Sovieticus: American Perceptions and Soviet Realities

by Stephen F. Cohen

“A unique and valuable contribution. . . .Cohen brings to his analyses a keen critical perception, vast knowledge and―most noteworthy―a lucid style that makes his informed comments accessible to the non-specialist reader.” ―Newspaper Guild, 1985 Page One Award 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.

Genres: History, Politics, Russia

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1985

About the author

Stephen F. Cohen was Professor Emeritus of Politics at Princeton University, where for many years he served as director of the Russian Studies Program, and Professor Emeritus of Russian Studies and History at New York University. He grew up in Owensboro, Kentucky, received his undergraduate and master’s degrees at Indiana University, and his Ph.D. at Columbia University.

Cohen’s other books include Bukharin and the Bolshevik Revolution: A Political Biography; Rethinking the Soviet Experience: Politics and History Since 1917; Sovieticus: American Perceptions and Soviet Realities; (with Katrina vanden Heuvel) Voices of Glasnost: Interviews With Gorbachev’s Reformers; Failed Crusade: America and the Tragedy of Post-Communist Russia; Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War; and The Victims Return: Survivors of the Gulag After Stalin.

For his scholarly work, Cohen received several honors, including two Guggenheim fellowships and a National Book Award nomination.

Over the years, he was also a frequent contributor to newspapers, magazines, television, and radio. His “Sovieticus” column for The Nation won a 1985 Newspaper Guild Page One Award and for another Nation article a 1989 Olive Branch Award. For many years, Cohen was a consultant and on-air commentator on Russian affairs for CBS News. With the producer Rosemary Reed, he was also project adviser and correspondent for three PBS documentary films about Russia: Conversations With Gorbachev; Russia Betrayed?; and Widow of the Revolution.

Cohen visited and lived in Soviet and Post-Soviet Russia regularly for more than forty years.

(source: Amazon)

Reviews

[Davy Bennett · Rating 3 out of 5]

UPDATE Sept. 2024:
Very interesting that Yevgeny Gnedin 1899-1983 was son of sleazeball Alexander HELPHAND Parvus. In 1939, Gnedin was arrested by Cocktail Molotov after he took over for Litvinov. Beria supervised Gnedin's torture. He didn't confess or play the rat, got 16 years of Gulag.
Helphand was shadowy rich German-Russian financier of Lenin and the Bolsheviks.
The Germans let the sealed train with Lenin and his Reds go through their territory while they were fighting in WW1. Their goal was to weaken Russia.

Chapter on pg 120, Legacy of WW2. 20 million Soviet citizens killed in WW2, roughly half soldiers and half civilians. Just step back a minute and ponder that. Of males age 17-20, only 3% survived.

The War basically transformed the USSR from an idealistic communist state to a more nationalist country, they had to transform like that in order to survive the Nazi onslaught.

The Other Holocaust chapter, at least 12 million died in the gulags between 1936-1950, and this is a conservative estimate.

Kruschev' in the alley...
with his hobnail bloody boots, but no bells.

Brezhnev in the alley with his eyebrows n his ol pals

Chernenko ditto with his nitro n his spells

Andropov ditto with his KGB and threats o those hells.

Gorbachev ditto with his forehead map of Bulgaria and his death knell.

What was set up with Yeltsin was a crime, not covered in this book. At least the Evil Empire bit the dust.

I like the vignette nature of this book. Each essay is about 5 pages, so it is easy to digest in one sitting.
They are chronological in order, with the last being from 1986.

This was a good refresher course for me on Soviet leadership.

Cohen is pretty even-handed, and gives a good logical account. He felt the tough guy Reagan approach was unnecessary and dangerous. He stresses that the Democrat party was fully in on this bipartisan hardline approach. In retrospect, many say this hardline approach brought down the USSR, which happened in 1991, a little less than a decade after these vignettes were written.

There is also some discussion of the hideous and ruthless shooting down of the Korean Airliner passenger jet where 289 civilians died. I supported Reagan in these years and was harshly anti Soviet. I didnt listen much to talk that was critical to our side, but Cohen points out there were more than the usual number of American RC135 spy planes in the area, and a Soviet missle test was scheduled for the night of the incident. This does not excuse the incident, but does introduce some realities into it. The usual government lies and coverups on both sides occurred.
I am just very glad the Soviet Union collapsed. It was not something I was expecting.

UPDATE Sept. 2024:
Very interesting that Yevgeny Gnedin 1899-1983 was son of sleazeball Alexander HELPHAND Parvus. In 1939 Gnedin was arrested by Cocktail Molotov after he took over for Litvinov. Beria supervised Gnedin's torture. He didn't confess or play the rat, got 16 years of Gulag.
Helphand was shadowy rich German-Russian financier of Lenin and the Bolsheviks.

Roy Medvedev is ok per author Cohen, sort of a lackey to me. Not many choices in USSR I guess.

[C. Varn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cohen is a gift and it is surprising what he understood about the relationship between US perspective on USSR and realities of the late 1970s and 1980s. It was one of the few books from this late Soviet time period that still feels relevant after the collapse of the Soviet experiment.

[St-Michel · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very informative, non-biased look at Soviet politics from Stalin to Gorbachev with some intriguing insight into Andropov and Chernenko, the two who were little spoken of. Written in the 80's during the Reagan years, it is at times hard to have the correct mindframe when readin this as you've got to think about what it was like to live at the time as opposed to reading it purely as history. I was just a kid when this was written, only acutely being aware of Soviet politics firstly with Gorbachev, for though I lived during the Andropov and Chernenko years, how would I eve know who they were. Beyond elementary school it's an enormous world, far to large for us to comprehend, what's beyond the townline is just fairytale. I think my first real scope of what the "Soviet enemy" was was in '86 with Chernobyl, but even still, as a youngster, what's that? Big people life - adults and so on, nothing for us kids of the day.

So, it's really interesting to read about just what the heck was going on when I was a kid in the world and some of the potential horrors that lurked on either side of the world, but never having known it. Beyond that, it's refreshing to read a non-biased, almost straightforward scholarly, yet without being overbearing where you must have taken a full course in Soviet political history to understand it look - a look at the real insights between American-Soviet distrust and policies and not just all the untrusting, patriotic American propaganda created by the media.

[A, Dean]

kind of disappointed tbh, beware this book is somewhat dated as it was before 1991 and the fall of the soviet union.