History of Russia — Spring

Nicholas II (born 1868, died July 17, 1918. Tsar, 1894-1917), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer, was the last Emperor of All Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917. During his reign, Nicholas gave support to the economic and political reforms promoted by his prime ministers, Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin. He advocated modernization based on foreign loans and close ties with France, but resisted giving the new parliament (the Duma) major roles. Ultimately, progress was undermined by Nicholas's commitment to autocratic rule, strong aristocratic opposition and defeats sustained by the Russian military in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. By March 1917, public support for Nicholas had collapsed and he was forced to abdicate the throne, thereby ending the Romanov dynasty's 300-year rule of Russia.After abdicating for himself and his son, Nicholas and his family were imprisoned by the Russian Provisional Government and exiled to Siberia. After the Bolsheviks took power in the October Revolution, the family was held in Yekaterinburg, where they were executed in July 1918. (Wikipedia)

REQUIRED READING

Paul Bushkovitch,

A Concise History of Russia,

Cambridge University Press,

ISBN 0521543231

RECOMMENDED READING

Robert Massie,

Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty,

Random House Trade Paperbacks,

ISBN 0345438310

Institute Library Call Number: 947.08 Mas NIC
 

RECOMMENDED READING

Douglas Smith,

Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs,

Picador paperback edition (November 7, 2017),

ISBN ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250141262

“[The] definitive biography of this most mysterious and controversial figure . . . Under Smith’s probing eye, archives yield up impressive detail and previously unknown accounts that place Rasputin’s life in a new, more realistic context.” ―Greg King, The Washington Post

"[Douglas Smith's] scrupulous, insightful and thorough study will surely be the definitive account of one of the most controversial personalities of Russian (and European) history . . . Mr. Smith's research busts various Rasputin myths through a careful analysis of contemporary sources and a meticulous attention to the archives . . . All of this Mr. Smith presents lucidly, vividly and sympathetically . . . Rasputin is sharply drawn and unmistakable." ―Edward Lucas, The Wall Street Journal

“Douglas Smith has delivered the definitive biography [of Rasputin] that is brilliantly gripping, as hypnotic, wild and erotic in its revelations as the Mad Monk himself, sensitive in its human portrait, astute in its political analysis, superbly researched with rich new material gathered in faraway archives, and populated with the zaniest cast of the deranged Romanovs, depraved bishops, whores, mountebanks, adventuresses, mystics and murderers.” ―Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard (UK)

“From the opening pages of his colossal biography of Grigory Rasputin, the historian Douglas Smith dismantles many of the myths enshrouding the monk who exerted inordinate influence over Nicholas II and Alexandra, emperor and empress of Russia, during the twilight of the Romanov dynasty a century ago . . . In Mr. Smith’s telling, Rasputin was neither a sinner nor a saint, and very much a product of his time.” ―Steven Lee Myers, The New York Times

“Magisterial . . . This balanced, impeccably researched book is a revelation, as richly detailed and engrossing as any novel.” ―Boris Dralyuk, Los Angeles Review of Books

"According to the most recent and convincing scholarship, it was not the case, as the man in the street seems to have believed at the time, and as Englishmen and others were to write later, that the European world of June 1914 was a sort of Eden in which the outbreak of hostilities among major powers came as a surprise.  On the contrary, as its political and military elites recognized, Europe was in the grip of an unprecedented arms race; internally the powers were victims of violent social, industrial, and political strife; and general staffs chattered constantly, not about whether there would be war, but where and when."
—David Fromkin, Europe’s Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?

"Whatever the intentions which underlay it, German policy in the crisis of July 1914 must rank as one of the great disasters of world history. The leaders of arguably the most successful country in Europe, a country bursting with energy, boasting a young and dynamic population and an economy second to none, a country whose army, whose administration, whose scientific and artistic achievements were the envy of the world, took decisions which plunged it and the other powers into a ghastly war in which almost ten million men lost their lives, the old internal and international order was forever destroyed, and popular hatreds were released which were to poison public life for generations to come"
—John Röhl, "Germany," in Decisions for War, 1914, ed. Keith Wilson

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

Barbara Tuchman's book on the origins of World War I is one of the best works of history I have ever read. It has been a huge success since its publication in 1962. It has sold millions of copies and was on the New York Times bestseller list for one whole year. (WHF)

Barbara Tuchman,

The Guns of August,

Series: Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction Books,

Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint edition (March 8, 1994),

ISBN 034538623X

These two books from Fromkin and Clark are both brilliant renditions of the conditions that led to World War I. And they give you two different views of the buildup to the conflict. Fromkin says that everyone knew what they were doing. Clark says they "sleepwalked into it."

David Fromkin,

Europe's Last Summer: Why the World Went to War in 1914,

Vintage Books USA,

ISBN 0099430843

Christopher Clark,

The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914,

Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (March 18, 2014),

ISBN 978-0061146664

The best overall study of rivalry between European powers during this time:

Alan J. P. Taylor,

The Struggle for Mastery in Europe: 1848-1918,

Oxford University Press,

ISBN 0198812701

A J Taylor,

The First World War: An Illustrated History,

Penguin UK,

ISBN 0140024816

LECTURER: Prof. Bruce Thompson (UCSC)

Karl Heinrich Marx, May 5, 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, critic of political economy, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto and the three-volume Das Kapital (1867–1883). Marx's political and philosophical thought had enormous influence on subsequent intellectual, economic, and political history. His name has been used as an adjective, a noun, and a school of social theory. Born in Trier, Germany, Marx studied law and philosophy at the universities of Bonn and Berlin. He married German theatre critic and political activist Jenny von Westphalen in 1843. Due to his political publications, Marx became stateless and lived in exile with his wife and children in London for decades, where he continued to develop his thought in collaboration with German thinker Friedrich Engels and publish his writings, researching in the British Museum Reading Room.

RECOMMENDED READING

Leszek Kolakowski,

Main Currents of Marxism,

P. S. Falla,

W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition (January 17, 2008),

ISBN ‎ 978-0393329438

 Leszek Kolakowski’s masterpiece, one of the twentieth century’s most important books―for the first time in a one-volume paperback. Renowned philosopher Leszek Kolakowski was one of the first scholars to reveal both the shortcomings and the dangers posed by Communist regimes. He now presents, for the first time in one paperback volume, his definitive Main Currents of Marxism: “A prophetic work,” according to the Library of Congress, that provides “the most lucid and comprehensive history of the origins, structure, and posthumous development of the system of thought that had the greatest impact on the 20th century.”

Robert Service,

Lenin: A Biography,

Macmillan paperback, 2010,

ISBN 978-0330518383

REVIEWS
With the help of previously unpublished documents recently released from central party archives, [Service] has managed to skillfully depict the surreal life of an obsessive, brilliant and stubborn individual who usually found himself the champion of the minority opinion within a minority of just a small number of revolutionaries--who, for most of their lives, did not have a revolution in sight. (The Guardian)

In this thorough biography, Robert Service uses the abundant new archival evidence to describe Lenin's personal idiosyncracies, and also to underline, once again, his many ideological contradictions...Service then goes on to show how Lenin betrayed, in practice, virtually all of his paper principles, which had themselves changed several times in any case: far from creating a state in which ordinary workers took decisions about the running of society, Lenin created a totalitarian dictatorship. (Anne Applebaum Sunday Herald)

The wonder of this particular account is that Service succeeds in explaining how Lenin came to [his] determined confidence and the complex and ultimately tragic circumstances that led to the triumph of his ambitions...The most significant contribution of this book is the wealth of personal information that makes Lenin a far more accessible, if not appealing, individual...Such details make Lenin all the more human and so all the more vivid and frightening...Service never allows his narrative to slip into sentimentality or forgets whom he is dealing with. (Joshua Rubenstein Wall Street Journal)

The most authoritative and well-rounded biography of Lenin yet written--and the one that is, in its quiet way, the most horrifying. Oxford historian Service (A History of Twentieth Century Russia) makes good use of Party and Presidential archives that were previously closed to historians. The portrait that emerges therefore has many elements that were either altogether unknown or have only recently emerged...An important study that goes far in tracing the roots of the dire legacy Communism bequeathed to the third of mankind unfortunate enough to have suffered its rule. (Kirkus Reviews)

In Lenin: A Biography, Robert Service argues that Lenin's importance evolved from three major achievements: He led the October Revolution, he founded the Soviet Union, and he laid out the rudiments of Marxism-Leninism...This is a fascinating and engaging book, not the least because it is the first comprehensive Lenin biography to appear since crucial Soviet archives have been opened. (Amos Perlmutter Washington Times 2000-10-30)

LECTURER: PROF. BRUCE THOMPSON (UCSC)

The great historian and biographer Alan Bullock sums up the differences in the leadership and oratorical styles of Stalin and Hitler as follows: "There is a striking contrast in temperament and style between the two men: the flamboyant Hitler, displaying a lack of restraint and extravagance of speech which for long made it difficult for many to take him seriously, in contrast to the reserved Stalin, who owed his rise to power to his success, not in exploiting, but in concealing his personality, and was underestimated for the opposite reason—because many failed to recognize his ambition and ruthlessness."

Stalin had emerged from the civil war with little glory and much power; Trotsky finished with much glory and little power. Stalin, half-gangster, half-bureaucrat, would use power to trump glory: he offered the Bolsheviks non-charismatic leadership, although he continually invoked the sacred authority of the safely mummified Lenin in its support.

"Unlike Hitler, whose unique position as Führer was openly accepted by all the members of the Nazi Party as the linchpin which held them together, Stalin had to conceal his ambition and at the same time find means of defeating any rivals in an unremitting but covert struggle for power, from which, until his fiftieth birthday in December 1929, he could never be sure he would emerge the victor. The role he adopted was that of the plain man who spoke the same practical language as the party workers from the provinces and was accessible to them. Instead of disguising his exercise of power, he personalized it, leaving no doubt as to whose door to knock on. In the same role he represented the voice of common sense and moderation, opposing the exaggeration of the extremists on either side, stressing the need for unity" (Bullock).

RECOMMENDED READING

Leszek Kolakowski,

Main Currents of Marxism,

P. S. Falla,

W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition (January 17, 2008),

ISBN ‎ 978-0393329438

 Leszek Kolakowski’s masterpiece, one of the twentieth century’s most important books―for the first time in a one-volume paperback. Renowned philosopher Leszek Kolakowski was one of the first scholars to reveal both the shortcomings and the dangers posed by Communist regimes. He now presents, for the first time in one paperback volume, his definitive Main Currents of Marxism: “A prophetic work,” according to the Library of Congress, that provides “the most lucid and comprehensive history of the origins, structure, and posthumous development of the system of thought that had the greatest impact on the 20th century.”

Robert Service,

Lenin: A Biography,

Macmillan paperback, 2010,

ISBN 978-0330518383

REVIEWS
With the help of previously unpublished documents recently released from central party archives, [Service] has managed to skillfully depict the surreal life of an obsessive, brilliant and stubborn individual who usually found himself the champion of the minority opinion within a minority of just a small number of revolutionaries--who, for most of their lives, did not have a revolution in sight. (The Guardian)

In this thorough biography, Robert Service uses the abundant new archival evidence to describe Lenin's personal idiosyncracies, and also to underline, once again, his many ideological contradictions...Service then goes on to show how Lenin betrayed, in practice, virtually all of his paper principles, which had themselves changed several times in any case: far from creating a state in which ordinary workers took decisions about the running of society, Lenin created a totalitarian dictatorship. (Anne Applebaum Sunday Herald)

The wonder of this particular account is that Service succeeds in explaining how Lenin came to [his] determined confidence and the complex and ultimately tragic circumstances that led to the triumph of his ambitions...The most significant contribution of this book is the wealth of personal information that makes Lenin a far more accessible, if not appealing, individual...Such details make Lenin all the more human and so all the more vivid and frightening...Service never allows his narrative to slip into sentimentality or forgets whom he is dealing with. (Joshua Rubenstein Wall Street Journal)

The most authoritative and well-rounded biography of Lenin yet written--and the one that is, in its quiet way, the most horrifying. Oxford historian Service (A History of Twentieth Century Russia) makes good use of Party and Presidential archives that were previously closed to historians. The portrait that emerges therefore has many elements that were either altogether unknown or have only recently emerged...An important study that goes far in tracing the roots of the dire legacy Communism bequeathed to the third of mankind unfortunate enough to have suffered its rule. (Kirkus Reviews)

In Lenin: A Biography, Robert Service argues that Lenin's importance evolved from three major achievements: He led the October Revolution, he founded the Soviet Union, and he laid out the rudiments of Marxism-Leninism...This is a fascinating and engaging book, not the least because it is the first comprehensive Lenin biography to appear since crucial Soviet archives have been opened. (Amos Perlmutter Washington Times 2000-10-30)

Robert Service,

Stalin: A Biography,

Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press; Annotated edition (October 31, 2006),

ISBN 978-0674022584

“Here is a life-and-times biography in the grand style: deeply researched, well written, brimming with interpretations. Oxford historian Service, author of an acclaimed biography of Lenin, provides the most complete portrait available of the Soviet ruler, from his early, troubled years in a small town in Georgia to the pinnacle of power in the Kremlin. Most previous biographers have depicted Stalin as a plodding figure whose only distinguishing characteristic was brutality. But Service describes a man who was intelligent and hardworking, who learned from experience and who played an important role in the Russian revolutionary movement...By providing such a rich and complex portrait of the dictator and the Soviet system, Service humanizes Stalin without ever diminishing the extent of the atrocities he unleashed upon the Soviet population.”―Publishers Weekly

“For an understanding of Stalin the man, the leader, the Georgian, the Russian nationalist, the revolutionary, the party politician, the mass murderer and the international statesman, and his place in modern Russian history--Robert Service's book is unsurpassed.”―Harold Shukman, author of Stalin's Generals

“Service revises every dimension of this multidimensional titan. His book emphasizes the importance of Marxist ideology, economics and Bolshevik culture. But it also rightly presents a human Stalin ... Gritty and unshowy, but enlightened by Service's compelling characterization, magisterial analysis and dry wit, this outstanding biography of lightly worn authority, wide research and superb intuition will be read for decades.”―Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

“Robert Service's brilliant biography of Stalin is a major work: the fruit of long research, profound insight and understanding of his subject. It offers a truly rounded and thoroughly readable portrait of this monstrous figure.”―Andrew Roberts, Daily Telegraph

“This is effectively the first full biography since perestroika to encompass the economic, political, diplomatic, military, administrative and, above all, ideological dimensions, as well as the personal aspects of Stalin's colossal life. Gritty and unshowy, but enlightened by Service's compelling characterisation, magisterial analysis and dry wit, this outstanding biography of lightly worn authority, wide research and superb intuition will be read for decades.”―Simon Sebag Montefiore, Sunday Times

“Few historical events have been more profoundly distorted by myth than those of 25 October 1917. The popular image of the Bolshevik insurrection, as a bloody struggle by the tens of thousands with several thousand fallen heroes, owes more to October—Eisenstein’s brilliant but largely fictional propaganda film to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the event—than to historical fact. The Great October Socialist Revolution, as it came to be called in Soviet mythology, was in reality such a small-scale event, being in effect no more than a military coup, that it passed unnoticed by the vast majority of the inhabitants of Petrograd. Theaters, restaurants and tram cars functioned much as normal while the Bolsheviks came to power. The whole insurrection could have been completed in six hours, had it not been for the ludicrous incompetence of the insurgents themselves, which made it take an extra fifteen.”
—Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924

"Of all the Great Powers that went to war in 1914, Russia was the most backward and autocratic: here the gap between government and society was larger than it was anywhere else. The Tsar, Nicholas II, was committed to the principle of personal rule, keeping power at court, distrusting his own bureaucracy as a sort of “wall” between himself and his people. He preferred Moscow to St. Petersburg, a “Byzantine” and Eastern tradition of autocratic rule to the Westernizing tradition that descended from Peter the Great. It was Russia’s tragedy, Orlando Figes has suggested, that just as the country was entering the twentieth century its ruler was nostalgic for the seventeenth! He was not content to reign: he wanted to rule. Instead of delegating authority or making genuine concessions to liberal reformers and representative institutions he indulged in a fantasy of absolute power. There was no parliament in Russia until 1906, and by delaying so long in establishing one the regime split the conservative and liberal intelligentsia whose united support was essential for the monarchy’s survival. His empire covered nearly a sixth of the earth’s surface, but he had little of the practical knowledge necessary to govern it, and he distrusted those who did. Given his limitations of intelligence and experience, the Tsar could only play at the part of an autocrat, meddling in government without offering any real leadership. The Tsar’s own chief advisor, Pobedonostev, lamented: “He only understands the significance of some isolated fact, without connection with the rest, without appreciating the interrelation of all other pertinent facts, events, trends, occurrences. He sticks to his insignificant, petty point of view.” The agencies of government were never properly systematized, because it was in the Tsar’s best interest to keep them weak and dependent on his favor and patronage. And it did not help matters that his wife, Alexandra, combined the obstinacy of her grandmother, Britain’s Queen Victoria, with a mystical faith in the mad monk Rasputin, “a peasant visionary given to gargantuan excesses,” as one historian describes him. (She believed that this unsavory character was the only person who could help her son, who had been born with hemophilia.) Her meddling in political affairs—particularly when her husband was at the front during the war—further alienated the regime from its traditional bases of support in the court, the bureaucracy, the Church, and the army. "
Professor Bruce Thompson

RECOMMENDED READING

Richard Pipes,

The Russian Revolution,

Vintage Publishing,

ISBN 0679736603

"A monumental study...of absorbing interest [by] the distinguished historian of modern Russia.... Lucidly written, unsurpassed in detail and comprehensiveness." —Wall Street Journal

"Mr. Pipes writes trenchantly, and at times superbly.... No single volume known to me even begins to cater so adequately to those who want to discover what really happened to Russia." —The New York Times Book Review

Richard Edgar Pipes (July 11, 1923 – May 17, 2018) was an American academic who specialized in Russian and Soviet history. He published several books critical of communist regimes throughout his career. In 1976, he headed Team B, a team of analysts organized by the Central Intelligence Agency who analyzed the strategic capacities and goals of the Soviet military and political leadership. Pipes was the father of American historian Daniel Pipes. Pipes was born to a Jewish family in Cieszyn, Poland, which fled the country as refugees after it was invaded by Nazi Germany. Settling in the United States in 1940, he became a naturalized citizen in 1943 while serving in the United States Army Air Corps. From 1958 to 1996, Pipes worked at Harvard University. The book we recommend to you above is the best most balanced look at the Russian Revolution. There are hundreds of such books available, but we think Pipes does a good job of telling the story as truthfully as possible.

Robert Massie,

Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty,

Random House Trade Paperbacks,

ISBN 0345438310

Institute Library Call Number: 947.08 Mas NIC

RUSSIA AT WAR
"Stalin was capable of learning from his mistakes. He began to trust his generals and to delegate operational authority, allowing them to present alternatives for him to adjudicate rather than micromanaging strategy as Hitler did. He appealed to Russian nationalism and even permitted the election of a new Orthodox patriarch and used the Church to bestow moral meaning on the war effort. He allowed army officers to wear the trappings of the old Tsarist army uniforms, the peasants to enlarge their individual plots at the expense of the collectives. He put great poets, censored for years, on the radio to recite patriotic verse, and evacuated one of the greatest of them, Anna Akhmatova, from besieged Leningrad. Stalin himself continued to address his people as "brothers and sisters" or "my friends" rather than "comrades" or "citizens," as he had in his first speech after the Barbarossa invasion. And he evacuated fifteen hundred factories, together with their workers, eastward, out of reach of German bombs. Ultimately ten million workers were relocated in this way, working under military discipline. "By 1943 this extraordinary industrial redeployment had put Russia's production of planes, tanks, and artillery far above Germany's. The Party's ability to mobilize and rapidly concentrate great masses of men and materiel at strategic points and under crisis conditions was clearly a major factor in the Soviet victory" (Martin Malia). In a war of attrition, the marshalling of resources, rather than brilliant leadership, was the key to victory. The Soviet command economy, for all its faults, was well suited to wartime conditions and total mobilization: in fact it was better at improvising than planning. The Americans and the British helped with supplies and motorized vehicles: 80,000 jeeps, 150,000 light trucks, 200,000 Studebaker army trucks, aviation fuel, explosives, copper, aluminum, rubber, rails, canned food, field telephones, boots. More and more the Red Army was able to achieve superiority in numbers, equipment, and even, as the Luftwaffe became depleted, air cover. And the Soviet T-34 tank actually had better armor and more speed and firepower than its German counterpart. Newly organized tank units proved the equal of the panzer divisions: in 1941, six or seven tanks were lost for every German one; by 1944 the ratio was one to one. Radio communications, radar, maintenance systems, and camouflage operations were reorganized as well."
Professor Bruce Thompson

RECOMMENDED READING

Richard Overy,

Russias's War,

Penguin Books; Revised edition (August 1, 1998),

ISBN 978-0140271690

Amazon.com Review

Review

Martin Malia,

The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991,

Free Press,

ISBN 0684823136

THE COLD WAR: A DEFINITION The Cold War was a fierce competition between the Great Powers that proceeded by all means short of direct confrontation. Because there were only two Great Powers after the Second World War, international relations had a "bipolar" character: there were two great blocs, and the competition between them was a "zero-sum" game, which meant that a "victory" for either side anywhere was a "loss" for the other. In other words, the assumption was that the different parts of the international system were so tightly linked that a setback in one area would have destabilizing effects elsewhere. Actual war would be fought out by proxies, surrogates for the Great Powers, and confined for the most part to the "periphery" of the industrially developed part of the world.
Bruce Thompson

RECOMMENDED READING

John Gaddis,

The Cold War: A New History,

Penguin Books; 2nd edition,

ISBN 0143038273

Martin Malia,

The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991,

Free Press,

ISBN 0684823136

WASHINGTON, 2004 (Jun 13, 2004, 12:00am Robert G. Kaiser, Washington Post) In the throngs of mourners passing through the Capitol Thursday afternoon, one stood out — a vigorous senior citizen with a distinctive birthmark on his bald pate, whose tight gestures and bright eyes brought back memories of some of President Ronald Reagan's greatest moments. Mikhail Gorbachev had flown from Moscow to pay respects to Nancy Reagan and to the man with whom he changed the course of history. "I gave him a pat," Gorbachev said later, re-enacting the fond caress he had given Reagan's coffin. On Thursday evening, in an ornate conference room at the Russian Embassy, Gorbachev gave a kind of personal eulogy to his first and most important American friend. It combined emotion, rigorous historical analysis and an interesting appraisal of Reagan's place in American life and history. "Reagan," said Gorbachev, 73, was 'an extraordinary political leader' who decided 'to be a peacemaker' at just the right moment — the moment when Gorbachev had come to power in Moscow. He, too, wanted to be a peacemaker, so "our interests coincided." Reagan's second term began in January 1985; two months later, Gorbachev was elected general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. But if he had warm, appreciative words for Reagan, Gorbachev brusquely dismissed the suggestion that Reagan had intimidated either him or the Soviet Union, or forced them to make concessions. Was it accurate to say that Reagan won the Cold War? "That's not serious," Gorbachev said, using the same words several times. "I think we all lost the Cold War, particularly the Soviet Union. We each lost $10 trillion," he said, referring to the money Russians and Americans spent on an arms race that lasted more than four decades. "We only won when the Cold War ended." Later on the Larry King Show (CNN) Gorbachev said, "None of it would have happened without him." In the 1990s, Gorbachev and Reagan had many reunions in Washington, LA, and on the Reagan ranch in the mountains above Santa Barbara.

RECOMMENDED READING

Ken Adelman,

Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War,

Broadside Books,

ISBN 0062310194

Former arms control director Ken Adelman gives readers a dramatic, first-hand account of the Reagan-Gorbachev summit—the weekend that proved key to ending the Cold War. Based on now declassified notes of Reagan’s secret bargaining with Gorbachev and a front-row seat to Reykjavik and other key moments in Reagan’s presidency, Adelman gives an honest portrayal of the man at one of his finest and most challenging moments.

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1931 – 2007) was a Russian and former Soviet politician who served as the first President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. A member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1961 to 1990, he later stood as a political independent, during which time he was viewed as being ideologically aligned with liberalism and Russian nationalism. Born in Butka, Ural Oblast, to a peasant family, Yeltsin grew up in Kazan, Tatar. After studying at the Ural State Technical University, he worked in construction. Joining the Communist Party, which monopolized power in the state and society, he rose through its ranks and in 1976 became First Secretary of the party's Sverdlovsk Oblast committee. Initially a supporter of the perestroika reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin later criticized them as being too moderate, calling for a transition to a multi-party representative democracy. In 1987 he was the first person to resign from the party's governing Politburo, establishing his popularity as an anti-establishment figure. In 1990, he was elected chair of the Russian Supreme Soviet and in 1991 was elected president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Allying with various non-Russian nationalist leaders, he was instrumental in the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union in December that year, at which the RSFSR became the Russian Federation, an independent state. Yeltsin remained in office as president and was reelected in the 1996 election, although critics claimed pervasive electoral corruption. Yeltsin transformed Russia's state socialist economy into a capitalist market economy by implementing economic shock therapy, market exchange rate of the ruble, nationwide privatization, and lifting of price controls. Economic volatility and inflation ensued. Amid the economic shift, a small number of oligarchs obtained a large proportion of the national property and wealth, while international monopolies came to dominate the market. A constitutional crisis emerged in 1993 after Yeltsin ordered the unconstitutional dissolution of the Russian parliament, leading to parliament to impeach him. The crisis ended after troops loyal to Yeltsin stormed the parliament building and stopped an armed uprising; he then introduced a new constitution which significantly expanded the powers of the president. Secessionist sentiment in the Russian Caucasus led to the First Chechen War, War of Dagestan, and Second Chechen War between 1994 and 1999. Internationally, Yeltsin promoted renewed collaboration with Europe and signed arms control agreements with the United States. Amid growing internal pressure, he resigned by the end of 1999 and was succeeded by his chosen successor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Out of office, he kept a low profile, but he was accorded a state funeral upon his death in 2007. Yeltsin was a controversial figure. Domestically, he was highly popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s, although his reputation was damaged by the economic and political crises of his presidency, and he left office widely unpopular with the Russian population. He received praise and criticism for his role in dismantling the Soviet Union, transforming Russia into a representative democracy, and introducing new political, economic, and cultural freedoms to the country. Conversely, he was accused of economic mismanagement, overseeing a massive growth in inequality and corruption, and sometimes of undermining Russia's standing as a major world power. (Wikipedia)

RECOMMENDED READING

Conor O'Clery,

Moscow, December 25, 1991: The Last Day of the Soviet Union,

PublicAffairs,

ISBN 1586487965

Nicholas II (born 1868, died July 17, 1918. Tsar, 1894-1917), known in the Russian Orthodox Church as Saint Nicholas the Passion-Bearer, was the last Emperor of All Russia, ruling from 1 November 1894 until his abdication on 15 March 1917. During his reign, Nicholas gave support to the economic and political reforms promoted by his prime ministers, Sergei Witte and Pyotr Stolypin. He advocated modernization based on foreign loans and close ties with France, but resisted giving the new parliament (the Duma) major roles. Ultimately, progress was undermined by Nicholas's commitment to autocratic rule, strong aristocratic opposition and defeats sustained by the Russian military in the Russo-Japanese War and World War I. By March 1917, public support for Nicholas had collapsed and he was forced to abdicate the throne, thereby ending the Romanov dynasty's 300-year rule of Russia.After abdicating for himself and his son, Nicholas and his family were imprisoned by the Russian Provisional Government and exiled to Siberia. After the Bolsheviks took power in the October Revolution, the family was held in Yekaterinburg, where they were executed in July 1918. (Wikipedia)

REQUIRED READING

Paul Bushkovitch,

A Concise History of Russia,

Cambridge University Press,

ISBN 0521543231

RECOMMENDED READING

Robert Massie,

Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty,

Random House Trade Paperbacks,

ISBN 0345438310

Institute Library Call Number: 947.08 Mas NIC
 

RECOMMENDED READING

Douglas Smith,

Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs,

Picador paperback edition (November 7, 2017),

ISBN ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1250141262

“[The] definitive biography of this most mysterious and controversial figure . . . Under Smith’s probing eye, archives yield up impressive detail and previously unknown accounts that place Rasputin’s life in a new, more realistic context.” ―Greg King, The Washington Post

"[Douglas Smith's] scrupulous, insightful and thorough study will surely be the definitive account of one of the most controversial personalities of Russian (and European) history . . . Mr. Smith's research busts various Rasputin myths through a careful analysis of contemporary sources and a meticulous attention to the archives . . . All of this Mr. Smith presents lucidly, vividly and sympathetically . . . Rasputin is sharply drawn and unmistakable." ―Edward Lucas, The Wall Street Journal

“Douglas Smith has delivered the definitive biography [of Rasputin] that is brilliantly gripping, as hypnotic, wild and erotic in its revelations as the Mad Monk himself, sensitive in its human portrait, astute in its political analysis, superbly researched with rich new material gathered in faraway archives, and populated with the zaniest cast of the deranged Romanovs, depraved bishops, whores, mountebanks, adventuresses, mystics and murderers.” ―Simon Sebag Montefiore, Evening Standard (UK)

“From the opening pages of his colossal biography of Grigory Rasputin, the historian Douglas Smith dismantles many of the myths enshrouding the monk who exerted inordinate influence over Nicholas II and Alexandra, emperor and empress of Russia, during the twilight of the Romanov dynasty a century ago . . . In Mr. Smith’s telling, Rasputin was neither a sinner nor a saint, and very much a product of his time.” ―Steven Lee Myers, The New York Times

“Magisterial . . . This balanced, impeccably researched book is a revelation, as richly detailed and engrossing as any novel.” ―Boris Dralyuk, Los Angeles Review of Books

"According to the most recent and convincing scholarship, it was not the case, as the man in the street seems to have believed at the time, and as Englishmen and others were to write later, that the European world of June 1914 was a sort of Eden in which the outbreak of hostilities among major powers came as a surprise.  On the contrary, as its political and military elites recognized, Europe was in the grip of an unprecedented arms race; internally the powers were victims of violent social, industrial, and political strife; and general staffs chattered constantly, not about whether there would be war, but where and when."
—David Fromkin, Europe’s Last Summer: Who Started the Great War in 1914?

"Whatever the intentions which underlay it, German policy in the crisis of July 1914 must rank as one of the great disasters of world history. The leaders of arguably the most successful country in Europe, a country bursting with energy, boasting a young and dynamic population and an economy second to none, a country whose army, whose administration, whose scientific and artistic achievements were the envy of the world, took decisions which plunged it and the other powers into a ghastly war in which almost ten million men lost their lives, the old internal and international order was forever destroyed, and popular hatreds were released which were to poison public life for generations to come"
—John Röhl, "Germany," in Decisions for War, 1914, ed. Keith Wilson

RECOMMENDED BOOKS

Barbara Tuchman's book on the origins of World War I is one of the best works of history I have ever read. It has been a huge success since its publication in 1962. It has sold millions of copies and was on the New York Times bestseller list for one whole year. (WHF)

Barbara Tuchman,

The Guns of August,

Series: Modern Library 100 Best Nonfiction Books,

Random House Trade Paperbacks; Reprint edition (March 8, 1994),

ISBN 034538623X

These two books from Fromkin and Clark are both brilliant renditions of the conditions that led to World War I. And they give you two different views of the buildup to the conflict. Fromkin says that everyone knew what they were doing. Clark says they "sleepwalked into it."

David Fromkin,

Europe's Last Summer: Why the World Went to War in 1914,

Vintage Books USA,

ISBN 0099430843

Christopher Clark,

The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914,

Harper Perennial; Reprint edition (March 18, 2014),

ISBN 978-0061146664

The best overall study of rivalry between European powers during this time:

Alan J. P. Taylor,

The Struggle for Mastery in Europe: 1848-1918,

Oxford University Press,

ISBN 0198812701

A J Taylor,

The First World War: An Illustrated History,

Penguin UK,

ISBN 0140024816

LECTURER: Prof. Bruce Thompson (UCSC)

Karl Heinrich Marx, May 5, 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, critic of political economy, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto and the three-volume Das Kapital (1867–1883). Marx's political and philosophical thought had enormous influence on subsequent intellectual, economic, and political history. His name has been used as an adjective, a noun, and a school of social theory. Born in Trier, Germany, Marx studied law and philosophy at the universities of Bonn and Berlin. He married German theatre critic and political activist Jenny von Westphalen in 1843. Due to his political publications, Marx became stateless and lived in exile with his wife and children in London for decades, where he continued to develop his thought in collaboration with German thinker Friedrich Engels and publish his writings, researching in the British Museum Reading Room.

RECOMMENDED READING

Leszek Kolakowski,

Main Currents of Marxism,

P. S. Falla,

W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition (January 17, 2008),

ISBN ‎ 978-0393329438

 Leszek Kolakowski’s masterpiece, one of the twentieth century’s most important books―for the first time in a one-volume paperback. Renowned philosopher Leszek Kolakowski was one of the first scholars to reveal both the shortcomings and the dangers posed by Communist regimes. He now presents, for the first time in one paperback volume, his definitive Main Currents of Marxism: “A prophetic work,” according to the Library of Congress, that provides “the most lucid and comprehensive history of the origins, structure, and posthumous development of the system of thought that had the greatest impact on the 20th century.”

Robert Service,

Lenin: A Biography,

Macmillan paperback, 2010,

ISBN 978-0330518383

REVIEWS
With the help of previously unpublished documents recently released from central party archives, [Service] has managed to skillfully depict the surreal life of an obsessive, brilliant and stubborn individual who usually found himself the champion of the minority opinion within a minority of just a small number of revolutionaries--who, for most of their lives, did not have a revolution in sight. (The Guardian)

In this thorough biography, Robert Service uses the abundant new archival evidence to describe Lenin's personal idiosyncracies, and also to underline, once again, his many ideological contradictions...Service then goes on to show how Lenin betrayed, in practice, virtually all of his paper principles, which had themselves changed several times in any case: far from creating a state in which ordinary workers took decisions about the running of society, Lenin created a totalitarian dictatorship. (Anne Applebaum Sunday Herald)

The wonder of this particular account is that Service succeeds in explaining how Lenin came to [his] determined confidence and the complex and ultimately tragic circumstances that led to the triumph of his ambitions...The most significant contribution of this book is the wealth of personal information that makes Lenin a far more accessible, if not appealing, individual...Such details make Lenin all the more human and so all the more vivid and frightening...Service never allows his narrative to slip into sentimentality or forgets whom he is dealing with. (Joshua Rubenstein Wall Street Journal)

The most authoritative and well-rounded biography of Lenin yet written--and the one that is, in its quiet way, the most horrifying. Oxford historian Service (A History of Twentieth Century Russia) makes good use of Party and Presidential archives that were previously closed to historians. The portrait that emerges therefore has many elements that were either altogether unknown or have only recently emerged...An important study that goes far in tracing the roots of the dire legacy Communism bequeathed to the third of mankind unfortunate enough to have suffered its rule. (Kirkus Reviews)

In Lenin: A Biography, Robert Service argues that Lenin's importance evolved from three major achievements: He led the October Revolution, he founded the Soviet Union, and he laid out the rudiments of Marxism-Leninism...This is a fascinating and engaging book, not the least because it is the first comprehensive Lenin biography to appear since crucial Soviet archives have been opened. (Amos Perlmutter Washington Times 2000-10-30)

LECTURER: PROF. BRUCE THOMPSON (UCSC)

The great historian and biographer Alan Bullock sums up the differences in the leadership and oratorical styles of Stalin and Hitler as follows: "There is a striking contrast in temperament and style between the two men: the flamboyant Hitler, displaying a lack of restraint and extravagance of speech which for long made it difficult for many to take him seriously, in contrast to the reserved Stalin, who owed his rise to power to his success, not in exploiting, but in concealing his personality, and was underestimated for the opposite reason—because many failed to recognize his ambition and ruthlessness."

Stalin had emerged from the civil war with little glory and much power; Trotsky finished with much glory and little power. Stalin, half-gangster, half-bureaucrat, would use power to trump glory: he offered the Bolsheviks non-charismatic leadership, although he continually invoked the sacred authority of the safely mummified Lenin in its support.

"Unlike Hitler, whose unique position as Führer was openly accepted by all the members of the Nazi Party as the linchpin which held them together, Stalin had to conceal his ambition and at the same time find means of defeating any rivals in an unremitting but covert struggle for power, from which, until his fiftieth birthday in December 1929, he could never be sure he would emerge the victor. The role he adopted was that of the plain man who spoke the same practical language as the party workers from the provinces and was accessible to them. Instead of disguising his exercise of power, he personalized it, leaving no doubt as to whose door to knock on. In the same role he represented the voice of common sense and moderation, opposing the exaggeration of the extremists on either side, stressing the need for unity" (Bullock).

RECOMMENDED READING

Leszek Kolakowski,

Main Currents of Marxism,

P. S. Falla,

W. W. Norton & Company; First Edition (January 17, 2008),

ISBN ‎ 978-0393329438

 Leszek Kolakowski’s masterpiece, one of the twentieth century’s most important books―for the first time in a one-volume paperback. Renowned philosopher Leszek Kolakowski was one of the first scholars to reveal both the shortcomings and the dangers posed by Communist regimes. He now presents, for the first time in one paperback volume, his definitive Main Currents of Marxism: “A prophetic work,” according to the Library of Congress, that provides “the most lucid and comprehensive history of the origins, structure, and posthumous development of the system of thought that had the greatest impact on the 20th century.”

Robert Service,

Lenin: A Biography,

Macmillan paperback, 2010,

ISBN 978-0330518383

REVIEWS
With the help of previously unpublished documents recently released from central party archives, [Service] has managed to skillfully depict the surreal life of an obsessive, brilliant and stubborn individual who usually found himself the champion of the minority opinion within a minority of just a small number of revolutionaries--who, for most of their lives, did not have a revolution in sight. (The Guardian)

In this thorough biography, Robert Service uses the abundant new archival evidence to describe Lenin's personal idiosyncracies, and also to underline, once again, his many ideological contradictions...Service then goes on to show how Lenin betrayed, in practice, virtually all of his paper principles, which had themselves changed several times in any case: far from creating a state in which ordinary workers took decisions about the running of society, Lenin created a totalitarian dictatorship. (Anne Applebaum Sunday Herald)

The wonder of this particular account is that Service succeeds in explaining how Lenin came to [his] determined confidence and the complex and ultimately tragic circumstances that led to the triumph of his ambitions...The most significant contribution of this book is the wealth of personal information that makes Lenin a far more accessible, if not appealing, individual...Such details make Lenin all the more human and so all the more vivid and frightening...Service never allows his narrative to slip into sentimentality or forgets whom he is dealing with. (Joshua Rubenstein Wall Street Journal)

The most authoritative and well-rounded biography of Lenin yet written--and the one that is, in its quiet way, the most horrifying. Oxford historian Service (A History of Twentieth Century Russia) makes good use of Party and Presidential archives that were previously closed to historians. The portrait that emerges therefore has many elements that were either altogether unknown or have only recently emerged...An important study that goes far in tracing the roots of the dire legacy Communism bequeathed to the third of mankind unfortunate enough to have suffered its rule. (Kirkus Reviews)

In Lenin: A Biography, Robert Service argues that Lenin's importance evolved from three major achievements: He led the October Revolution, he founded the Soviet Union, and he laid out the rudiments of Marxism-Leninism...This is a fascinating and engaging book, not the least because it is the first comprehensive Lenin biography to appear since crucial Soviet archives have been opened. (Amos Perlmutter Washington Times 2000-10-30)

Robert Service,

Stalin: A Biography,

Belknap Press: An Imprint of Harvard University Press; Annotated edition (October 31, 2006),

ISBN 978-0674022584

“Here is a life-and-times biography in the grand style: deeply researched, well written, brimming with interpretations. Oxford historian Service, author of an acclaimed biography of Lenin, provides the most complete portrait available of the Soviet ruler, from his early, troubled years in a small town in Georgia to the pinnacle of power in the Kremlin. Most previous biographers have depicted Stalin as a plodding figure whose only distinguishing characteristic was brutality. But Service describes a man who was intelligent and hardworking, who learned from experience and who played an important role in the Russian revolutionary movement...By providing such a rich and complex portrait of the dictator and the Soviet system, Service humanizes Stalin without ever diminishing the extent of the atrocities he unleashed upon the Soviet population.”―Publishers Weekly

“For an understanding of Stalin the man, the leader, the Georgian, the Russian nationalist, the revolutionary, the party politician, the mass murderer and the international statesman, and his place in modern Russian history--Robert Service's book is unsurpassed.”―Harold Shukman, author of Stalin's Generals

“Service revises every dimension of this multidimensional titan. His book emphasizes the importance of Marxist ideology, economics and Bolshevik culture. But it also rightly presents a human Stalin ... Gritty and unshowy, but enlightened by Service's compelling characterization, magisterial analysis and dry wit, this outstanding biography of lightly worn authority, wide research and superb intuition will be read for decades.”―Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

“Robert Service's brilliant biography of Stalin is a major work: the fruit of long research, profound insight and understanding of his subject. It offers a truly rounded and thoroughly readable portrait of this monstrous figure.”―Andrew Roberts, Daily Telegraph

“This is effectively the first full biography since perestroika to encompass the economic, political, diplomatic, military, administrative and, above all, ideological dimensions, as well as the personal aspects of Stalin's colossal life. Gritty and unshowy, but enlightened by Service's compelling characterisation, magisterial analysis and dry wit, this outstanding biography of lightly worn authority, wide research and superb intuition will be read for decades.”―Simon Sebag Montefiore, Sunday Times

“Few historical events have been more profoundly distorted by myth than those of 25 October 1917. The popular image of the Bolshevik insurrection, as a bloody struggle by the tens of thousands with several thousand fallen heroes, owes more to October—Eisenstein’s brilliant but largely fictional propaganda film to commemorate the tenth anniversary of the event—than to historical fact. The Great October Socialist Revolution, as it came to be called in Soviet mythology, was in reality such a small-scale event, being in effect no more than a military coup, that it passed unnoticed by the vast majority of the inhabitants of Petrograd. Theaters, restaurants and tram cars functioned much as normal while the Bolsheviks came to power. The whole insurrection could have been completed in six hours, had it not been for the ludicrous incompetence of the insurgents themselves, which made it take an extra fifteen.”
—Orlando Figes, A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924

"Of all the Great Powers that went to war in 1914, Russia was the most backward and autocratic: here the gap between government and society was larger than it was anywhere else. The Tsar, Nicholas II, was committed to the principle of personal rule, keeping power at court, distrusting his own bureaucracy as a sort of “wall” between himself and his people. He preferred Moscow to St. Petersburg, a “Byzantine” and Eastern tradition of autocratic rule to the Westernizing tradition that descended from Peter the Great. It was Russia’s tragedy, Orlando Figes has suggested, that just as the country was entering the twentieth century its ruler was nostalgic for the seventeenth! He was not content to reign: he wanted to rule. Instead of delegating authority or making genuine concessions to liberal reformers and representative institutions he indulged in a fantasy of absolute power. There was no parliament in Russia until 1906, and by delaying so long in establishing one the regime split the conservative and liberal intelligentsia whose united support was essential for the monarchy’s survival. His empire covered nearly a sixth of the earth’s surface, but he had little of the practical knowledge necessary to govern it, and he distrusted those who did. Given his limitations of intelligence and experience, the Tsar could only play at the part of an autocrat, meddling in government without offering any real leadership. The Tsar’s own chief advisor, Pobedonostev, lamented: “He only understands the significance of some isolated fact, without connection with the rest, without appreciating the interrelation of all other pertinent facts, events, trends, occurrences. He sticks to his insignificant, petty point of view.” The agencies of government were never properly systematized, because it was in the Tsar’s best interest to keep them weak and dependent on his favor and patronage. And it did not help matters that his wife, Alexandra, combined the obstinacy of her grandmother, Britain’s Queen Victoria, with a mystical faith in the mad monk Rasputin, “a peasant visionary given to gargantuan excesses,” as one historian describes him. (She believed that this unsavory character was the only person who could help her son, who had been born with hemophilia.) Her meddling in political affairs—particularly when her husband was at the front during the war—further alienated the regime from its traditional bases of support in the court, the bureaucracy, the Church, and the army. "
Professor Bruce Thompson

RECOMMENDED READING

Richard Pipes,

The Russian Revolution,

Vintage Publishing,

ISBN 0679736603

"A monumental study...of absorbing interest [by] the distinguished historian of modern Russia.... Lucidly written, unsurpassed in detail and comprehensiveness." —Wall Street Journal

"Mr. Pipes writes trenchantly, and at times superbly.... No single volume known to me even begins to cater so adequately to those who want to discover what really happened to Russia." —The New York Times Book Review

Richard Edgar Pipes (July 11, 1923 – May 17, 2018) was an American academic who specialized in Russian and Soviet history. He published several books critical of communist regimes throughout his career. In 1976, he headed Team B, a team of analysts organized by the Central Intelligence Agency who analyzed the strategic capacities and goals of the Soviet military and political leadership. Pipes was the father of American historian Daniel Pipes. Pipes was born to a Jewish family in Cieszyn, Poland, which fled the country as refugees after it was invaded by Nazi Germany. Settling in the United States in 1940, he became a naturalized citizen in 1943 while serving in the United States Army Air Corps. From 1958 to 1996, Pipes worked at Harvard University. The book we recommend to you above is the best most balanced look at the Russian Revolution. There are hundreds of such books available, but we think Pipes does a good job of telling the story as truthfully as possible.

Robert Massie,

Nicholas and Alexandra: The Classic Account of the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty,

Random House Trade Paperbacks,

ISBN 0345438310

Institute Library Call Number: 947.08 Mas NIC

RUSSIA AT WAR
"Stalin was capable of learning from his mistakes. He began to trust his generals and to delegate operational authority, allowing them to present alternatives for him to adjudicate rather than micromanaging strategy as Hitler did. He appealed to Russian nationalism and even permitted the election of a new Orthodox patriarch and used the Church to bestow moral meaning on the war effort. He allowed army officers to wear the trappings of the old Tsarist army uniforms, the peasants to enlarge their individual plots at the expense of the collectives. He put great poets, censored for years, on the radio to recite patriotic verse, and evacuated one of the greatest of them, Anna Akhmatova, from besieged Leningrad. Stalin himself continued to address his people as "brothers and sisters" or "my friends" rather than "comrades" or "citizens," as he had in his first speech after the Barbarossa invasion. And he evacuated fifteen hundred factories, together with their workers, eastward, out of reach of German bombs. Ultimately ten million workers were relocated in this way, working under military discipline. "By 1943 this extraordinary industrial redeployment had put Russia's production of planes, tanks, and artillery far above Germany's. The Party's ability to mobilize and rapidly concentrate great masses of men and materiel at strategic points and under crisis conditions was clearly a major factor in the Soviet victory" (Martin Malia). In a war of attrition, the marshalling of resources, rather than brilliant leadership, was the key to victory. The Soviet command economy, for all its faults, was well suited to wartime conditions and total mobilization: in fact it was better at improvising than planning. The Americans and the British helped with supplies and motorized vehicles: 80,000 jeeps, 150,000 light trucks, 200,000 Studebaker army trucks, aviation fuel, explosives, copper, aluminum, rubber, rails, canned food, field telephones, boots. More and more the Red Army was able to achieve superiority in numbers, equipment, and even, as the Luftwaffe became depleted, air cover. And the Soviet T-34 tank actually had better armor and more speed and firepower than its German counterpart. Newly organized tank units proved the equal of the panzer divisions: in 1941, six or seven tanks were lost for every German one; by 1944 the ratio was one to one. Radio communications, radar, maintenance systems, and camouflage operations were reorganized as well."
Professor Bruce Thompson

RECOMMENDED READING

Richard Overy,

Russias's War,

Penguin Books; Revised edition (August 1, 1998),

ISBN 978-0140271690

Amazon.com Review

Review

Martin Malia,

The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991,

Free Press,

ISBN 0684823136

THE COLD WAR: A DEFINITION The Cold War was a fierce competition between the Great Powers that proceeded by all means short of direct confrontation. Because there were only two Great Powers after the Second World War, international relations had a "bipolar" character: there were two great blocs, and the competition between them was a "zero-sum" game, which meant that a "victory" for either side anywhere was a "loss" for the other. In other words, the assumption was that the different parts of the international system were so tightly linked that a setback in one area would have destabilizing effects elsewhere. Actual war would be fought out by proxies, surrogates for the Great Powers, and confined for the most part to the "periphery" of the industrially developed part of the world.
Bruce Thompson

RECOMMENDED READING

John Gaddis,

The Cold War: A New History,

Penguin Books; 2nd edition,

ISBN 0143038273

Martin Malia,

The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991,

Free Press,

ISBN 0684823136

WASHINGTON, 2004 (Jun 13, 2004, 12:00am Robert G. Kaiser, Washington Post) In the throngs of mourners passing through the Capitol Thursday afternoon, one stood out — a vigorous senior citizen with a distinctive birthmark on his bald pate, whose tight gestures and bright eyes brought back memories of some of President Ronald Reagan's greatest moments. Mikhail Gorbachev had flown from Moscow to pay respects to Nancy Reagan and to the man with whom he changed the course of history. "I gave him a pat," Gorbachev said later, re-enacting the fond caress he had given Reagan's coffin. On Thursday evening, in an ornate conference room at the Russian Embassy, Gorbachev gave a kind of personal eulogy to his first and most important American friend. It combined emotion, rigorous historical analysis and an interesting appraisal of Reagan's place in American life and history. "Reagan," said Gorbachev, 73, was 'an extraordinary political leader' who decided 'to be a peacemaker' at just the right moment — the moment when Gorbachev had come to power in Moscow. He, too, wanted to be a peacemaker, so "our interests coincided." Reagan's second term began in January 1985; two months later, Gorbachev was elected general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party. But if he had warm, appreciative words for Reagan, Gorbachev brusquely dismissed the suggestion that Reagan had intimidated either him or the Soviet Union, or forced them to make concessions. Was it accurate to say that Reagan won the Cold War? "That's not serious," Gorbachev said, using the same words several times. "I think we all lost the Cold War, particularly the Soviet Union. We each lost $10 trillion," he said, referring to the money Russians and Americans spent on an arms race that lasted more than four decades. "We only won when the Cold War ended." Later on the Larry King Show (CNN) Gorbachev said, "None of it would have happened without him." In the 1990s, Gorbachev and Reagan had many reunions in Washington, LA, and on the Reagan ranch in the mountains above Santa Barbara.

RECOMMENDED READING

Ken Adelman,

Reagan at Reykjavik: Forty-Eight Hours That Ended the Cold War,

Broadside Books,

ISBN 0062310194

Former arms control director Ken Adelman gives readers a dramatic, first-hand account of the Reagan-Gorbachev summit—the weekend that proved key to ending the Cold War. Based on now declassified notes of Reagan’s secret bargaining with Gorbachev and a front-row seat to Reykjavik and other key moments in Reagan’s presidency, Adelman gives an honest portrayal of the man at one of his finest and most challenging moments.

Boris Nikolayevich Yeltsin (1931 – 2007) was a Russian and former Soviet politician who served as the first President of Russia from 1991 to 1999. A member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1961 to 1990, he later stood as a political independent, during which time he was viewed as being ideologically aligned with liberalism and Russian nationalism. Born in Butka, Ural Oblast, to a peasant family, Yeltsin grew up in Kazan, Tatar. After studying at the Ural State Technical University, he worked in construction. Joining the Communist Party, which monopolized power in the state and society, he rose through its ranks and in 1976 became First Secretary of the party's Sverdlovsk Oblast committee. Initially a supporter of the perestroika reforms of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Yeltsin later criticized them as being too moderate, calling for a transition to a multi-party representative democracy. In 1987 he was the first person to resign from the party's governing Politburo, establishing his popularity as an anti-establishment figure. In 1990, he was elected chair of the Russian Supreme Soviet and in 1991 was elected president of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. Allying with various non-Russian nationalist leaders, he was instrumental in the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union in December that year, at which the RSFSR became the Russian Federation, an independent state. Yeltsin remained in office as president and was reelected in the 1996 election, although critics claimed pervasive electoral corruption. Yeltsin transformed Russia's state socialist economy into a capitalist market economy by implementing economic shock therapy, market exchange rate of the ruble, nationwide privatization, and lifting of price controls. Economic volatility and inflation ensued. Amid the economic shift, a small number of oligarchs obtained a large proportion of the national property and wealth, while international monopolies came to dominate the market. A constitutional crisis emerged in 1993 after Yeltsin ordered the unconstitutional dissolution of the Russian parliament, leading to parliament to impeach him. The crisis ended after troops loyal to Yeltsin stormed the parliament building and stopped an armed uprising; he then introduced a new constitution which significantly expanded the powers of the president. Secessionist sentiment in the Russian Caucasus led to the First Chechen War, War of Dagestan, and Second Chechen War between 1994 and 1999. Internationally, Yeltsin promoted renewed collaboration with Europe and signed arms control agreements with the United States. Amid growing internal pressure, he resigned by the end of 1999 and was succeeded by his chosen successor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. Out of office, he kept a low profile, but he was accorded a state funeral upon his death in 2007. Yeltsin was a controversial figure. Domestically, he was highly popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s, although his reputation was damaged by the economic and political crises of his presidency, and he left office widely unpopular with the Russian population. He received praise and criticism for his role in dismantling the Soviet Union, transforming Russia into a representative democracy, and introducing new political, economic, and cultural freedoms to the country. Conversely, he was accused of economic mismanagement, overseeing a massive growth in inequality and corruption, and sometimes of undermining Russia's standing as a major world power. (Wikipedia)

RECOMMENDED READING

Conor O'Clery,

Moscow, December 25, 1991: The Last Day of the Soviet Union,

PublicAffairs,

ISBN 1586487965