In this wide-ranging and provocative book, Stephen F. Cohen cuts through Cold War stereotypes of the Soviet Union to arrive at fresh interpretations of that country's traumatic history and its present-day political realities.
Cohen's lucidly written, revisionist analysis reopens an array of major historical questions. As he probes Soviet history, society, and politics, Cohen demonstrates how this country has remained stable during its long journey from revolution to conservatism. It the process, he suggests more enlightened approaches to American/Soviet relations. Based on the author's...

Here at last in English is Nikolai Bukharin's autobiographical novel and final work. Many dissident texts of the Stalin era were saved by chance, by bravery, or by cunning; others were systematically destroyed. Bukharin's work, however, was simultaneously preserved and suppressed within Stalin's personal archives.

At once novel, memoir, political apology, and historical document, How It All Began, known in Russia as "the prison novel," adds deeply to our understanding of this vital intellectual and maligned historical figure. The panoramic story, composed under the worst of...

From the position he held prior to Stalin's death, he seemed to be an unlikely leader. However, Khrushchev quickly gained control and popularity attaining the leadership status. Much of the support Khrushchev gained was due the agricultural success he initiated under Stalin and his condemnation of Stalin's brutal leadership after Stalin's death.

While Khrushchev achieved positive things for the Soviet Union, the economic, specifically agricultural failures he experienced as leader haunt his reputation. This book focuses on Khrushchev's those agricultural decisions with little mention being...

An inside account of the events unfolding in the Soviet Union under Mikhail Gorbachev. In a series of interviews, 14 leaders of Gorbachev's reforms talk about their personal and political struggles to change the Soviet Union.

Larina tells the story not only of her twenty years in the Gulag but of her life as a daughter and a wife among the founding fathers of the Soviet Union.

Failed Crusade is a deeply informed and passionate call for a fundamentally different American-Russian relationship in the post-Yeltsin era. Author Stephen Cohen shows that what US officials and other experts call "reform" has for most Russians been a catastrophic development--namely the unprecedented demodernization of a twentieth-century country--and for the United States the worst foreign policy disaster since Vietnam. What emerges is an alarming analysis of nuclear-laden Russia after 1991, representing an even greater threat to our national security than during the Cold War, and...

This memoir by the second most powerful Communist Party leader during the early Gorbachev years provides an important alternative view of the USSR's transformationa view that is gaining ground in Russian politics today. In a substantial new piece for this edition, Mr. Ligachev outlines the political agenda of today's communist coalitionthe establishment of a new Soviet Union, with strong economic and political integration of its member-states.Yegor Ligachev, a seasoned Party boss from Siberia, made a solid career for himself in the capital during the Khrushchev era, but, following...

Gorbachev, dissidents, and Cold War perils are some of the topics discussed in this book that provides the historical context and informed analysis so often lacking in American commentary on Soviet affairs today.