The Soviet Union 1984/85
The Soviet Union 1984/85

Author: Gertraud Seidenstecher

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-06-21

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 1000305783

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In 1984 and 1985, the swift succession in the USSR's leadership affected all levels of Soviet society. This eighth volume in a series of biennial reports on the Soviet Union analyzes domestic affairs, economics, and foreign policy in light of that succession. Power struggles within the highest echelons of the Soviet communist party are examined. Contributors evaluate prospects for the attempted economic modernization in a system that leaves little room for radical reform. Moscow's swings between extremes of self-isolation and readiness to talk raise questions about foreign and security policy during die transitional period. The contributors also identify perspectives, priorities, and trends for the future of Soviet politics, economics, and social developments. The Federal Institute for East European and International Studies in Cologne was established in 1961 as an academically autonomous research institution. It operates under the administrative and financial authority of Germany's Federal Ministry of the Interior.

Perestroika and the Party
Perestroika and the Party

Author: Francesco Di Palma

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2019-08-01

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 1789200210

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Countless studies have assessed the dramatic reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev, but their analysis of the impact on European communism has focused overwhelmingly on the Soviet Union and Eastern bloc nations. This ambitious collection takes a much broader view, reconstructing and evaluating the historical trajectories of glasnost and perestroika on both sides of the Iron Curtain. Moving beyond domestic politics and foreign relations narrowly defined, the research gathered here constitutes a transnational survey of these reforms’ collective impact, showing how they were variably received and implemented, and how they shaped the prospects for “proletarian internationalism” in diverse political contexts.

Democratization and Revolution in the USSR, 1985-91
Democratization and Revolution in the USSR, 1985-91

Author: Jerry F. Hough

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press

Published: 1997-05-01

Total Pages: 562

ISBN-13: 9780815791492

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Democratization and Revolution in the USSR, 1985-91 presents a strikingly new view of the Gorbachev era and the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union. Written by one of America's most distinguished specialists on the former Soviet Union, this is the first comprehensive overview of the Gorbachev period and describes it as a real revolution, not mere "reform." According to Hough, despite Mikhail Gorbachev's talk of a regulated market, he never understood that a market must be created on a solid institutional and legal base. He was determined to use democratization to free himself from party control, but he saw democracy as a way of achieving near- universal consensus, not a mechanism for forcing through difficult choices. The many memoirs that have become available in the last few years, including those of Gorbachev himself, show that Premier Nikolai Ryzhkov and the "bureaucrats" in his government actually were the serious economic reformers in the leadership. Gorbachev opposed the key transitional steps at every stage and was far closer to the assumptions of shock therapy than he or his opponents ever recognized. Hough explains that Gorbachev was not alone in thinking that the destruction of old institutions was enough to unleash a market. Westerners also talked of leaping a chasm in a single jump as if democratic and market institutions existed pre-created on the other side. But, precisely because Gorbachev (and later Boris Yeltsin) was encouraged in all his worst mistakes by Western advice, his failure has crucial implications for Western thinking about the process of democratization and marketization. This unprecedented book explores those implications in depth. Selected by Choice as an Outstanding Book for 1998

From Brezhnev To Gorbachev
From Brezhnev To Gorbachev

Author: Baruch A. Hazan

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2019-03-05

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 0429718128

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From 1982 to 1985, the period on which this book focuses, the Soviet Union was governed by a succession of ailing old men—Brezhnev, Andropov, and Chernenko—who, supported by an equally elderly Politburo, were often physically incapable of controlling and directing the bureaucratic state machine and party organization. This unprecedented situation precipitated a secret and bitter power struggle within the top Soviet leadership between two main factions: the Chernenko apparatchiks, who had risen to power under Brezhnev and owed their positions to him; and the supporters of Andropov, including the younger, more dynamic, and power-hungry members of the party elite, who had been advocating fairly bold reforms to deal with the grave social and economic problems facing the USSR. Dr. Hazan provides a detailed analysis of this hidden power struggle as he examines the final years of Brezhnev's reign and the brief ascendancies of Andropov and Chernenko. These rapid changes led to the demise of the old guard in the Politburo and the emergence of a new breed of leader in Mikhail Gorbachev, culminating in the final consolidation of his power at the 27th CPSU Congress. Drawing on an extensive range of primary sources and using vivid examples of how the factions exploited the gigantic propaganda machine of the Soviet mass media, the author looks behind the Kremlin's walls to explore the essence of Soviet politics. The book describes the power base of each of the recent Soviet leaders and analyzes the steps they took to consolidate their positions and tighten controls over the bureaucracy and the military.

1985
1985

Author: [Anonymus AC00557330]

Publisher:

Published: 1985

Total Pages: 608

ISBN-13: 9780717202164

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Perestroika
Perestroika

Author: Mikhail Sergeevich Gorbachev

Publisher: Fontana Press

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13:

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Relates the Soviet changes in attitudes, ideas, and practices that he is implementing.

Collapse
Collapse

Author: Vladislav M. Zubok

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2021-11-30

Total Pages: 468

ISBN-13: 0300262442

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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.

The Last Superpower Summits
The Last Superpower Summits

Author: Svetlana Savranskaya

Publisher: Central European University Press

Published: 2016-11-01

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9789633861691

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This book publishes for the first time in print every word the American and Soviet leaders – Ronald Reagan, Mikhail Gorbachev, and George H.W. Bush – said to each other in their superpower summits from 1985 to 1991. Obtained by the authors through the Freedom of Information Act in the U.S., from the Gorbachev Foundation and the State Archive of the Russian Federation in Moscow, and from the personal donation of Anatoly Chernyaev, these previously Top Secret verbatim transcripts combine with key declassified preparatory and after-action documents from both sides to create a unique interactive documentary record of these historic highest-level talks – the conversations that ended the Cold War. The summits fueled a process of learning on both sides, as the authors argue in contextual essays on each summit and detailed headnotes on each document. Geneva 1985 and Reykjavik 1986 reduced Moscow's sense of threat and unleashed Reagan's inner abolitionist. Malta 1989 and Washington 1990 helped dampen any superpower sparks that might have flown in a time of revolutionary change in Eastern Europe, set off by Gorbachev and by Eastern Europeans (Solidarity, dissidents, reform Communists). The high level and scope of the dialogue between these world leaders was unprecedented, and is likely never to be repeated.