Author: United States. Department of State. Office of Intelligence ResearchPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 24
Book Description
The Soviet Union as Reported by Former Soviet Citizens ...
Author: United States. Department of State. Office of Intelligence ResearchPublisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 24
Book Description
The Soviet Union as Reported by Former Soviet Citizens Report
Author: The Soviet Union as Reported by Former Soviet Citizens
Author: Politics, Work, and Daily Life in the USSR
Author: James R. MillarPublisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521348904
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 444
Book Description
This book illustrates how the Soviet social system works and how the Soviet people cope with it.
Russians in the Former Soviet Republics
Author: Pål KolstøPublisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253329172
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 362
Book Description
The break-up of the Soviet Union in 1989 left 25 million Russians living in the 'near abroad', outside the borders of Russia proper. They have become the subjects of independent nation-states where the majority population is ethnically, linguistically, and often denominationally different. The creation of this 'new Russian diaspora' may well be the most significant minority problem created by the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Paul Kolstoe traces the growth and role of the Russian population in non-Russian areas of the Russian empire and then in the non-Russian Soviet republics. In the post-Soviet period special attention is devoted to the situation of Russians in the Baltic countries, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine and the former Central Asian and Caucasian republics. A chapter written jointly by Paul Kolstoe and Andrei Edemsky of the Institute of Slavonic and Balkan Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, delineates present Russian policy toward the diaspora. Finally, Kolstoe suggests strategies for averting the repetition of the Yugoslav scenario on post-Soviet soil.
The Soviet Bloc as Reported by Former Nationals Interview Report
Author: The Soviet Union as Reported by Former Soviet Citizens
Author: Life in the Soviet Union
Author: Svetozar PejovichPublisher:
ISBN:
Category : Communism
Languages : en
Pages : 112
Book Description
The Soviet Union
Author: Charles River EditorsPublisher:
ISBN: 9781081683511
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 376
Book Description
*Includes pictures *Includes a bibliography for further reading For 30 years, much of the West looked on with disdain as the Bolsheviks took power in Russia and created and consolidated the Soviet Union. As bad as Vladimir Lenin seemed in the early 20th century, Joseph Stalin was so much worse that Churchill later remarked of Lenin, "Their worst misfortune was his birth... their next worst his death." Before World War II, Stalin consolidated his position by frequently purging party leaders (most famously Leon Trotsky) and Red Army leaders, executing hundreds of thousands of people at the least. And in one of history's greatest textbook examples of the idea that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Stalin's Soviet Union allied with Britain and the United States to defeat Hitler in Europe during World War II. Stalin ruled with an iron fist for nearly 30 years before his death in 1953, which may or may not have been murder, just as Stalin was preparing to conduct another purge. With his death, Soviet strongman and long-time Stalinist Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), who had managed to stay a step ahead of Stalin's purges if only because he participated in them, became the Soviet premier. Personal histrionics aside, Khrushchev meant business when dealing with the West, especially the United States and its young president, John F. Kennedy. After sensing weakness and a lack of fortitude in Kennedy, Khrushchev made his most audacious and ultimately costly decision by attempting to place nuclear warheads at advanced, offensive bases located in Cuba, right off the American mainland. As it turned out, the Cuban Missile Crisis would show the Kennedy Administration's resolve, force Khrushchev to back down, and ultimately sow the seeds of Khrushchev's fall from power. By the time he died in 1971, he had been declared a non-citizen of the nation he had ruled for nearly 20 years. Leonid Brezhnev became First Secretary of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union in late 1964 after a plot to oust Khrushchev. Little is remembered in the public imagination about Brezhnev in comparison to Mikhail Gorbachev, Vladimir Lenin, or Joseph Stalin, despite the fact Brezhnev ruled the USSR from 1964-1982, longer than any Soviet leader other than Stalin. In fact, he held power during a tumultuous era that changed the world in remarkable ways, and that era has been favorably remembered by many former Soviet citizens. It marked a period of relative calm and even prosperity after the destruction of World War II and the tensions brought about by Khrushchev. Foremost amongst Brezhnev's achievements would be the détente period in the early 1970s, when the Soviets and Americans came to a number of agreements that reduced Cold War pressures and the alarming threat of nuclear war. Mikhail Gorbachev was chosen as the new General Secretary at the relatively youg age of 54 in March 1985. Gorbachev hoped to build the Soviet economy to relieve the persistent shortages of consumer goods it faced, which were caused by enormous military spending of the Soviet Union. Gorbachev tried to introduce some economic reforms, but they were blocked by communist hardliners. Gorbachev then came to the belief that the Soviet economy could not improved without political reform as well. In comparison with other Soviet leaders, Gorbachev was leader of the USSR for a relatively short period, but the changes that took place under his leadership were monumental, including some that were intended and others that were unforeseen. Gorbachev oversaw the end of the Cold War and the peaceful transition away from communism in Central and Eastern Europe, and he ended the war in Afghanistan and many other proxy conflicts in the developing world. Gorbachev improved relations with the West and developed enough trust with President Ronald Reagan and President George H.W. Bush to decommission thousands of nuclear weapons.
The Breakdown of the USSR
Author: Maximilian SpinnerPublisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638757943
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 41
Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject History Europe - Other Countries - Newer History, European Unification, grade: 1 (A), University of Birmingham (Centre for Russian and East European Studies), course: Graduate Soviet Social and Economic History, 28 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: The collapse of the Soviet Union has been one of the most controversially discussed issues among historians and social scientists throughout the last decade. Paradoxically the imminent collapse of communism had been predicted frequently by Western observers during the early years of the Bolshevik rule. With the victory of the Second World War those voices were muted and the West accomodated with the existence of an obviously stable, mighty and economically expanding country.1 The breakdown of communism in 1991 had been anticipated by few contemporary scholars, although the majority were aware of the symptoms of a deep crisis. In this essay I will argue that in order to better understand the collapse of communism in the Soviet Union, a central role must be given to the economy and its effects on other areas. Most symptoms of the crisis and the ultimate breakdown of the system can in fact be attributed to the impact of economic failure. Whereas, economic modernization was the motor of success in the early decades, the economy became the weakest link of the Soviet system in the later period as its structural shortcomings deeply effected other areas as well. The first part of this essay is intended to briefly outline the central role the economy played in the development of Soviet socialism. The second part analyses the far-reaching impact of the economic downturn, while the third part discusses the limits of reform before drawing a conclusion.2 1 M Cox, 'Critical Reflections on Soviet Studies', in: M Cox (ed.), Rethinking the Soviet Collapse, L: Pinter, 1998, p 27. 2 The author is aware that in the given scope of this essay only a minor and not necessar