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      Book

      The Strange Death of Soviet Communism
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      Book

      The Strange Death of Soviet Communism

      DOI link for The Strange Death of Soviet Communism

      The Strange Death of Soviet Communism book

      A Postscript

      The Strange Death of Soviet Communism

      DOI link for The Strange Death of Soviet Communism

      The Strange Death of Soviet Communism book

      A Postscript
      Edited ByNikolas K. Gvosdev
      Edition 1st Edition
      First Published 2008
      eBook Published 25 October 2017
      Pub. Location New York
      Imprint Routledge
      DOI https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315135236
      Pages 257
      eBook ISBN 9781315135236
      Subjects Politics & International Relations
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      Gvosdev, N.K. (Ed.). (2008). The Strange Death of Soviet Communism: A Postscript (1st ed.). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315135236

      ABSTRACT

      The collapse of communism marked the close of an era of world history. What took place in the Soviet Union between 1917 and 1991, in the eyes of its proponents, constituted a "great experiment" in the application of new modes of organization to social life, the largest such experiment in history. The Strange Death of Soviet Communism, which first appeared as a special issue of The National Interest, brings together leading scholars of Soviet history, who show why the experiment failed and how it has destroyed the laboratory of socialist utopias.Francis Fukuyama considers the role of long-term social and intellectual modernization while Vladimir Kontorovich examines the related factor of economic stagnation. Myron Rush then analyzes the accidental and precedent-breaking accession and leadership of Gorbachev. Charles Fairbanks looks at the more general factors of change and rigidity within communist political culture. Chapters by Peter Reddaway and Stephen Sestanovich conclude this section by assessing respectively the role of internal pressure from Soviet citizens and external pressure from the West. The next chapters deal with why the West was surprised by the communist collapse. This involves a critique of Western Sovietology both for its scholarly failures and its ideological prejudices. Here, Peter Rutland and William Odom deal with social science interpretations of the Soviet Union while Robert Conquest and Richard Pipes reflect on historians' readings of Soviet history. Martin Malia then offers a comparative assessment of both. In the third section Irving Kristol and Nathan Glazer discuss communism in relation to the intellectuals in the West.Although the authors are united in their anti-communist stance, the volume is diverse in its perspectives and assessments of Soviet communism. Taken together, these contributions show that the debate on the legacy of communism and a subsequent rethinking of modern history is just beginnin

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      part 1|87 pages

      Why Did It Happen?

      chapter 1|6 pages

      The Modern Polybius

      ByJr. Charles H. Fairbanks

      chapter 2|12 pages

      The Modernizing Imperative: The USSR as an Ordinary Country

      ByFrancis Fukuyama

      chapter 3|10 pages

      Fortune and Fate

      ByMyron Rush

      chapter 4|13 pages

      Did the West Undo the East?

      ByStephen Sestanovich

      chapter 5|16 pages

      The Economic Fallacy

      ByVladimir Kontorovich

      chapter 6|15 pages

      The Nature of the Beast

      ByJr. Charles H. Fairbanks

      chapter 7|11 pages

      The Role of Popular Discontent

      ByPeter Reddaway

      part 2|82 pages

      Sins of the Scholars

      chapter 8|18 pages

      1917 and the Revisionists

      ByRichard Pipes

      chapter 9|16 pages

      A Fatal Logic

      ByMartin Malia

      chapter 10|11 pages

      Academe and the Soviet Myth

      ByRobert Conquest

      chapter 11|14 pages

      The Pluralist Mirage

      ByWilliam Odom

      chapter 12|20 pages

      Sovietology: Notes for a Post-Mortem

      ByPeter Rutland

      part 3|18 pages

      Intellectuals and Communism

      chapter 13|9 pages

      Did We Go Too Far?

      ByNathan Glazer

      chapter 14|6 pages

      My Cold War

      ByIrving Kristol

      part 4|55 pages

      Epilogue

      chapter 15|8 pages

      The Arithmetic of Atrocity

      ByPeter Rutland

      chapter 16|13 pages

      The Long Goodbye—And Eric’s Consoling Lies

      ByNeil Mclnnes

      chapter 17|21 pages

      Judging Nazism and Communism

      ByMartin Malia

      chapter 18|9 pages

      Clinging to Faith: Public Intellectuals and the God that Failed

      ByPaul Hollander
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