Failed Empire The Soviet Union In The Cold War From Stalin To Gorbachev

Author : Vladislav M. Zubok
Publisher : Univ of North Carolina Press
Page : 504 pages
File Size : 43,7 Mb
Release : 2009-02-01
Category : History
ISBN : 9780807899052

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A Failed Empire by Vladislav M. Zubok Pdf

In this widely praised book, Vladislav Zubok argues that Western interpretations of the Cold War have erred by exaggerating either the Kremlin's pragmatism or its aggressiveness. Explaining the interests, aspirations, illusions, fears, and misperceptions of the Kremlin leaders and Soviet elites, Zubok offers a Soviet perspective on the greatest standoff of the twentieth century. Using recently declassified Politburo records, ciphered telegrams, diaries, and taped conversations, among other sources, Zubok offers the first work in English to cover the entire Cold War from the Soviet side. A Failed Empire provides a history quite different from those written by the Western victors. In a new preface for this edition, the author adds to our understanding of today's events in Russia, including who the new players are and how their policies will affect the state of the world in the twenty-first century.

Author : Anonim
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 128 pages
File Size : 47,9 Mb
Release : 2015
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OCLC:1091203857

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Failed Empire the Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev by Anonim Pdf

Author : Vladislav Martinovich Zubok
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Electronic
ISBN : OCLC:769998004

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A Failed Empire by Vladislav Martinovich Zubok Pdf

Author : Vladislav Martinovich Zubok
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 467 pages
File Size : 55,7 Mb
Release : 2009
Category : Cold War
ISBN : OCLC:1011725137

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A Failed Empire by Vladislav Martinovich Zubok Pdf

Author : Vladislav M. Zubok
Publisher : Yale University Press
Page : 468 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2021-11-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9780300262445

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Collapse by Vladislav M. Zubok Pdf

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 with 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.

Author : Serhii Plokhy
Publisher : Basic Books
Page : 544 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2015-09-08
Category : History
ISBN : 9780465097920

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The Last Empire by Serhii Plokhy Pdf

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 center 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, Moldova, 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.

Author : Melvyn P. Leffler
Publisher : Macmillan + ORM
Page : 1029 pages
File Size : 49,6 Mb
Release : 2008-09-02
Category : History
ISBN : 9781429964098

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For the Soul of Mankind by Melvyn P. Leffler Pdf

To the amazement of the public, pundits, and even the policymakers themselves, the ideological and political conflict that had endangered the world for half a century came to an end in 1990. How did that happen? What caused the cold war in the first place, and why did it last as long as it did? The distinguished historian Melvyn P. Leffler homes in on four crucial episodes when American and Soviet leaders considered modulating, avoiding, or ending hostilities and asks why they failed: Stalin and Truman devising new policies after 1945; Malenkov and Eisenhower exploring the chance for peace after Stalin's death in 1953; Kennedy, Khrushchev, and LBJ trying to reduce tensions after the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962; and Brezhnev and Carter aiming to sustain détente after the Helsinki Conference of 1975. All these leaders glimpsed possibilities for peace, yet they allowed ideologies, political pressures, the expectations of allies and clients, the dynamics of the international system, and their own fearful memories to trap them in a cycle of hostility that seemed to have no end. For the Soul of Mankind illuminates how Reagan, Bush, and, above all, Gorbachev finally extricated themselves from the policies and mind-sets that had imprisoned their predecessors, and were able to reconfigure Soviet-American relations after decades of confrontation.

Author : Chris Miller
Publisher : UNC Press Books
Page : 262 pages
File Size : 50,5 Mb
Release : 2016-10-13
Category : History
ISBN : 9781469630182

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The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy by Chris Miller Pdf

For half a century the Soviet economy was inefficient but stable. In the late 1980s, to the surprise of nearly everyone, it suddenly collapsed. Why did this happen? And what role did Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's economic reforms play in the country's dissolution? In this groundbreaking study, Chris Miller shows that Gorbachev and his allies tried to learn from the great success story of transitions from socialism to capitalism, Deng Xiaoping's China. Why, then, were efforts to revitalize Soviet socialism so much less successful than in China? Making use of never-before-studied documents from the Soviet politburo and other archives, Miller argues that the difference between the Soviet Union and China--and the ultimate cause of the Soviet collapse--was not economics but politics. The Soviet government was divided by bitter conflict, and Gorbachev, the ostensible Soviet autocrat, was unable to outmaneuver the interest groups that were threatened by his economic reforms. Miller's analysis settles long-standing debates about the politics and economics of perestroika, transforming our understanding of the causes of the Soviet Union's rapid demise.

Author : Andrei Grachev
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 288 pages
File Size : 40,8 Mb
Release : 2018-03-12
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9780745673837

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Gorbachev's Gamble by Andrei Grachev Pdf

Gorbachev’s Gamble offers a new and more convincing answer to this question by providing the missing link between the internal and external aspects of Gorbachev’s perestroika. Andrei Grachev shows that the radical transformation of Soviet foreign policy during the Gorbachev years was an integral part of an ambitious project of internal democratic reform and of the historic opening of Soviet society to the outside world. Grachev explains the motives and the intentions of the initiators of this project and describes their hopes and their illusions. He recounts the story of the internal debates and struggles in the Kremlin and behind-the-scene decisions that led to the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the break-up of the Warsaw Pact and eventually the demise of the Soviet Union itself. The book is based on exclusive interviews with the leaders of the Soviet Union including Gorbachev, personal notes and diaries of their assistants and advisers and transcripts of the discussions inside the Politburo and Secretariat of the Central Committee. Together they constitute a multi-voice political confession of a whole generation of decision-makers of the Soviet Union that enables us better to understand the origin and the breathtaking trajectory of the events that led to the end of the Cold War and the unprecedented transformation of world politics in the closing decades of the 20th century.

Author : Anatoly C. Chernyaev,Anatoly S. Chernyaev
Publisher : Penn State Press
Page : 462 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2012-03-30
Category : History
ISBN : 9780271058115

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My Six Years with Gorbachev by Anatoly C. Chernyaev,Anatoly S. Chernyaev Pdf

Drawing on his own diary as well as secret documents and transcripts of high-level meetings, Anatoly Chernyaev recounts the drama that swept the Soviet Union between 1985 and 1991. As Gorbachev&’s chief foreign policy aide for most of that period, he played a central role in efforts to halt the arms race, discard a confrontational ideology, and open his country to the world. And as Gorbachev&’s confidant on many domestic issues as well, Chernyaev offers rare insights into the struggle over glasnost, the growth of separatism, and the rise of Boris Yeltsin. While admiring of perestroika&’s founder, Chernyaev is frank in faulting Gorbachev for his hesitancy in economic reforms, for his delay in decentralizing Union-republic ties, and above all for his misplaced faith in the reformability of the Communist Party. Altogether this book is essential reading for those interested in the Cold War&’s end, the USSR&’s collapse, and especially the role played by ideas, ambitions, and key personalities in these momentous events.

Author : Warren I. Cohen
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
Page : 216 pages
File Size : 41,8 Mb
Release : 2008-04-15
Category : History
ISBN : 9781405144605

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America's Failing Empire by Warren I. Cohen Pdf

This sharp and authoritative account of American foreign relations analyzes the last fifteen years of foreign policy in relation to the last forty years, since the end of the Cold War. Provides an overview and understanding of the recent history of U.S. foreign relations from the viewpoint of one of the most respected authorities in the field Includes suggestions for further reading.

Author : Vladislav Martinovich Zubok,Konstantin Pleshakov
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 394 pages
File Size : 46,8 Mb
Release : 1996
Category : Cold War
ISBN : UOM:39015037339085

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Inside the Kremlin's Cold War by Vladislav Martinovich Zubok,Konstantin Pleshakov Pdf

Using recently uncovered archival materials, personal interviews, and a broad familiarity with Russian history and culture, two young Russian historians have written a major interpretation of the Cold War as seen from the Soviet shore. Covering the volatile period from 1945 to 1962, Zubok and Pleshakov explore the personalities and motivations of the key people who directed Soviet political life and shaped Soviet foreign policy. They begin with the fearsome figure of Joseph Stalin, who was driven by the dual dream of a Communist revolution and a global empire. They reveal the scope and limits of Stalin's ambitions by taking us into the world of his closest subordinates, the ruthless and unimaginative foreign minister Molotov and the Party's chief propagandist, Zhdanov, a man brimming with hubris and missionary zeal. The authors expose the machinations of the much-feared secret police chief Beria and the party cadre manager Malenkov, who tried but failed to set Soviet policies on a different course after Stalin's death. Finally, they document the motives and actions of the self-made and self-confident Nikita Khrushchev, full of Russian pride and party dogma, who overturned many of Stalin's policies with bold strategizing on a global scale. The authors show how, despite such attempts to change Soviet diplomacy, Stalin's legacy continued to divide Germany and Europe, and led the Soviets to the split with Maoist China and to the Cuban missile crisis. Zubok and Pleshakov's groundbreaking work reveals how Soviet statesmen conceived and conducted their rivalry with the West within the context of their own domestic and global concerns and aspirations. The authors persuasively demonstrate thatthe Soviet leaders did not seek a conflict with the United States, yet failed to prevent it or bring it to conclusion. They also document why and how Kremlin policy-makers, cautious and scheming as they were, triggered the gravest crises of the Cold War in Korea, Berlin, and Cuba.

Author : A. Ross Johnson,R. Eugene Parta
Publisher : Central European University Press
Page : 612 pages
File Size : 54,8 Mb
Release : 2010-08-20
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 9786155211904

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Cold War Broadcasting by A. Ross Johnson,R. Eugene Parta Pdf

The book examines the role of Western broadcasting to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe during the Cold War, with a focus on Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. It includes chapters by radio veterans and by scholars who have conducted research on the subject in once-secret Soviet bloc archives and in Western records. It also contains a selection of translated documents from formerly secret Soviet and East European archives, most of them published here for the first time.

Author : Edward H. Judge,John W. Langdon
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
Page : 399 pages
File Size : 44,6 Mb
Release : 2024-06-10
Category : History
ISBN : 9781538195697

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The Cold War through Documents by Edward H. Judge,John W. Langdon Pdf

This text is a comprehensive collection of more than 100 carefully edited documents (speeches, treaties, statements, and articles), making the great events of the era come alive through the words and phrases of those who were actively involved. Coverage traces the Cold War from its roots in East-West tensions before and during World War II through its origins in the immediate postwar era, up to and including the collapse of the Soviet Union during 1989-1991.

Author : Laurie Stoff
Publisher : Greenhaven Press, Incorporated
Page : 198 pages
File Size : 53,8 Mb
Release : 2006
Category : History
ISBN : STANFORD:36105114595858

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The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union by Laurie Stoff Pdf

Presents a collection of primary and secondary documents offering varying opinions on the Soviet Union.