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cameroncl's review against another edition
informative
reflective
fast-paced
4.0
Very interesting and quick survey of the Soviet collapse from Brezhnev to the election of Putin in 2000. Cuts through a lot of the common conceptions about the period - and in particular about Gorbachev - while emphasizing how unusual the collapse of the USSR was. Some of the book is a little dated (especially in light of recent events!).
bhautikg's review
5.0
A thrilling story of idealism and the tragic quest of making a just and free society.
There are many lessons to be taken from the fall of Soviet Union, especially the current political climate, in which we are now facing very similar problems of the post-WW2 world.
This book goes by very fast, and I will have to listen to it again. But I am going to put some quotes here for my reflections.
"Liberalism is more fundamental to successful state building than democracy. Democratically elected office-holders, in multiparty systems, often behave like dictators unless they are constrained by a liberal order, meaning the rule of law"
"liberalism entails not freedom from government but constant, rigorous officiating of the private sphere and of the very public authority responsible for regulation. In short, liberalism means not just representative government but effective government"
"Civil society and a liberal state were not opposites but aspects of the same phenomenon. That government was not the enemy of liberty but its sine qua non. That private property without good government was not worth what it otherwise would have been. In short, that good government was the most precious thing a people could have"
"Remember the mesmerizing maps of Eurasia covered with miniature tanks, missile launchers, and troops representing the Soviet military that appeared on American television for Congressional debates over Pentagon appropriations? This hyper-militarized USSR, during the troubles of perestroika, did not even attempt to stage a cynical foreign war to rally support for the regime. Remember the uproar over Saddam Hussein’s August 1990 invasion of Kuwait—right amid the Soviet drama—and his alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction? Iraq’s capabilities were trivial next to the Soviet Union’s. Remember the decades of cold-war warnings, right through the 1980s,about the danger of a preemptive Soviet first strike? Even if Soviet leaders had calculated that they were doomed,they could have wreaked terrifying havoc out of spite, or engaged in blackmail. Remember the celebrated treatise equating the Soviet and Nazi regimes? The Nazi regime, which never acquired atomic weapons, held on to the last drop of blood. Remember the wrath that Franklin Roosevelt incurred for ‘handing over’ Eastern Europe to Stalin at Yalta? Roosevelt had not a single soldier on the ground. Gorbachev had 500,000 troops in Eastern Europe, including 200,000 in Germany after the unification. The Warsaw Pact command and control structure remained operational right through the end of 1991"
"How much worse it all might have turned out, if a strong leader and faction of the Moscow elite had shown ruthless determination to uphold the empire, or, even after the situation had ceased to be salvageable, had indulged in malice or lunacy. Much had changed in the world since the 1940s, but the bloodbath of Yugoslavia’s demise in the 1990s certainly gives pause. Historically,such a profoundly submissive capitulation, as took place in the Soviet case, was a rarity"
" Long-distance trains and urban mass-transit systems still functioned, but Soviet-era hospitals and schools were decaying or closing, while power grids were ageing and not being replaced. In more remote areas,Soviet-built airports were overgrown with weeds and riv-er boats rusted along once popular routes to dilapidated summer camps...Life expectancy at birth was in decline (essentially since the 1970s), and the population was shrinking. Untreated toxic wastes continued to flow into contaminated rivers and water tables "
"Meanwhile, police troops of the Interior Ministry had ballooned to twenty-nine divisions, and the tax police as well as the new Emergency Ministry personnel were militarized, like US SWAT teams, as if Russia were fighting a society-wide domestic war. "
"In fact, its hundreds of thousands of nuclear,chemical, and biological weapons scientists and technicians, acting with or without the government’s blessing,could have altered the strategic balance of any world region. ‘Only the intense pride and patriotism of Russian nuclear experts has prevented a proliferation catastrophe’, concluded a team of concerned scientists, who added that, ‘virtually everything else in Russia is for sale’ "
"This turn of events may have exposed, and even helped unloose, the instability inherent in the second world economy. Capitalism is an extremely dynamic source of endless creation, but also of destruction. Interconnections bring greater overall wealth but also heightened risks. And the USA—bearing a titanic national security establishment not demobilized after thecold war, exhibiting a combustible mixture of arrogance and paranoia in response to perceived challenges to its global pretensions, and perversely disparaging of the very government institutions that provide its strength—makes for an additional wild card. "
There are many lessons to be taken from the fall of Soviet Union, especially the current political climate, in which we are now facing very similar problems of the post-WW2 world.
This book goes by very fast, and I will have to listen to it again. But I am going to put some quotes here for my reflections.
"Liberalism is more fundamental to successful state building than democracy. Democratically elected office-holders, in multiparty systems, often behave like dictators unless they are constrained by a liberal order, meaning the rule of law"
"liberalism entails not freedom from government but constant, rigorous officiating of the private sphere and of the very public authority responsible for regulation. In short, liberalism means not just representative government but effective government"
"Civil society and a liberal state were not opposites but aspects of the same phenomenon. That government was not the enemy of liberty but its sine qua non. That private property without good government was not worth what it otherwise would have been. In short, that good government was the most precious thing a people could have"
"Remember the mesmerizing maps of Eurasia covered with miniature tanks, missile launchers, and troops representing the Soviet military that appeared on American television for Congressional debates over Pentagon appropriations? This hyper-militarized USSR, during the troubles of perestroika, did not even attempt to stage a cynical foreign war to rally support for the regime. Remember the uproar over Saddam Hussein’s August 1990 invasion of Kuwait—right amid the Soviet drama—and his alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction? Iraq’s capabilities were trivial next to the Soviet Union’s. Remember the decades of cold-war warnings, right through the 1980s,about the danger of a preemptive Soviet first strike? Even if Soviet leaders had calculated that they were doomed,they could have wreaked terrifying havoc out of spite, or engaged in blackmail. Remember the celebrated treatise equating the Soviet and Nazi regimes? The Nazi regime, which never acquired atomic weapons, held on to the last drop of blood. Remember the wrath that Franklin Roosevelt incurred for ‘handing over’ Eastern Europe to Stalin at Yalta? Roosevelt had not a single soldier on the ground. Gorbachev had 500,000 troops in Eastern Europe, including 200,000 in Germany after the unification. The Warsaw Pact command and control structure remained operational right through the end of 1991"
"How much worse it all might have turned out, if a strong leader and faction of the Moscow elite had shown ruthless determination to uphold the empire, or, even after the situation had ceased to be salvageable, had indulged in malice or lunacy. Much had changed in the world since the 1940s, but the bloodbath of Yugoslavia’s demise in the 1990s certainly gives pause. Historically,such a profoundly submissive capitulation, as took place in the Soviet case, was a rarity"
" Long-distance trains and urban mass-transit systems still functioned, but Soviet-era hospitals and schools were decaying or closing, while power grids were ageing and not being replaced. In more remote areas,Soviet-built airports were overgrown with weeds and riv-er boats rusted along once popular routes to dilapidated summer camps...Life expectancy at birth was in decline (essentially since the 1970s), and the population was shrinking. Untreated toxic wastes continued to flow into contaminated rivers and water tables "
"Meanwhile, police troops of the Interior Ministry had ballooned to twenty-nine divisions, and the tax police as well as the new Emergency Ministry personnel were militarized, like US SWAT teams, as if Russia were fighting a society-wide domestic war. "
"In fact, its hundreds of thousands of nuclear,chemical, and biological weapons scientists and technicians, acting with or without the government’s blessing,could have altered the strategic balance of any world region. ‘Only the intense pride and patriotism of Russian nuclear experts has prevented a proliferation catastrophe’, concluded a team of concerned scientists, who added that, ‘virtually everything else in Russia is for sale’ "
"This turn of events may have exposed, and even helped unloose, the instability inherent in the second world economy. Capitalism is an extremely dynamic source of endless creation, but also of destruction. Interconnections bring greater overall wealth but also heightened risks. And the USA—bearing a titanic national security establishment not demobilized after thecold war, exhibiting a combustible mixture of arrogance and paranoia in response to perceived challenges to its global pretensions, and perversely disparaging of the very government institutions that provide its strength—makes for an additional wild card. "
krista7's review
3.0
What it is: a synthesis of secondary literature and the author's reflections on the dissolution of the Soviet Union, beginning in the 1970s malaise through 2000.
What it argues: the Soviet Union died from the rise of a young generation, the Khrushchev generation, who attempted to apply reforms away from the Stalinist heavy-industry model. Because of WWII, there never really was a generation between the old Stalinist guard and the young generation (Gorbachev). The specific implosion of the Soviet Union (1991) was a mixture of the coup plotter's ineptness and Gorby's unwillingness to resort to military counter-measures. Although Kotkin describes the implosion of the USSR as a fleecing, democracy without liberalism, etc., he does note they had little other options and reminds us regularly that it could have been MUCH, MUCH worse. (Pointing to Yugoslavia.)
What I would have wanted to see: more detailed explanations of the comparison with Yugoslavia--more than a metaphor, but a real systematic comparison. More discussion of the position of USSR scientists, whom Kotkin says were just "too patriotic" to sell out military secrets. (Which may be true for some, but I want to see more than a statement proving that.)
What's good: the "rustbelt" imagery, which postions the USSR economy alongside a global challenge to meet the new computer industries; the language and style (fairly readable for a non-academic audience); the proliferation of points (Yeltsin ruled as a tsar and Russia became a series of fiefdoms under his administration.
gannent's review
3.0
An in-depth look into the reasons behind the fall of the Soviet Union and the situation of Russia after the fall. The author's thesis is a new perspective and well supported, it definitely gave me a better understanding of Russia today. I would recommend it for anyone interested in Russian current events or the history of the Soviet Union.
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