A great totalitarian communist empire with nuclear weapons, a large standing army, a space program, a manned satellite, secret police and complete control of the population simply dissolves from within. Unbelievable? But it really happened to the USSR.Why? How? and other important questionsThe monumental second world collapse, in the face of a more powerful first world wielding the market and liberal institutions, was triggered not by military pressure but by Communist ideology. The KGB and to a...

This is the most bittersweet, most astonishing story in history, I think, so I’m compelled to read books about it, telling me the same story which I already know, again and again.I don’t want to repeat the same things I said in my reviews of Revolution 1989 by Viktor Sebestyen or Down with Big Brother by Michael Dobbs. So I’ll be brief, as this excellent no nonsense book by Stephen Kotkin is.Why do I think this is such a towering, Shakespearian tragedy? Well – it’s the almost completely peaceful...

Perhaps not the most gripping narrative on the fall of the Soviet Union (the author is an academic), Kotkin's book nonetheless merits reading because it advances an important thesis about the causes of the collapse - namely, that the Soviet Union could probably have survived, albeit as an increasingly poor and dysfunctional nation (cf. North Korea), if Gorbachev had not fatally undermined it. The last General Secretary believed, as Kotkin notes - and as Gorbachev himself admitted at the time - i...

Virtually everyone seems to think that the Soviet Union was collapsing before 1985. They are wrong. Most people also think the Soviet collapse ended in 1991. Wrong again.Just over thirty years ago today (December 26, 1991), the Soviet Union was no more. It was 74 years old. In this summary, Kotkin states that the causes of death were not just the results of increased military expenditure by the United States and the shortcomings of a centrally-planned economy - he says that the Soviet Union was

Kotkin treats the fall of the Soviet Union as a genuine civilizational collapse, perhaps more akin to the fall of the Roman empire than a typical modern revolution leading merely from one form of government to another. Kotkin thinks this collapse explains why the aftermath of the Cold War was so unsatisfying for all parties involved, and why Russia itself unraveled so definitively after 1991. There are many sketches and anecdotes here, but the most interesting portrait by far is of Mikhail Gorba...

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

As I have a renewed interest for Russian affairs, I've decided to read Princeton's professor Kotkin's account of the end of the Soviet regime. Needless to say, his pedagogical approach of the subject is everywhere in the book. I understood and learned more about Russian politics and history than with any other book I read before.Kotkin's prose is half geopolitical analysis and half historical assessment. Using lots of different sources from common people's letters to official State documents:"A

Very readable account that is focused almost entirely on Russia (I had hoped for more on the other republics). Kotkin is perhaps too keen to avoid the idiocies of right (THE EVIL EMPIRE CAN NEVER REFORM AND MUST BE DESTROYED!!!!) and left (AMERICAN ECONOMISTS LED DIRECTLY TO RUSSIAN OLIGARCHY!!!!), and so ends up with the strange position that whenever the USSR ended, it had to lead to massive theft and suffering. You can't blame anyone--not evil Russkies, not evil neoliberals--for what happened...

This is an interesting book written shortly after Putin came to power, which attempts to show that the collapse of the USSR was caused by a number of factors - endemic to the system, that would have inevitably caused it collapse. The author claims that Khrushchev and Gorbachev similarly tried to reform the system - both were idealists of sorts. The truth, according to the author, is that it was only by abandoning the system could the system be reformed. The humanism and idealism of the Revolutio...

As the title suggests, what Kotkin is interested in with this book is the question of “why, when the Communism was in collapse, did not the USSR begin World War Three to defend it?” His answer will surprise some: he says that Communism was still quite sustainable at the end of the 1980s, with no need for sweeping reform, but chose to commit suicide for largely ideological reasons. The real reasons for Perestroika and Glasnost were not economic necessity or because of large-scale popular resistan...

An interesting and in-depth analysis of the events leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Empire and the decline and fall of the Communist utopian dream. Kotkin's writing is refreshingly light and easy to comprehend, uncluttered by the tedium which so often haunts the pages of historically erudite political reviews.Kotkin traverses the historical entity which was the USSR, from its initial formation well into it's post socialist period. He captures well the essence of the idealism as well as t...

A really fascinating exploration of why the USSR imploded with such little mayhem than it had the potential to unleash. When compared to the brutal conflict that arose when Yugoslavia dissolved, the collapse of the Soviet Empire was rather mild. Sure civil wars broke out in a number of places and economic ruin ensued, but the Soviet state had the military means and where with all to have created cataclysmic strife when Gorbachev's attempts at reform went off the rails. Kotkin makes a revisionist...

Decent enough, I suppose, if you know nothing on the subject, but overall not a very satisfying work. Kotkin passes over with a limpid head-toss much of the criticism of the international economic institutions and US "financial aid" to Russia during the 1990s in favor of an approach which highlights (rightly) the institutional sickness and malaise of the late-Soviet system. This was unnecessary for his analysis which could have neatly combined both. Has some good economic insights onto the Sovie...

I found it largely disappointing. The title is misleading, it fails to explain why the collapse of the Soviet Union would have led to armageddon, or how or why it was averted. It is a good overview of the period with a strong bias. No credit is given given to the democrats for bringing about change and the path to disunion should have been obvious to all as it was simply inevitable. I just took away another star thinking about it.

Sovietology for the 21st century. While making some valid and intriguing oints here and there, for most of the book the author gives vent to his dislike of socialism. Not just soviet socialism, mind, but any form of socialism. Plus, he can't hide his intense dislike of Russia. I would have given it just the one star, but it's rather well-written so it gets two stars from me

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-h...

Kotkin's thesis is that Gorbachev didn't surrender the Cold War, but that he was an idealist who genuinely believed in the possibility of socialism to reform itself and show its superiority to capitalism. His conservative opponents were defeated by him brilliantly at every turn, but the move to openness destroyed the little legitimacy the USSR had. The USSR had fissures at the lines of the ethnic republic and once Gorbachev took the power from the party machine that had held it together he ultim...

I picked up that small but dense and information-packed book in order to get a feel for the author, Stephen Kotkin, before I tackle his monumental 3-parts and several thousand pages long biography of Stalin.I was not expecting all that much from a 200 pages book that covers 30 years of Soviet history but I was wrong. Kotkin makes a powerful and persuasive argument for an institutional interpretation of the Soviet collapse. You will not find him blaming the usual suspects: the military-industrial...

This is a fine work of political economy. Hard to imagine a better work on soviet collapse. This concise work plots a historical course from the energy windfall (derived from 1973 oil crisis) that sustained the Soviet regime, explains the major issues of a planned economy (supply never met demand), the generational and cultural forces that produced Gorbachev, the bifurcation of state and party under Gorbachev and the immense implications therein, and finally ends in Russia’s devolution into illi...

United States conservatives would point to Reagan's military arms buildup which the Soviet Union could not keep pace with, while liberal capitalists believed in the inherent unfeasibility of a nonmarket system. Contrary to these suppositions, Stephen Kotkin's Armageddon Averted, paints a picture of a behemoth, bureaucratic state resting atop a superannuated industrial infrastructure. Yet he maintains that if the Soviet elite had so chosen, they could have sustained it decades longer.Instead, the...

An analysis of the Soviet Union's collapse that holds Gorbachev principally responsible, since the author holds that the USSR could have continued for quite some time with a Communist Party in charge if that government was willing to continue to use violence and control information to secure the status quo. The economic situation was not good but not a crisis, the population was sufficiently content. I found the book hard going as it was not a gripping presentation, more for the specialist than

This is not a book for the casual reader interested in current affairs. The author summarizes the thirty year collapse of the Soviet Union and emergence of post-Soviet Russia in just two hundred pages, but there is an expectation that the reader is familiar with Russian and Soviet history, especially the institutions of government, as well as the workings of both micro and macro economics. That being said, it is an insightful look at this era of Russian history and if nothing else, further dispe...

This is less a history and more of an extended essay on what caused the fall of the Soviet Union. Kotkin's thesis is that it was reform what done it -- Communism is incompatible with liberalism, so the moment Gorbachev opened the door with perestroika and glasnost, the frame collapsed and brought down the whole house with it. It's an interesting thesis that makes more sense than the typical American, "Reagan scared them to death," view, but Kotkin severely downplays the importance of Solidarity,...

Kotkin's treatment of the fall of the Soviet Union is a breath of fresh air for this reader as it contains no over-dramatizatized narrative of SDI or belligerent foreign policy. The Union fell from "reform" and an attempt to revert the Communist system back to a purer Leninist vision. Unfortunately, the partial attempts at democratization and market systems brought whole thing down brick by brick. Kotkin points to Gorbachev's polices as the main culprit which is also refreshing. Gorbachev is not...

Great overview of how the reform of the Soviet Union turned into its dissolution. The role of the US in carrying out this process is not completely understood by the population as a whole. By ensuring cheap oil through much of the 1980s, Moscow lost a critical source of revenue to fund its 1970s adventurism. Then when the edifice collapsed, Washington claimed that it was the military arms race. While the west did try and export democratic values in the aftermath, as the author demonstrates absen...

Not bad, recommended by Econ teacher to learn more about russia. Good opener to learn more about the history of russia

A good overview of the Soviet collapse. Kotkin argues that the Soviet collapse began in the 1970s and that the massive economic problems of the new Russian Federation was an inevitable result of the Soviet economy, in particular the old, obsolete industrial base and equipment. He manages to tell this quite complex story in a short, engaging form. The title is however a bit misleading, as Kotkin barely explains his hypothesis that we were lucky that the Soviet collapse was a relatively one and di...

Relatively short summation of the Soviet downfall. Basically, in order to make internal improvements they started allowing some openness about themselves and the west. This let everyone see the shortcomings of the communist way and how far behind the west they were. The government was super old and detached from the realities of the day to day lives of the people. So it all fell apart and miraculously the military let it happen and no actual shit hit the fan. Other than the looting of the econom...

Interesting story of the latter days of the Soviet Union; I had forgotten much of this, but it's a fascinating tale, focusing on the 80s, with Gorbachev taking over and introducing the little freedom that was enough to bring the empire down, esp. since the economy was in a very bad shape -- in fact only because the earlier oil-money could it be sustained for so long.Also the roles of Yeltsin, the various older apparatchiks, the economical reforms, and some upcoming promising man called Putin...

Unfortunately, this book is summed up in its first chapter. Plugging through to the end is worth it, though, there are tidbits and stories that flesh out the experience. What makes this worth the read is that the story doesn’t end with the collapse of the U.S.S.R., it goes forward and explains the troubles Russia still faced in the future. It’s insightful, well written and full of good information.