03453nam 2200625Ia 450 991081906380332120200520144314.09780191539091(electronic book)1-280-53435-497866105343570-19-153909-00-19-534706-41-60256-685-2(CKB)1000000000362976(StDuBDS)AH24083055(SSID)ssj0000105581(PQKBManifestationID)12017886(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000105581(PQKBWorkID)10105277(PQKB)11572859(MiAaPQ)EBC279425(Au-PeEL)EBL279425(CaPaEBR)ebr10142493(CaONFJC)MIL53435(OCoLC)171572897(EXLCZ)99100000000036297620011114d2001 uy 0engur|||||||||||txtrdacontentcrdamediacrrdacarrierArmageddon averted the Soviet collapse, 1970-2000 /Stephen Kotkin1st ed.Oxford Oxford University Press20011 online resource (xix, 245 pages, 16 pages of plates )illustrations, maps, portraitsOriginally published: 2001.0-19-516894-1 Includes bibliographical references and index.History’s cruel tricks -- Reviving the dream -- The drama of reform -- Waiting for the end of the world -- Survival and cannibalism in the rust belt -- Democracy without liberalism? -- Idealism and treason.Using several dozen memoirs of insiders and many declassified documents, this volume narrates and explains not just the collapse of socialism but also of the Union and in a comparative framework shows how and why the two collapsed together.In the Cold War era that dominated the second half of the 20th century, nobody envisaged that the collapse of the Soviet Union would come from within, still less that it would happen meekly, without global conflagration. In this compact book, Stephen Kotkin shows that the Soviet collapse resulted not from military competition but, ironically, from the dynamism of Communist ideology, the long-held dream for "socialism with a human face". The neo-liberal reforms in post-Soviet Russia never took place, nor could they have, given the Soviet-era inheritance in the social, political and economic landscape. Kotkin takes us deep into post-Stalin Soviet society and institutions, into the everyday hopes and secret political intrigues that affected 285 million people, before and after 1991. He conveys the high drama of a superpower falling apart while armed to the teeth with millions of loyal troops and tens of thousands of weapons of mass destruction. "Armageddon Averted" vividly demonstrates the overriding importance of history, individual ambition, geopolitics and institutions, and deftly draws out contemporary Russia's contradictory predicament.CommunismSoviet UnionHistorySoviet UnionHistory1953-1985Soviet UnionHistory1985-1991CommunismHistory.947.085Kotkin Stephen301208MiAaPQMiAaPQMiAaPQBOOK9910819063803321Armageddon averted722178UNINA