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The Collapse of the Soviet Union
The dissolution of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics on December 31, 1991, stunned the world. The communist empireOCowhich had been a dominant force in global politics for 74 years, influencing world events from World War II toissues of nuclear weapons and defenseOCowas suddenly gone. The Collapse of the Soviet Union highlights major events in Soviet history, such as the rise of communism in Russia, the terror and expansionist policies of Joseph Stalin, the election of Mikhail Gorbachev, the explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear reactor, and the rivalry between Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin as a new, moredemocratic Russia emerged from the ashes of the Soviet Union.
129 pages, ebook
First published February 1, 2010
6 people want to read
About the author
Susan Muaddi Darraj
37 books268 followersSusan Muaddi Darraj won the 2016 American Book Award for her novel-in-stories, A Curious Land: Stories from Home.
Her new novel, Behind You Is the Sea (Harper Collins, 2024) is set in Baltimore and follows the stories of a Palestinian American immigrant community.
Her previous short story collection, The Inheritance of Exile, was honored by the U.S. State Department’s Arabic Book Program.
She was named a 2016 USA Ford Fellow, and she has received awards for her writing from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance.
Her new children's chapter book series, FARAH ROCKS, was published from Capstone Books in January 2020. It is the first children's book series to feature an Arab American protagonist.
A Philadelphia native, she currently lives in Baltimore. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @SusanDarraj.
Her new novel, Behind You Is the Sea (Harper Collins, 2024) is set in Baltimore and follows the stories of a Palestinian American immigrant community.
Her previous short story collection, The Inheritance of Exile, was honored by the U.S. State Department’s Arabic Book Program.
She was named a 2016 USA Ford Fellow, and she has received awards for her writing from the Maryland State Arts Council and the Greater Baltimore Cultural Alliance.
Her new children's chapter book series, FARAH ROCKS, was published from Capstone Books in January 2020. It is the first children's book series to feature an Arab American protagonist.
A Philadelphia native, she currently lives in Baltimore. Follow her on Instagram and Twitter @SusanDarraj.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 4, 2018
This YA book, which includes useful side-bars, illustrations and photos on practically every page, after reviewing some background on the formation, history, governance and social problems of Russia under the czars, and the rise of the Soviet Union, focuses on the events that led to the collapse of the USSR, and the end of the communist bloc in Eastern Europe, in the late 80s and early 90s. The book is written simply enough to enable quick reading and understanding, but unfortunately there are both editing and factual errors contained in the book. Despite its drawbacks, it's still a useful volume conveying the relevant facts with a minimum of "bias" and includes a brief timeline of events leading up to the dissolution of the USSR.
Here are the quotes:
"Communism took hold in Russia only because of the long history of class suppression by aristocrats, czars ,and emperors over centuries."
"[Ivan the Terrible (reigned 1533-1584)] ... established an area, compromising [sic] half the land of Russia, known as the Oprichnina, which he gained by forcing it away from nobles and landowners, whom he considered to be too powerful."
"According to [historian Jules] Koslow, 'By waging what can well be termed a 'class war' against the boyars [landowning nobles], Ivan had a propaganda weapon that endeared him to the mass of the Russian people, who hated the selfish, greedy, merciless boyars."
"While Ivan seemed to support the poor by attacking the rich, he did nothing to improve the lives of the miserable masses."
"Despite the Church's influence, Peter the Great [reigned 1682-1725] set out on a plan to secularize Russia: non-religious schools were opened and non-religious books printed."
"[Historian D.S.] Mirsky explains that the "essential content [...of Peter the Great's Reform] was the adoption of European technique and technical instruction, the encouragement of essential industries, the creation of a modern army and navy, and the radical secularization of the body-politic."
"[Catherine the Great (reigned 1762-1796)] ... corresponded with many Enlightenment thinkers and writers, such as Voltaire...-- who were known to be critical of the Church and countered its teachings of obedience and faith with their own emphasis on individual reason and education."
"[Historian James H.] Billington...: "More than any other single person prior the Leninist revolution, Catherine cut official culture loose from its religious roots, and changed both its physical setting and its philosophical preoccupations."
"[In 1905] The violence, directed mostly at the government, spread quickly throughout the Russian empire."
"Marx, who lived from 1818 to 1883, observed the industrial transformation of the European economy taking place, as well as that social injustice that accompanied it."
"Marx came to view capitalism as an immoral and unjust way to accumulate wealth."
"He published 'Das Kapital,' which argued that capitalism thrived only because it exploited the working classes, without sharing any of the benefits or profits with them."
"Lenin advocated that the nation be ruled by both the proletariat and the peasant class, as the industrial class in Russia was quite small."
"In Russia at this time, a system of soviets, or councils, existed, especially in Moscow and in St. Petersburg."
"[Prior to the Revolution] In the city, [of St. Petersburg - then the Russian capital] Lenin found that the socialist organizations there were busy: according to Orlando Figes, Lenin and others "began working with the industrial workers of the city to increase the workers' awareness of their political and economic power.""
"Many Russians were attracted to the political ideas of the Bolsheviks."
"...the Bolsheviks solidified their power by defeating the opposition and eventually won popular support."
"This result [Stalinist terror/police state] hardly seemed to meet the goals of the great revolution, which had argued that the working class should determine its own future."
"In a letter to Stalin himself, one former party member, Fedor Raskolnikov, wrote: "...The list of your victims is endless."
"On June 22, 1942... the Soviet Union was surprised by the invasion of its land by the German army."
"...the Communist slogan, "Proletarians o the world, unite," featured prominently on most Soviet newspapers, was replaced by "Death to the German occupier.""
"The brutality of the German army toward the Russian people, especially to Jews, in territories it occupied, helped sway the people's favor toward Stalin and increased resistance toward the Nazis."
"...Stalin realized that he needed an enemy against which the Soviets could rally, so as to distract from his own unpopular policies and unite the nation behind him."
"After the Soviet Union withdrew from the [1947] Paris conference, [to establish the Europe Recovery Program, informally known as the Marshall Plan] Stalin set out to build a Communist Russian empire."
"In 1956, ... [Khrushchev] publicly criticized Joseph Stalin's reign of terror, especially because of its devastating impact on the morale of members of the Communist Party."
"In October 1962... The Soviet Union agreed to remove its missile sites from Cuba in exchange for U.S. promises not to invade Cuba and to pull its own nuclear missiles out of Turkey, close to the Soviet border."
"...Leonid Brezhnev, focused on strengthening the USSR militarily."
"...in the summer of 1968... a revolt broke out in Czechoslovakia..."
"Alexander Dubcek...wanted to enact reforms, known as the Prague Spring reforms, that would allow Czech citizens free speech and access to less-censored media, among other liberalizing measures."
"The USSR had a strong military but a weak economy, a tight grip on individual rights, a swollen government that was becoming corrupt and ineffective, and increasing agitation within many of its satellite states."
"Despite these efforts to grow Communism in Asia and the Middle East, the USSR could not continue to expand militarily while declining economically."
"In December 1986, Gorbachev ordered the release of Andrei Sakharov, a Soviet dissident who had been calling for greater human and civil rights in the USSR since the 1960s."
"...as Gorbachev later wrote, it was important to make sure that "every leader, every executive should permanently feel his responsibility to and dependence on the electors, the work collectives, public organizations, the Party and the people as a whole" -- in other words, leaders of the CPSU needed to understand that their power was derived from the people whom they represented."
"In 2000, 14 years after the accident, the Ukrainian health minister said that 3.4 million people had suffered health effects; cases of certain cancers, such as thyroid cancer, were on the rise in Ukraine; and the health ministry had noted a drop in the lifespans of people working on the continuing cleanup of Chernobyl."
"It was a disaster of unimaginable proportions, one that concerned the international community, especially considering the radioactive material had traveled over the western part of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, and eastern North America."
"As accurate information was offered, and people began to understand the magnitude of the radiation fallout, more and more regions of the USSR (of Belarus, western Ukraine, and more land within Russia) were evacuated."
"...the satellite Eastern European states of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Bulgaria, and Romania... received benefits from the USSR such as weapons and cheap gas prices in exchange for their loyalty to the CPSU."
"The succession of demonstrations against the CPSU and Communist rule in general occurred rapidly in the late 1980s."
"...Gorbachev implemented free-market reforms in January 1989; the client states would now pay regular prices for Soviet-produced goods and services, which in turn freed these states from their financial (and political) obligations to Moscow."
"As [William] Watson explains, "That December, [1989] the world watched in awe as Communism was repudiated in each of the Warsaw Pact countries. Almost every former client state underwent a transitional periods in which Communist reformers or non-Communists made the change from Soviet client to free state.""
"...Gorbachev was quite popular during this period all over the world, except in his own country."
"In late November 1988, bowing to reform pressures, the Supreme Soviet was dissolved and a new body, the Congress of People's Deputies, put in its place."
"In May 1990, having already gained a seat in the Congress, [Yeltsin] ... was elected its chairman. He quit the Communist Party two months later. In June 1990, he pushed the Congress to declare that the republic of Russia was independent from the USSR..."
"On August 24, 1991, just a few days after the attempted coup, Gorbachev resigned as the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He also dissolved the Central Committee"
"On December 25, in a 10-minute speech, Mikhail Gorbachev shook the world by announcing his resignation from the Soviet presidency and the impending dissolution of the USSR."
"On December 31, 1991, al institutions of the USSR ceased to exist. All federal government power passed to the Russian Republic and into the hands of its president, Boris Yeltsin, including the USSR's seat at the United Nations."
"Since the vast majority of Russian industries were state-owned, Yeltsin set about privatizing the Russian economy. By most accounts the transition was handled sloppily and the Russian people suffered for it. A small group of Russian tycoons, known by the mid-1990s as the "oligarchs," were the recipients of the lion's share of the state's assets. Controlling interests in energy, finance, industry, telecommunications, and the media were effectively given away to this select few as average Russians watched their standard of living decrease to shocking levels during the Yeltsin presidency."
"In 1999, it was alleged that [Yeltsin] ...had several foreign bank accounts containing millions of dollars, and that he was involved in money laundering."
"Writing in 'Newsweek,' Bill Powell said, "On his last day in office, Yeltsin acknowledged for the first time what is plainly obvious to most of Russia's citizens: his era, which began with such soaring possibility, has declined into a dispiriting mix of economic despair, rampant corruption and war.""
"The war in Chechnya was an ongoing source of concern among Russians, and in May 2000, Putin was able to establish direct rule in the region."
"...Puin is known to mourn the collapse of the Soviet Union..."
"[Putin's] goal is to restore the status of Russia as a world leader."
Here are the quotes:
"Communism took hold in Russia only because of the long history of class suppression by aristocrats, czars ,and emperors over centuries."
"[Ivan the Terrible (reigned 1533-1584)] ... established an area, compromising [sic] half the land of Russia, known as the Oprichnina, which he gained by forcing it away from nobles and landowners, whom he considered to be too powerful."
"According to [historian Jules] Koslow, 'By waging what can well be termed a 'class war' against the boyars [landowning nobles], Ivan had a propaganda weapon that endeared him to the mass of the Russian people, who hated the selfish, greedy, merciless boyars."
"While Ivan seemed to support the poor by attacking the rich, he did nothing to improve the lives of the miserable masses."
"Despite the Church's influence, Peter the Great [reigned 1682-1725] set out on a plan to secularize Russia: non-religious schools were opened and non-religious books printed."
"[Historian D.S.] Mirsky explains that the "essential content [...of Peter the Great's Reform] was the adoption of European technique and technical instruction, the encouragement of essential industries, the creation of a modern army and navy, and the radical secularization of the body-politic."
"[Catherine the Great (reigned 1762-1796)] ... corresponded with many Enlightenment thinkers and writers, such as Voltaire...-- who were known to be critical of the Church and countered its teachings of obedience and faith with their own emphasis on individual reason and education."
"[Historian James H.] Billington...: "More than any other single person prior the Leninist revolution, Catherine cut official culture loose from its religious roots, and changed both its physical setting and its philosophical preoccupations."
"[In 1905] The violence, directed mostly at the government, spread quickly throughout the Russian empire."
"Marx, who lived from 1818 to 1883, observed the industrial transformation of the European economy taking place, as well as that social injustice that accompanied it."
"Marx came to view capitalism as an immoral and unjust way to accumulate wealth."
"He published 'Das Kapital,' which argued that capitalism thrived only because it exploited the working classes, without sharing any of the benefits or profits with them."
"Lenin advocated that the nation be ruled by both the proletariat and the peasant class, as the industrial class in Russia was quite small."
"In Russia at this time, a system of soviets, or councils, existed, especially in Moscow and in St. Petersburg."
"[Prior to the Revolution] In the city, [of St. Petersburg - then the Russian capital] Lenin found that the socialist organizations there were busy: according to Orlando Figes, Lenin and others "began working with the industrial workers of the city to increase the workers' awareness of their political and economic power.""
"Many Russians were attracted to the political ideas of the Bolsheviks."
"...the Bolsheviks solidified their power by defeating the opposition and eventually won popular support."
"This result [Stalinist terror/police state] hardly seemed to meet the goals of the great revolution, which had argued that the working class should determine its own future."
"In a letter to Stalin himself, one former party member, Fedor Raskolnikov, wrote: "...The list of your victims is endless."
"On June 22, 1942... the Soviet Union was surprised by the invasion of its land by the German army."
"...the Communist slogan, "Proletarians o the world, unite," featured prominently on most Soviet newspapers, was replaced by "Death to the German occupier.""
"The brutality of the German army toward the Russian people, especially to Jews, in territories it occupied, helped sway the people's favor toward Stalin and increased resistance toward the Nazis."
"...Stalin realized that he needed an enemy against which the Soviets could rally, so as to distract from his own unpopular policies and unite the nation behind him."
"After the Soviet Union withdrew from the [1947] Paris conference, [to establish the Europe Recovery Program, informally known as the Marshall Plan] Stalin set out to build a Communist Russian empire."
"In 1956, ... [Khrushchev] publicly criticized Joseph Stalin's reign of terror, especially because of its devastating impact on the morale of members of the Communist Party."
"In October 1962... The Soviet Union agreed to remove its missile sites from Cuba in exchange for U.S. promises not to invade Cuba and to pull its own nuclear missiles out of Turkey, close to the Soviet border."
"...Leonid Brezhnev, focused on strengthening the USSR militarily."
"...in the summer of 1968... a revolt broke out in Czechoslovakia..."
"Alexander Dubcek...wanted to enact reforms, known as the Prague Spring reforms, that would allow Czech citizens free speech and access to less-censored media, among other liberalizing measures."
"The USSR had a strong military but a weak economy, a tight grip on individual rights, a swollen government that was becoming corrupt and ineffective, and increasing agitation within many of its satellite states."
"Despite these efforts to grow Communism in Asia and the Middle East, the USSR could not continue to expand militarily while declining economically."
"In December 1986, Gorbachev ordered the release of Andrei Sakharov, a Soviet dissident who had been calling for greater human and civil rights in the USSR since the 1960s."
"...as Gorbachev later wrote, it was important to make sure that "every leader, every executive should permanently feel his responsibility to and dependence on the electors, the work collectives, public organizations, the Party and the people as a whole" -- in other words, leaders of the CPSU needed to understand that their power was derived from the people whom they represented."
"In 2000, 14 years after the accident, the Ukrainian health minister said that 3.4 million people had suffered health effects; cases of certain cancers, such as thyroid cancer, were on the rise in Ukraine; and the health ministry had noted a drop in the lifespans of people working on the continuing cleanup of Chernobyl."
"It was a disaster of unimaginable proportions, one that concerned the international community, especially considering the radioactive material had traveled over the western part of the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, Western Europe, Northern Europe, and eastern North America."
"As accurate information was offered, and people began to understand the magnitude of the radiation fallout, more and more regions of the USSR (of Belarus, western Ukraine, and more land within Russia) were evacuated."
"...the satellite Eastern European states of Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Bulgaria, and Romania... received benefits from the USSR such as weapons and cheap gas prices in exchange for their loyalty to the CPSU."
"The succession of demonstrations against the CPSU and Communist rule in general occurred rapidly in the late 1980s."
"...Gorbachev implemented free-market reforms in January 1989; the client states would now pay regular prices for Soviet-produced goods and services, which in turn freed these states from their financial (and political) obligations to Moscow."
"As [William] Watson explains, "That December, [1989] the world watched in awe as Communism was repudiated in each of the Warsaw Pact countries. Almost every former client state underwent a transitional periods in which Communist reformers or non-Communists made the change from Soviet client to free state.""
"...Gorbachev was quite popular during this period all over the world, except in his own country."
"In late November 1988, bowing to reform pressures, the Supreme Soviet was dissolved and a new body, the Congress of People's Deputies, put in its place."
"In May 1990, having already gained a seat in the Congress, [Yeltsin] ... was elected its chairman. He quit the Communist Party two months later. In June 1990, he pushed the Congress to declare that the republic of Russia was independent from the USSR..."
"On August 24, 1991, just a few days after the attempted coup, Gorbachev resigned as the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. He also dissolved the Central Committee"
"On December 25, in a 10-minute speech, Mikhail Gorbachev shook the world by announcing his resignation from the Soviet presidency and the impending dissolution of the USSR."
"On December 31, 1991, al institutions of the USSR ceased to exist. All federal government power passed to the Russian Republic and into the hands of its president, Boris Yeltsin, including the USSR's seat at the United Nations."
"Since the vast majority of Russian industries were state-owned, Yeltsin set about privatizing the Russian economy. By most accounts the transition was handled sloppily and the Russian people suffered for it. A small group of Russian tycoons, known by the mid-1990s as the "oligarchs," were the recipients of the lion's share of the state's assets. Controlling interests in energy, finance, industry, telecommunications, and the media were effectively given away to this select few as average Russians watched their standard of living decrease to shocking levels during the Yeltsin presidency."
"In 1999, it was alleged that [Yeltsin] ...had several foreign bank accounts containing millions of dollars, and that he was involved in money laundering."
"Writing in 'Newsweek,' Bill Powell said, "On his last day in office, Yeltsin acknowledged for the first time what is plainly obvious to most of Russia's citizens: his era, which began with such soaring possibility, has declined into a dispiriting mix of economic despair, rampant corruption and war.""
"The war in Chechnya was an ongoing source of concern among Russians, and in May 2000, Putin was able to establish direct rule in the region."
"...Puin is known to mourn the collapse of the Soviet Union..."
"[Putin's] goal is to restore the status of Russia as a world leader."
Displaying 1 of 1 review