Customer Reviews:
Offers great early insight into recent Russian developments.......1999-10-11
In the tradition of Lewin, Jowitt and Lane Von Laue offers insight where others have failed
Average customer rating:
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The Rise and Fall of the The Soviet Economy: An Economic History of the USSR, 1945 - 1991
Philip Hanson , and
Phillip Hanson
Manufacturer: Longman
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0582299586 |
Book Description
The economic dimension is at the very heart of the Russian story in the twentieth century. Economic issues were the cornerstone of soviet ideology and the soviet system, and economic issues brought the whole system crashing down in 1989-91. This book is a record of what happened, and it is also an analysis of the failure of Soviet economics as a concept. B> Examines why the Soviet economic system fell apart and explores if the economy simply overreach itself through military spending. Seeks to discover if the centrally-planned character of Soviet socialism was at fault or if a potentially viable mechanism came apart in Gorbachev's clumsy hands. Examines the failure and if it means that true socialism is never economically viable. For those interested in Soviet or Economic history.
Average customer rating:
- Informative but poorly written
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The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union
Michael Kort
Manufacturer: Franklin Watts
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: School & Library Binding
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ASIN: 0531110400 |
Customer Reviews:
Informative but poorly written.......2002-08-16
Very informative and the author is well-researched. Unfortunately his writing leaves much to be desired. Composed of sometime short, yet always choppy sentences, some things just border on terrible. A sample sentence, "In Verkhoyansk, in the northest corner of Siberia in the Asian part of the country known as Siberia, the average July temperature...."
This is typical of the style of writing found throughout the book. Good reference book, but hard to read because of the lack of flow and because of sentences like the above sample.
Book Description
Raymond Pearson describes and explains the creation, maintenance, and eventual demise of the Soviet regime across post-1945 Eastern Europe, setting the so-called "Soviet Empire" within the broader context of global imperialism and decolonization. This revised and updated second edition features an expanded final chapter, more detailed analysis of key themes and events, and an extended bibliography. New documentation has also been incorporated to provide a fuller historical account of what may prove to be the 'Last Empire'.
Customer Reviews:
The story of Communist imperialism.......2007-08-14
The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire traces the creation, expansion, maintenance and eventual demise of the Soviet Empire, one of history's greatest tyrranies, from 1945 to 1991.
He describes how the Soviet empire was indeed an imperialist venture (making it all the more absurd how Communists and their fellow travellers refer to the democratic West as 'imperialists').
The author describes the conflict between the forces of nationalism and freedom on the one hand against those of Communist imperialism on the other.
Indeed if you are truly against imperialism you will support nationalism and the nation-state.
The book refers to how East European independence was jointly obliterated by the Nazi and Soviet empires. About the Communist tactics of subjugating Eastern Europe to Communist tyrany after World War II, and the shameful British and American aquiescence in this (so soon after British appeasement of Hitler at Munich, 1938).
As the book traces the development of Stalinist and neo-Stalinist tyranny, we learn of internal Soviet political and economic developments, and the movements of nationalism and liberalism crushed by the Soviets over decades, before their eventual triumph over Communist despotism in 1989-1991.
Key points covered include the conflict between Yugoslav leader Tito and Stalin in the late 1940's and early 50's.
The brutal and bloody Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to crush nascent pro-democracy movements there.
25 000 Hungarians died in the Soviet invasion and crackdown of 1956.
Then we read of the dishonourable appeasement of Soviet tyranny by the West at Helsinki, 1975, and the crushing of Solidarity and the pro-democracy movement in Poland in 1981.
The book then traces the reforms of Gorbachev to the collapse of the Berlin wall in 1989, and the fall of Communist dictatorships in Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Bulgaria that year.
Two years later the Soviet Union itself collapsed with the independence of the 15 republics that made up the Soviet Union.
The book highlights some interesting facts. For example that the two predecessors of the Soviet Empire were the pre-war Soviet Union and the Nazi Neordnung.
"Over 1939-45, the German Empire self-interestedly liquidated many of the indigenous political cadres of Eastern Europe, inadvertently clearing away the opposition for it's imperial sucessr. By the irony of history, the New Order unwittingly did much of the Soviet Empire's dirty work for it, creating a power vacuum, which the beleagured Soviet Union found impossible to resist over the later 1940s. In effect...the wartime Nazi 'New Order' facilitated a postwar Soviet 'Newer Order'. Given it's parentage it comes as no surprise that the Soviet Empire was seen by many hostile contemporaries as a 'Soviet Ordnung' or 'Stalinist Reich', inheriting the genetic characteristics of both forebears".
Pearson describes something of the nature of life in the Soviet Empire: like the fabled Narnia of CS Lewis, the Soviet Empire remained a joyless land where there was always winter, but never Christmas.
The West has fought two struggles for freedom against forces of world tyranny in the last century, first against Nazism, then against Communist and now is fighting a third strugle against hegemonic Islamic fundamnetalism, which is backed by the international left.
Quick and Informative History of the Soviet Empire 1945-1991.......2001-01-10
This book actually is about two empires -- the "Inner Empire" of the Soviet Union and the "Outer Empire" of the Soviet Bloc. The book is exceedingly well written and hard to put down. Though it ignores broad swaths of Soviet history (military confrontation with the west, relationship with China, etc), it admits that it doesn't tell all, and, more importantly, tells what it does very clearly.
The crisises of 1956, 1968, and 1980 are examined in detail, and throughout humor is used to get the point across (such at the Kiti-Kat fiasco, and contemporary Soviet and Eastern European jokes about the regime).
Average customer rating:
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The Rise of Russia and the Fall of the Soviet Empire
John B. Dunlop
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0691001731 |
Book Description
This is the first work to set one of the great bloodless revolutions of the twentieth century in its proper historical context. John Dunlop pays particular attention to Yeltsin's role in opposing the covert resurgence of Communist interests in post-coup Russia, and faces the possibility that new institutions may not survive long enough to sink roots in a traditionally undemocratic culture.
Book Description
Drawing on a wide range of sources, including eye-witness accounts, official documents, and materials that have only recently come to light, The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union places the Soviet experience in historical and comparative context. It provides a comprehensive overview of the Soviet Union from early comments by Marx on the possibility of Russia avoiding capitalism to the disintegration of the USSR in 1991.
This source-book features several important documents published in full for the first time, including Lenin's letter of 1922 concerning the church and materials on the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939. Gorbachev's attempts to revive the system is reflected in a number of documents, while materials relating to the coup of 1991 and the creation of the Commonwealth of Independent States are reproduced almost in their entirety. From a survey of the emergence of Marxism-Leninism to an analysis of the tumultuous events of the last decade, this book is an invaluable reference to anyone interested in Soviet history and politics.
Customer Reviews:
An excellent compilation, but unfortunately biased.......2006-08-10
Richard Sakwa's book is a compendium of original documents (or sometimes excerpts) that relate to Soviet history. The author restricts his own words to explanatory comments that set a particular document in context and sometimes relate the effect the document had on Soviet history. From the letters of nineteenth century Marxists to Gorbachev's last speech of December, 1991, the documents tell a story. However, everything depends on the choice of documents.
Certain key documents seem to be missing. In particular, the decree, issued not long after Stalin's death, that transferred the secret police's vast industrial empire to the relevent civilian and military bureaucracies, is not presented. This decree is key to understanding the end of Stalinism, because it ended the secret police's need for vast numbers of arrested slaves. In line with this omission, it is not made clear that the number of political arrests after Stalin's death was several orders of magnitude less than during the tyrant's misrule.
Unlike fascism, Communism attracted the support of vast numbers of decent, idealistic, and intelligent people. Portrayal of Soviet Communism as strictly evil and deceitful does not explain why this happened, and it does not explain why many Soviet citizens were enthusiastic about the direction of the USSR, at least before the Terror.
Lots of information but wordy.......2006-02-25
A little wordy and sometimes hard to find the main idea in each chapter. There is quite a bit of info in in the book.
Book Description
Why did the Soviet Union use less force to preserve the Soviet empire from 1989 to 1991 than it had used in distant and impoverished Angola in 1975? This book fills a key gap in international relations theories by examining how actors' preferences and causal conceptions change as they learn from their experiences.
Andrew Bennett draws on interviews and declassified Politburo documents as well as numerous public statements to establish the views of Soviet and Russian officials. He argues that Soviet leaders drew lessons from their apparent successes in Vietnam and elsewhere in the 1970s that made them more interventionist. Then, as casualties in Afghanistan mounted in the 1980s, Soviet leaders learned different lessons that led them to withdraw from regional conflicts and even to abstain from the use of force as the Soviet empire dissolved. The loss of this empire led to exaggerated fears of "domino effects" within Russia and a resurgence of interventionist views, culminating in the Russian invasion of Chechnya in 1994. Throughout this process, Soviet and Russian leaders and policy experts were divided into competing schools of thought as much by the information to which they were exposed as by their apparent material interests. This helps explain how Gorbachev and other new thinkers were able to prevail over the powerful military-party-industrial complex that had dominated Soviet politics since Stalin's time.
Book Description
The prevailing Western view of Russia's Cold War strategic nuclear weapons policy is that it resulted from a two-part interplay between the leaders of the Communist Party and the military. Steven J. Zaloga has found that a third contributoræthe Russian defense industryæalso played a vital role. Drawing from elusive Russian source material and interviews with many proud Russian and Ukrainian engineers, he presents a definitive account of Russia's strategic forces, who built them, and why.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent!.......2004-01-11
Steve Zaloga does an amazing job discussing a very diverse subject that covers the entire Cold War period between the US and USSR. He not only describes the Kremlin's nuclear weapons technology, but he delivers a history of the politics that inspired the development and deployment of the weapons. Zaloga's style is smooth and keeps the reader interested in the topic, and he manages to keep the reader from being bored while covering the often-times mundane details. I would highly recommend this book for use withing a graduate level history course.
Superb History of Soviet/Russian Weapons System.......2003-02-12
Zaloga has done a masterful job of describing the internal politics that kept the Soviet program from achieving maximum efficiency in their arms race with the USA. Still, one has to admire the dogged determination the Soviets showed in this pursuit. He also updates the reader on the decrepit state of the post-Soviet arsenal today. That is even scarier than the past flirtation with Armageddon.
Book Description
This book reconstructs Marx and Engels’s theory of freedom, highlights its centrality to their vision of the communist society of the future, traces its development in the history of Marxist thought and explains how it was transformed at the height of its influence into a legitimation of totalitarian practices.
Customer Reviews:
A mediocre and confused attempt at anti-Marxism.......2006-06-03
This book by Andrzej Walicki, a Polish liberal who's written much on the history of modern(ist) philosophy, consists of six parts. The first is about Marx, the second about Engels, the third about what he dubs "Necessitarian Marxism", the fourth on Leninism, the fifth on totalitarianism (Stalinism mostly), and the sixth on anti-Stalinism. The book is very thorough and rather dense and plodding at times, slightly in the style of Charles Taylor with its endless text exegesis and its slow and careful discussion of terminology. Nevertheless, it absolutely fails at its primary purpose, understood as a refutation of Marxist philosophy.
The first part, about Marx, is mostly an explanation of Marx' conception of liberty and its alleged consequences for the way Marxists perceive human individuality and the like. Walicki's expounding of Marx' view of liberty is quite good, but all his critiques fail utterly. Often he simply totally misreads texts, and many of his complaints are no more than "that's not individualist!" or the usual liberal expounding of negative liberties as the only real ones. Walicki seems to think Marx means to destroy individuality altogether to make man a species-being again, which just shows his lack of understanding of the subject: a species-being is always an individual being, but exists as such in, and by grace of, a collective, namely humanity as a whole: the two aspects of man need NOT be contradictory, but are made so by certain social relations! This view is so alien to Walicki's thought that though he grapples with the problem for a hundred pages, he never arrives at it.
The second part is a discussion of the differences, or lack thereof, between Marx' Marxism and Engels' Marxism. He makes much of Lukács early opinions on the subject, which were very critical of Engels, apparently ignoring Lukács' later withdrawal of these views (though of course one should be free to ignore such things, as one may be right at first and wrong later, I admit). Added to this is Brzozowski's old complaint against Engels, often repeated, that he "reifies" the processes of history too much. I do not agree with these views, but Walicki's explanation of them is fair enough, and Walicki pays (to my pleasant surprise) proper attention to the ways in which Engels explained the Marxist perception of society which Marx himself did not address as thoroughly, such as the position of non-productive labour, the role of freedom vs. necessity, and the communist future. He still makes entirely too much out of minor differences in style and approach between Marx and Engels, though.
The third part of the book discusses Kautsky, Plekhanov and Luxemburg. These articles, like the one on Lenin which forms part four, are largely biographical and add little new content. The "necessitarian Marxists" are so called by Walicki because according to him they all share the emphasis on historical necessity as a cornerstone of Marxist thought that later informed Lenin and his successors. Walicki portrays them largely as one-sided Marxists, whose views paved the way for the later totalitarian excesses of Leninism and Stalinism. Of course his main argument against their views is that they leave no room for his liberal conception of freedom, i.e. freedom from restraint, which seems to be the real foundation of Walicki's problems with and arguments against ALL Marxism in theory.
Despite this, his discussion of Plekhanovs polemics against Belinskiy and Mikhailovsky (who is often quoted with assent by Walicki) is informative for all. His treatment of Luxemburg, on the other side, is positively contemptuous, and is appalling reading.
The fourth and fifth parts are mainly used to establish Walicki's theory that Leninism and Stalinism are both totalitarian in nature, but two different kinds of Marxist totalitarianism. Lenin seems to be viewed by Walicki with some awe, and oddly most of the totalitarian aspects of his reign are reduced to certain character flaws in Lenin himself as explanation. Typical, in a certain sense, for liberal critics like Walicki not to use any kind of materialist explanation of such matters which might be more convincing. Walicki's critique of Leninism as an improper and one-sided understanding of the Marxist critique of parliamentarism is much better, and seems at certain points to hit home. However, his reliance on comparisons with the Russian "Narodniki" is a little odd considering Lenin's disdain for that group during all his life.
The article also goes into some depth discussing Bukharin and his contributions to Leninism, and Walicki views Bukharin as the most consistent defender of Lenin's own approach after Lenin's death, which I agree with (but he does not very well defend).
The fifth article on "totalitarianism" (mostly referring to Stalinism but not entirely) is good but flawed. Walicki rightly points out the vanguard party and Lenin's scientism make a potentially very dangerous combination for any practical policy, which is almost guaranteed to lead to certain excessively drastic measures. His discussion of Stalinism as a "popular religion" version of Marxism is quite excellent, and goes into many of the more subtle issues of Stalin's view of the world. The main problem is that it is little factual and because of this emphasis on theoretical issues tends to overstate Stalin's commitment to Marxism. Nevertheless, in my view this is the most useful part of the book.
The sixth chapter is "dismantling Stalinism". Walicki makes a strawman here out of historian Moshe Lewin's views on the development of Soviet society, in order to portray him as representative for Marxists who are (allegedly) by force of the circumstances of the USSR's collapse forced to accept the impossibility of doing without markets. This is of course gibberish in all its forms, and certainly not a good representation of Lewin. Most of the rest of this chapter continues down this Hayekian track, blaming the destruction of the Soviet socialism on the fundamental flaw in Marxism that it is so strongly opposed to markets and market liberty. Nothing in this chapter is of any value whatever, and it can be much better read in Hayek's own "The Road to Serfdom", which is shorter and more to the point.
All in all, Walicki's book is of some middling use as an overview of the various views on Marxism of various leading Marxists. It is in particular useful as a (negative) discussion of Marxism through the lens of the 'freedom vs. necessity' debate. However, as a critique of Marxism itself it absolutely fails on all points, and its extremely dense and plodding style make it hard reading. It is additionally entirely too long and rehashes old arguments from Berlin, Hayek, Kolakowski etc. way too much for it to be seen as a real contribution to the debate on Marxism. Not recommended.
Antinomies of freedom and necessity.......2002-01-16
This is the last of about ten Marx critiques that I read, if only because they often have facts unavailable elsewhere. After a while they are all the same, though not quite this one. Comparable to the work of Kolakowski in a perspective on Communism from the vantage point of those who lived this experience in Eastern Europe, this striking work is a reminder of the historical record, in four main stages, Marx, Engels, Lenin, and the totalitarian outcome, and a recommendable challenge to overconfident Marxist houdinis to release themselves from the bindings of confused enterprise, with a detailed history not available in most major propaganda versions. No fan of Marx, still, few come as close to the core of the strange Hegelian-Feuerbackian notion of 'self and species being' that animates the almost crypto-Upanishadic quality of this concept of man. This is genuinely obscure, and genuinely profound, and almost the mistake of presuming the noumenal, in the antinomy that lurks near the shipwreck of the 'realization of being'.
The author wishes to explore Marx's conception of freedom, "a mode of existence in which humans are integrated and self-determining". One pauses, what's wrong there, this is the answer, no? It is factual to maintain that the form of economic society in question rarely releases the true self from the free economic agent. Here Marx's challenge to the future stands, irregardless, in the concealed tragedy of Hegelian slaughterbench teleology, unresolved in any philosophy. Perhaps it is the fuzzy undefined nature of the metaphyical basis that leads to the inexorable reversal and deviation from its initial conditions of the Movement, and the tale told is a gripping description of the stages of a tragedy, and the leap becomes a series of increasingly irrational circumstances, like a jacknifed truck in an accident.
Beyond the questions of philosophy, the book is an excellent portrayal of the sheer Murphy's Law quality of group organizational tactics, reified ideologies, founders and disciples, philosophy versus scientism, and the seeming inevitability of the claim on the future to do anything but lose control. The tragic outcome of revolutionary logistics. One must differ from the author to a great degree, we cannot indict Marx for this complex outcome. We can see that the reification of this resolution of self and species being is apt to turn into something unforeseen. The 'authoritarian' Marx seems too much in evidence, where the democrat of the 1840's is struggling with the definition of terms.
A critique of Marx, unless merely facile propaganda, must really engage the enemy, and risk uncovering more than a cardboard figue, and the real insight behind Marx's heroic gestures. The author invokes this Marx and raises his sword to slay the dragon, but it slips away, wounded, whether fatally remains unknown.
Gripping tale in any case. Back to the beginning with the debugger.
Utopianism's Abuse of the Idea of Freedom.......2000-01-06
This is a book on the theoretical aspects of communist totalitarianism, not its practical consequences, but this does not diminish its value or its readability. Walicki does a masterful job in showing how a totalitarian mind-set is the most logical outcome of Marx & Engels' redefinition of freedom as the supposed "freedom" of humanity as a whole, instead of individual liberty.
In the name of putting these insane ideas into practice, Lenin was prepared to stop at nothing, launching wave after wave of terror, all the while deceiving himself that the terror was perfectly justified because the end result would be beneficial to mankind. Walicki bares all in this book, and demonstrates how Lenin adopted the NEP not to improve things by letting in a little reality, but grudgingly, in order to keep his utopian dream from collapsing.
Such, the author points out, is the result of believing that history has immutable "laws" and that certain theorists have succeeded in unlocking their mysteries and thereby obtaining absolute truth, which cannot permit itself to be questioned.
It's axiomatic that the most supposedly noble ideas typically have the most horrible consequences. Why? The more noble and beneficial the theory is, the more wicked its opponents will appear to be -- and what should done with wicked people?
If you have a sweeping, grandiose idea about how to save the world, do everyone a favor and please keep it to yourself. If only Marx and Lenin would have followed this advice, the world would have been spared a lot of misery.
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