system's greatest reformer, Mikhail Gorbachev, and his leading conservative rival, Yegor Ligachev. Through these figures, Cohen raises even more provocative issues, including his argument that the Soviet Union was capable of reform and that its breakup was not inevitable. Most urgently, in two concluding chapters Cohen argues that Washington was the first to squander the opportunity for a fundamentally new U.S.-Russian relationship after the Cold War, and he presents a radically new approach for achieving a necessary partnership with today's Russia.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)