Download or read book Inside the Stalin Archives written by Jonathan Brent and published by Atlas and Company. This book was released on 2010-02-22 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To many people, Russia remains as enigmatic today as it was during the Iron Curtain era. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country had an opportunity to face its tortured past. Here, Brent asks - why didn't this happen? To answer such a question, he draws on 15 years of unprecedented access to high level Soviet archives. He shows readers a Russia where, in 1992, women sold used toothbrushes on the street to survive, yet now the shops are filled with luxury goods. Brent encounters Stalin's spectre through these changes and takes readers deep inside his archives.
Download or read book The Piratization of Russia written by Marshall I. Goldman and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2003-04-10 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1991, a small group of Russians emerged from the collapse of the Soviet Union and enjoyed one of the greatest transfers of wealth ever seen, claiming ownership of some of the most valuable petroleum, natural gas and metal deposits in the world. By 1997, five of those individuals were on Forbes Magazine's list of the world's richest billionaires.
Download or read book The New Russia written by Mikhail Gorbachev and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-06-08 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After years of rapprochement, the relationship between Russia and the West is more strained now than it has been in the past 25 years. Putin’s motives, his reasons for seeking confrontation with the West, remain for many a mystery. Not for Mikhail Gorbachev. In this new work, Russia’s elder statesman draws on his wealth of knowledge and experience to reveal the development of Putin’s regime and the intentions behind it. He argues that Putin has significantly diminished the achievements of perestroika and is part of an over-centralized system that presents a precarious future for Russia. Faced with this, Gorbachev advocates a radical reform of politics and a new fostering of pluralism and social democracy. Gorbachev’s insightful analysis moves beyond internal politics to address wider problems in the region, including the Ukraine conflict, as well as the global challenges of poverty and climate change. Above all else, he insists that solutions are to be found by returning to the atmosphere of dialogue and cooperation which was so instrumental in ending the Cold War. This book represents the summation of Gorbachev’s thinking on the course that Russia has taken since 1991 and stands as a testament to one of the greatest and most influential statesmen of the twentieth century.
Download or read book The New Russia written by Lawrence R. Klein and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2001 with total page 478 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work delivers the unpopular message that the West has played a pivotal role in the Russian economic disaster of the 1990s. The 26 contributions to this book examine this topic which is divided into three parts: theory, evidence, and policy.
Download or read book Blockbuster History in the New Russia written by Stephen M. Norris and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-19 with total page 407 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Seeking to rebuild the Russian film industry after its post-Soviet collapse, directors and producers sparked a revival of nationalist and patriotic sentiment by applying Hollywood techniques to themes drawn from Russian history. Unsettled by the government's move toward market capitalism, Russians embraced these historical blockbusters, packing the American-style multiplexes that sprouted across the country. Stephen M. Norris examines the connections among cinema, politics, economics, history, and patriotism in the creation of "blockbuster history"—the adaptation of an American cinematic style to Russian historical epics.
Download or read book Waking the Tempests written by Eleanor Randolph and published by . This book was released on 1996 with total page 438 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book by veteran journalist Eleanor Randolph offers a startling picture of life in Russia in the wake of the Soviet collapse, where the chaos that followed engulfed everything and everybody
Download or read book Mythmaking in the New Russia written by Kathleen E. Smith and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Kathleen E. Smith examines the use of collective memories in Russian politics during the Yeltsin years, surveying the various issues that became battlegrounds for contending notions of what it means to be Russian.
Download or read book Housing the New Russia written by Jane R. Zavisca and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-05-15 with total page 261 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Housing the New Russia, Jane R. Zavisca examines Russia’s attempts to transition from a socialist vision of housing, in which the government promised a separate, state-owned apartment for every family, to a market-based and mortgage-dependent model of home ownership. In 1992, the post-Soviet Russian government signed an agreement with the United States to create the Russian housing market. The vision of an American-style market guided housing policy over the next two decades. Privatization gave socialist housing to existing occupants, creating a nation of homeowners overnight. New financial institutions, modeled on the American mortgage system, laid the foundation for a market. Next the state tried to stimulate mortgages—and reverse the declining birth rate, another major concern—by subsidizing loans for young families. Imported housing institutions, however, failed to resonate with local conceptions of ownership, property, and rights. Most Russians reject mortgages, which they call "debt bondage," as an unjust "overpayment" for a good they consider to be a basic right. Instead of stimulating homeownership, privatization, combined with high prices and limited credit, created a system of "property without markets." Frustrated aspirations and unjustified inequality led most Russians to call for a government-controlled housing market. Under the Soviet system, residents retained lifelong tenancy rights, perceiving the apartments they inhabited as their own. In the wake of privatization, young Russians can no longer count on the state to provide their house, nor can they afford to buy a home with wages, forcing many to live with extended family well into adulthood. Zavisca shows that the contradictions of housing policy are a significant factor in Russia’s falling birth rates and the apparent failure of its pronatalist policies. These consequences further stack the deck against the likelihood that an affordable housing market will take off in the near future.
Download or read book Russia Resurrected written by Kathryn E. Stoner and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-01 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An assessment of Russia that suggests that we should look beyond traditional means of power to understand its strength and capacity to disrupt international politics. Too often, we are told that Russia plays a weak hand well. But, perhaps the nation's cards are better than we know. Russia ranks significantly behind the US and China by traditional measures of power: GDP, population size and health, and military might. Yet 25 years removed from its mid-1990s nadir following the collapse of the USSR, Russia has become a supremely disruptive force in world politics. Kathryn E. Stoner assesses the resurrection of Russia and argues that we should look beyond traditional means of power to assess its strength in global affairs. Taking into account how Russian domestic politics under Vladimir Putin influence its foreign policy, Stoner explains how Russia has battled its way back to international prominence. From Russia's seizure of the Crimea from Ukraine to its military support for the Assad regime in Syria, the country has reasserted itself as a major global power. Stoner examines these developments and more in tackling the big questions about Russia's turnaround and global future. Stoner marshals data on Russia's political, economic, and social development and uncovers key insights from its domestic politics. Russian people are wealthier than the Chinese, debt is low, and fiscal policy is good despite sanctions and the volatile global economy. Vladimir Putin's autocratic regime faces virtually no organized domestic opposition. Yet, mindful of maintaining control at home, Russia under Putin also uses its varied power capacities to extend its influence abroad. While we often underestimate Russia's global influence, the consequences are evident in the disruption of politics in the US, Syria, and Venezuela, to name a few. Russia Resurrected is an eye-opening reassessment of the country, identifying the actual sources of its power in international politics and why it has been able to redefine the post-Cold War global order.
Download or read book Everyday Life in Early Soviet Russia written by Christina Kiaer and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2006 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How Soviet citizens in the 1920s and 1930s internalized Soviet ways of looking at the world and living their everyday lives.
Download or read book Inside the New Russia written by Vitaly Michka and published by ISCI. This book was released on 2022-02-14 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Only the Russians live in Russia, right?” “It is very cold over there, isn’t it?” “Who are these Russians?” You will find answers to these and other similar questions in this book. We worked hard so you can have first-hand information about Russia. We encourage you to go ahead and explore this beautiful country with its good people who are often taken for enemies simply because their government was “red.” The comprehensive and easy-to-use index will help you instantly locate any specific Republic or ethnic group you would be interested in. We’ve also included maps and illustrations to provide a more complete picture of the country and those who inhabit it. We hope that you will be able to see live people behind the black letters on white paper, and that this acquired knowledge will change your attitude toward “Russians” for the better. Read the book, you will not regret it!
Download or read book Russia in Revolution written by Stephen Anthony Smith and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 481 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Russian Revolution of 1917 transformed the face of the Russian empire, politically, economically, socially, and culturally, and also profoundly affected the course of world history for the rest of the twentieth century. Now, to mark the centenary of this epochal event, historian Steve Smith presents a panoramic account of the history of the Russian empire, from the last years of the nineteenth century, through the First World War and the revolutions of 1917 and the establishment of the Bolshevik regime, to the end of the 1920s, when Stalin simultaneously unleashed violent collectivization of agriculture and crash industrialization upon Russian society. Drawing on recent archivally-based scholarship, Russia in Revolution pays particular attention to the varying impact of the Revolution on the various groups that made up society: peasants, workers, non-Russian nationalities, the army, women and the family, young people, and the Church. In doing so, it provides a fresh way into the big, perennial questions about the Revolution and its consequences: why did the attempt by the tsarist government to implement political reform after the 1905 Revolution fail?; why did the First World War bring about the collapse of the tsarist system?; why did the attempt to create a democratic system after the February Revolution of 1917 not get off the ground?; why did the Bolsheviks succeed in seizing and holding on to power?; why did they come out victorious from a punishing civil war?; why did the New Economic Policy they introduced in 1921 fail?; and why did Stalin come out on top in the power struggle inside the Bolshevik party after Lenin's death in 1924? A final chapter then reflects on the larger significance of 1917 for the history of the twentieth century - and, for all its terrible flaws, what the promise of the Revolution might mean for us today.
Download or read book Science in the New Russia written by Loren R. Graham and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2008-05-28 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This analysis of Russian science shows how the Russian science establishment was one of the largest in the world boasting a world-leading space programme and Nobel prizes. However, when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991 the financial supports for the community were eliminated resulting in a 'brain drain'.
Download or read book The New Autocracy written by Daniel Treisman and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2018-02-06 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Corruption, fake news, and the "informational autocracy" sustaining Putin in power After fading into the background for many years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia suddenly has emerged as a new threat—at least in the minds of many Westerners. But Western assumptions about Russia, and in particular about political decision-making in Russia, tend to be out of date or just plain wrong. Under the leadership of Vladimir Putin since 2000, Russia is neither a somewhat reduced version of the Soviet Union nor a classic police state. Corruption is prevalent at all levels of government and business, but Russia's leaders pursue broader and more complex goals than one would expect in a typical kleptocracy, such as those in many developing countries. Nor does Russia fit the standard political science model of a "competitive authoritarian" regime; its parliament, political parties, and other political bodies are neither fakes to fool the West nor forums for bargaining among the elites. The result of a two-year collaboration between top Russian experts and Western political scholars, Autocracy explores the complex roles of Russia's presidency, security services, parliament, media and other actors. The authors argue that Putin has created an “informational autocracy,” which relies more on media manipulation than on the comprehensive repression of traditional dictatorships. The fake news, hackers, and trolls that featured in Russia’s foreign policy during the 2016 U.S. presidential election are also favored tools of Putin’s domestic regime—along with internet restrictions, state television, and copious in-house surveys. While these tactics have been successful in the short run, the regime that depends on them already shows signs of age: over-centralization, a narrowing of information flows, and a reliance on informal fixers to bypass the bureaucracy. The regime's challenge will be to continue to block social modernization without undermining the leadership’s own capabilities.
Download or read book Assignment Russia written by Marvin Kalb and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2021-04-13 with total page 355 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A personal journey through some of the darkest moments of the cold war and the early days of television news Marvin Kalb, the award-winning journalist who has written extensively about the world he reported on during his long career, now turns his eye on the young man who became that journalist. Chosen by legendary broadcaster Edward R. Murrow to become one of what came to be known as the Murrow Boys, Kalb in this newest volume of his memoirs takes readers back to his first days as a journalist, and what also were the first days of broadcast news. Kalb captures the excitement of being present at the creation of a whole new way of bringing news immediately to the public. And what news. Cold War tensions were high between Eisenhower's America and Khrushchev's Soviet Union. Kalb is at the center, occupying a unique spot as a student of Russia tasked with explaining Moscow to Washington and the American public. He joins a cast of legendary figures along the way, from Murrow himself to Eric Severeid, Howard K. Smith, Richard Hottelet, Charles Kuralt, and Daniel Schorr among many others. He finds himself assigned as Moscow correspondent of CBS News just as the U2 incident—the downing of a US spy plane over Russian territory—is unfolding. As readers of his first volume, The Year I Was Peter the Great, will recall, being the right person, in the right place, at the right time found Kalb face to face with Khrushchev. Assignment Russia sees Kalb once again an eyewitness to history—and a writer and analyst who has helped shape the first draft of that history.
Download or read book Russia in the Era of NEP written by Sheila Fitzpatrick and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 1991-09-22 with total page 356 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: " . . . a comprehensive look at an enigmatic era . . . " —Choice "This provocative collection of essays certainly takes some of the polish off Soviet socialism's golden age." —Journal of Interdisciplinary History "The authors and editors of this splendid volume deserve great praise. Their work moves the field of Soviet history several large steps forward." —Slavic Review Lenin's New Economic Policy of the 1920s, although a relatively free and open potential alternative to Soviet communism, was also a time of extreme tension, as Russian society and culture were rocked by the forces of resistance and change. These essays examine the social and cultural dimensions of NEP in urban and rural Russia in the years before Stalin and rapid industrialization.
Download or read book Russia lost in Transition written by Lilii︠a︡ Shevt︠s︡ova and published by Carnegie Endowment. This book was released on 2007 with total page 423 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Russian history is first and foremost a history of personalized power. As Russia startles the international community with its assertiveness and faces both parliamentary and presidential elections, Lilia Shevtsova searches the histories of the Yeltsin and Putin regimes. She explores within them conventional truths and myths about Russia, paradoxes of Russian political development, and Russia's role in the world. Russia--Lost in Transition discovers a logic of government in Russia--a political regime and the type of capitalism that were formulated during the Yeltsin and Putin presidencies and will continue to dominate Russia's trajectory in the near term. Looking forward as well as back, Shevtsova speculates about the upcoming elections as well as the self-perpetuating system in place--the legacies of Yeltsin and Putin--and how it will dictate the immediate political future. She also explores several scenarios for Russia's future over the next decade.
