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The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century
The Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century is Zbigniew Brzezinski's prescient analysis of "the terminal crisis of communism." One of the most astute foreign policy experts of our time, Brzezinski argues that the advent of communism was a critical phenomenon in the history of the century. From the Cold War, to the building of the Berlin Wall, Sputnik, the Vietnam War, and the war in Afghanistan, Americans have lived in the light of the Soviet Union as their predominant and most forbidding antagonist. But Marxist theory has proved a failure, as have its practical applications. "By the next century," Brzezinski concludes, "communism's irreversible historical decline will have made its practice and its dogma largely irrelevant to the human condition. Prospering only where it abandons its internal substance even while retaining some of its external labels, communism will be remembered largely as the twentieth century's most extraordinary political and intellectual aberration."
304 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1994
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About the author
Zbigniew Brzeziński
80 books349 followersZbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski was a Polish-American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981. Known for his hawkish foreign policy at a time when the Democratic Party was increasingly dovish, he is a foreign policy realist and considered by some to be the Democrats' response to Republican realist Henry Kissinger.
Major foreign policy events during his term of office included the normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China (and the severing of ties with the Republic of China), the signing of the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II), the brokering of the Camp David Accords, the transition of Iran to an anti-Western Islamic state, encouraging reform in Eastern Europe, emphasizing human rights in U.S. foreign policy, the arming of the mujaheddin in Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet-friendly Afghan government, increase the probability of Soviet invasion and later entanglement in a Vietnam-style war, and later to counter the Soviet invasion, and the signing of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties relinquishing U.S. control of the Panama Canal after 1999.
He was a professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a member of various boards and councils. He appeared frequently as an expert on the PBS program The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
Major foreign policy events during his term of office included the normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China (and the severing of ties with the Republic of China), the signing of the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II), the brokering of the Camp David Accords, the transition of Iran to an anti-Western Islamic state, encouraging reform in Eastern Europe, emphasizing human rights in U.S. foreign policy, the arming of the mujaheddin in Afghanistan to fight against the Soviet-friendly Afghan government, increase the probability of Soviet invasion and later entanglement in a Vietnam-style war, and later to counter the Soviet invasion, and the signing of the Torrijos-Carter Treaties relinquishing U.S. control of the Panama Canal after 1999.
He was a professor of American foreign policy at Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a member of various boards and councils. He appeared frequently as an expert on the PBS program The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
December 26, 2012
What would you say if in 1989, 3 years into Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev's reign as General Secretary of the Communist Party and 3 years before the collapse of the USSR, a man wrote a book called "The Grand Failure, the Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century"? What if he got it right, and predicted most of the probable outcomes of the Yeltsin reforms through 2000? Brzezinski is that man - predicting the end of the USSR and the political / economic low point of the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic long before it happened.
Brzezinski has a thoroughly entertaining history to start the book, explaining the appeal of Marxist/Leninism to the poor, the disenfranchised, the academic, and the war weary. He has a really cogent categorization of the three eras of Soviet politics, and how they differed from each other. Zbigniew also lays out a meaningful and understandable history of Marxism in China and why it was fundamentally different from the rest of the world Communist movement.
The meat of the book, though, is in explaining the emergent major trends in Central Europe and Russia, and in China in 1988 and 1989. Here he was dead on, and he and his staff seem to have read everything published in the USSR prior to Gorbachev and up to the publishing date of the book. Brzezinski predicts the fragmentation of the USSR, the huge nationalistic urges that took their toll on the Russian empire, the economic hardships, and the corruption. He laid out the likelihood of China becoming an economic free-zone under a hard core controlling political regime.
The only thing that ZB seems to have missed is the resurgence of Russia as the 7th largest economic power under the power of the petro-ruble. Further, he's a bit weak on economics while he's incredibly good at pragmatic, political savvy - George Keenan had nothing on ZB. The third quarter of the book is a bit redundant and pendantic as he displays how all the little republics went their own ways, with variations on hating Moscow and having resurgent national movements. He has an excellent index, uses footnotes and has six-seven pages of graphs to back up his assertions. This is no fly-by-night potboiler written by an ex-Congressman lobbyist - this is scholarly politics that should be used to build USA foreign policy. Brzezinski should be a first-round draft choice for the new White House, whether it is Republican or Democrat.
Brzezinski has a thoroughly entertaining history to start the book, explaining the appeal of Marxist/Leninism to the poor, the disenfranchised, the academic, and the war weary. He has a really cogent categorization of the three eras of Soviet politics, and how they differed from each other. Zbigniew also lays out a meaningful and understandable history of Marxism in China and why it was fundamentally different from the rest of the world Communist movement.
The meat of the book, though, is in explaining the emergent major trends in Central Europe and Russia, and in China in 1988 and 1989. Here he was dead on, and he and his staff seem to have read everything published in the USSR prior to Gorbachev and up to the publishing date of the book. Brzezinski predicts the fragmentation of the USSR, the huge nationalistic urges that took their toll on the Russian empire, the economic hardships, and the corruption. He laid out the likelihood of China becoming an economic free-zone under a hard core controlling political regime.
The only thing that ZB seems to have missed is the resurgence of Russia as the 7th largest economic power under the power of the petro-ruble. Further, he's a bit weak on economics while he's incredibly good at pragmatic, political savvy - George Keenan had nothing on ZB. The third quarter of the book is a bit redundant and pendantic as he displays how all the little republics went their own ways, with variations on hating Moscow and having resurgent national movements. He has an excellent index, uses footnotes and has six-seven pages of graphs to back up his assertions. This is no fly-by-night potboiler written by an ex-Congressman lobbyist - this is scholarly politics that should be used to build USA foreign policy. Brzezinski should be a first-round draft choice for the new White House, whether it is Republican or Democrat.
November 14, 2025
Zbigniew Brzezinski’s The Grand Failure (1989) is a strikingly prescient work of political analysis written at a moment when the Soviet system was entering its final phase of crisis but before its collapse had become historically inevitable. Aimed at both policymakers and scholars, Brzezinski’s study is at once a historical genealogy of the communist project, a diagnosis of Soviet decline, and a speculative forecast about the future of the Soviet Union and the broader socialist world. In retrospect, the book stands as one of the most accurate and conceptually coherent assessments of late Soviet stagnation produced in the final years of the Cold War.
Brzezinski’s core thesis is that the communist experiment—initially animated by utopian aspirations for equality, social justice, and rational administration—had by the late twentieth century devolved into an inflexible, economically inefficient, and politically brittle system. He argues that communism’s “grand failure” lay not merely in its inability to deliver sustained economic growth or political legitimacy, but in its structural incapacity to adapt to the demands of modernity. Central planning, ideological orthodoxy, and the monopoly of political power prevented necessary institutional reforms, inhibited innovation, and ultimately generated legitimacy deficits across the socialist world.
The book’s historical narrative traces the evolution of Marxist-Leninist systems from the Bolshevik Revolution through Stalinism and into the post-Stalin reformist experiments. Brzezinski situates Gorbachev’s late-1980s reform program—perestroika and glasnost—within this broader trajectory, arguing that the Soviet leadership faced a fundamental contradiction: the desire to revitalize socialism through limited liberalization while preserving the monopoly of communist rule. According to Brzezinski, this contradiction made genuine reform impossible without triggering a broader destabilization of the system. His analysis is rooted in comparative assessments of China, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union, and he is careful to distinguish between the varieties of socialist systems rather than treating them as monolithic.
One of the book’s major contributions lies in its attention to the geopolitical dimensions of communist decline. Brzezinski argues that the Soviet Union’s imperial overextension—its costly commitments in Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, and the Third World—exacerbated internal economic weaknesses. He identifies a cycle in which geopolitical insecurity justified military expenditures, which in turn drained resources from productive sectors and intensified domestic stagnation. This argument echoes realist critiques of imperial overstretch while integrating ideological and institutional variables often overlooked by pure geopolitical analysis.
Brzezinski’s comparative analysis of China is particularly nuanced. He interprets China’s post-Mao reforms as evidence that communist political structures could survive only by abandoning orthodox economic principles. Yet he also warns that China’s hybrid model—market-oriented economics under one-party rule—would generate tensions of its own. This dual recognition underscores one of the book’s strengths: it does not assume that communism’s failure in one setting guarantees the collapse of all socialist systems, but instead examines the specific institutional conditions that produce either adaptation or decay.
From an academic perspective, the work’s weaknesses are largely those inherent to a contemporaneous analysis. Some of Brzezinski’s forecasts—for example, the pace and form of political changes in China, or the long-term stability of post-communist states—proved only partially accurate. Additionally, the book’s normative stance is clear: Brzezinski approaches communism as a deeply flawed political project whose collapse is both necessary and desirable. While this does not undermine the empirical strength of his argument, it does shape the interpretive lens through which he assesses reformist possibilities.
Nevertheless, The Grand Failure remains an impressive synthesis. Its interdisciplinary approach—combining history, political science, economics, and strategic analysis—allows Brzezinski to articulate structural insights that many contemporary analysts missed. The lucidity of his prose and the coherence of his conceptual framework help explain why the book has endured as a significant reference point in studies of communist systems and the end of the Cold War.
Brzezinski’s The Grand Failure offers a compelling and analytically rigorous account of the internal contradictions that doomed Soviet-style communism. It stands as both a product of its historical moment and a valuable interpretive model for understanding the relationship between ideology, institutional design, and political decline. For scholars of comparative politics, Cold War history, and political economy, the book continues to provide an exemplary case study of systemic failure in a modern ideological regime.
GPT
Brzezinski’s core thesis is that the communist experiment—initially animated by utopian aspirations for equality, social justice, and rational administration—had by the late twentieth century devolved into an inflexible, economically inefficient, and politically brittle system. He argues that communism’s “grand failure” lay not merely in its inability to deliver sustained economic growth or political legitimacy, but in its structural incapacity to adapt to the demands of modernity. Central planning, ideological orthodoxy, and the monopoly of political power prevented necessary institutional reforms, inhibited innovation, and ultimately generated legitimacy deficits across the socialist world.
The book’s historical narrative traces the evolution of Marxist-Leninist systems from the Bolshevik Revolution through Stalinism and into the post-Stalin reformist experiments. Brzezinski situates Gorbachev’s late-1980s reform program—perestroika and glasnost—within this broader trajectory, arguing that the Soviet leadership faced a fundamental contradiction: the desire to revitalize socialism through limited liberalization while preserving the monopoly of communist rule. According to Brzezinski, this contradiction made genuine reform impossible without triggering a broader destabilization of the system. His analysis is rooted in comparative assessments of China, Eastern Europe, and the Soviet Union, and he is careful to distinguish between the varieties of socialist systems rather than treating them as monolithic.
One of the book’s major contributions lies in its attention to the geopolitical dimensions of communist decline. Brzezinski argues that the Soviet Union’s imperial overextension—its costly commitments in Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, and the Third World—exacerbated internal economic weaknesses. He identifies a cycle in which geopolitical insecurity justified military expenditures, which in turn drained resources from productive sectors and intensified domestic stagnation. This argument echoes realist critiques of imperial overstretch while integrating ideological and institutional variables often overlooked by pure geopolitical analysis.
Brzezinski’s comparative analysis of China is particularly nuanced. He interprets China’s post-Mao reforms as evidence that communist political structures could survive only by abandoning orthodox economic principles. Yet he also warns that China’s hybrid model—market-oriented economics under one-party rule—would generate tensions of its own. This dual recognition underscores one of the book’s strengths: it does not assume that communism’s failure in one setting guarantees the collapse of all socialist systems, but instead examines the specific institutional conditions that produce either adaptation or decay.
From an academic perspective, the work’s weaknesses are largely those inherent to a contemporaneous analysis. Some of Brzezinski’s forecasts—for example, the pace and form of political changes in China, or the long-term stability of post-communist states—proved only partially accurate. Additionally, the book’s normative stance is clear: Brzezinski approaches communism as a deeply flawed political project whose collapse is both necessary and desirable. While this does not undermine the empirical strength of his argument, it does shape the interpretive lens through which he assesses reformist possibilities.
Nevertheless, The Grand Failure remains an impressive synthesis. Its interdisciplinary approach—combining history, political science, economics, and strategic analysis—allows Brzezinski to articulate structural insights that many contemporary analysts missed. The lucidity of his prose and the coherence of his conceptual framework help explain why the book has endured as a significant reference point in studies of communist systems and the end of the Cold War.
Brzezinski’s The Grand Failure offers a compelling and analytically rigorous account of the internal contradictions that doomed Soviet-style communism. It stands as both a product of its historical moment and a valuable interpretive model for understanding the relationship between ideology, institutional design, and political decline. For scholars of comparative politics, Cold War history, and political economy, the book continues to provide an exemplary case study of systemic failure in a modern ideological regime.
GPT
November 1, 2025
Brezezinski al escribir el libro fue capaz de predecir el futuro de los países comunistas. No es que fuera un adivino, es que es uno de los que escriben la historia. Su libro El tablero de ajedrez es fundamental para poder entender el mundo de hoy y los movimientos geopolíticos y las guerras que se están produciendo actualmente
December 18, 2021
ABD başkanlarına danışmanlık da yapmış olan yazarın bu kitabının İş Bankası Yayınlarından çıkan baskısını okumuştum.
Yazarın algı düzeneğini bildiğim için anlattıklarına pek takılmadım ama yirminci yüzyıl tarihini bilmeyen okura zarar verecek düzeyde hatalı bilgi ve değerlendirmeler içerdiğini söylemeliyim.
Yazarın algı düzeneğini bildiğim için anlattıklarına pek takılmadım ama yirminci yüzyıl tarihini bilmeyen okura zarar verecek düzeyde hatalı bilgi ve değerlendirmeler içerdiğini söylemeliyim.
October 6, 2020
I'm not much into books on politics and this one would not have interested me at the time it came out as it addresses mostly then-contemporary politics and what might happen in what was then the future. Reading it 30 years later, it's more of a history book with astonishingly accurate predictions of what would happen later. It's an easy read and even if it's not always in layman's terms, you don't need a degree in political sciences to make the most of it.
February 16, 2015
an outstanding book that analyses the reasons for Soviet union failure, this book expected the collapse of Soviet union before it actually happen, plenty of good analysis that can be applied on other contexts and similar ideologies. at the end, dictators fail!
December 3, 2017
Amazingly prescient, written in 1988. Also a very nice summary of Soviet Russia history. The passages on the former Warsaw Pact nations in the 70's and 80's vis-a-vis the USSR are especially useful.
April 17, 2020
This is the bible for understanding communism.
January 24, 2013
of all the predictions Brzezinski makes in this book the one that looks us straight in the eye is the Chinese model of communism and how he correctly predicted it as the one to survive. I don;t think he could afford to give away the game regarding Afghanistan wrt USSR falling but he makes it clear they were going down.
If you are a Leninist this book should be on your shelf, for frequent doses of humble pie when you get carried away. this is a clear dissection of Leninism and it pummels that theorisation and he buried Stalin in huge USSR rubble or mudslide.
Maybe communism could have worked in another time elsewhere but not in Russia and not the way Stalin and Lenin and latter dictators implemented it.. that is what I came out thinking after reading this book. Though I prefer to think that what failed was not Communism but Leninist-Stalinism
If you are a Leninist this book should be on your shelf, for frequent doses of humble pie when you get carried away. this is a clear dissection of Leninism and it pummels that theorisation and he buried Stalin in huge USSR rubble or mudslide.
Maybe communism could have worked in another time elsewhere but not in Russia and not the way Stalin and Lenin and latter dictators implemented it.. that is what I came out thinking after reading this book. Though I prefer to think that what failed was not Communism but Leninist-Stalinism
May 31, 2021
বাংলা অনুবাদে পড়েছি, অনুবাদ বেশ সাবলীল ছিলো।
একটা সময় দুনিয়া জুড়ে নিপীড়িত মানুষের মাঝে বৈষম্যহীন ও শোষণহীন সমাজের স্বপ্নের বাস্তবায়ন রুপে আবির্ভাব হয়েছি সোভিয়েত ইউনিয়ন নামক সমাজতান্ত্রিক দেশ। কার্ল মার্ক্সের প্রজ্ঞা আর লেলিনের কর্মদক্ষতা মানুষের বুকে আশা জাগিয়ে ছিলো দরিদ্রহীন সমাজের। কিন্তু তত্ত্ব আর বাস্তবতায় বিশাল ফারাক। একসময় স্বপ্নের দেশ গঠন হলো আবার সবাইকে বিমূঢ় করে ভেঙে ও গেলো। বিংশ শতাব্দীর সবচেয়ে আলোচিত শব্দের একটা হচ্ছে কম্যুনিজম। কিন্তু এর মধ্যে ও রয়েছে শুভঙ্করী ফাঁকি। সেই স্বপ্নের জন্ম ও মৃত্যু নিয়ে লিখেছেন সেই দেশেরই রাষ্ট্রীয় উচ্চপদে থাকা একজন।যিনি খুব কাছে থেকে পর্যবেক্ষণ করেছেন কেনো এবং কিভাবে সোভিয়েত ইউ��িয়নের পতন হলো। বইটি কম্যুনিজমের হার্ডকোর আভ্যন্তরীণ বিষয় নিয়ে এবং সেসব সাধারণ পাঠকের জানার কথা না। যদি শুরুতে সেসব তথ্যের দিকনির্দেশনা থাকতো তাহলে আরো চমৎকার হতো।
একটা সময় দুনিয়া জুড়ে নিপীড়িত মানুষের মাঝে বৈষম্যহীন ও শোষণহীন সমাজের স্বপ্নের বাস্তবায়ন রুপে আবির্ভাব হয়েছি সোভিয়েত ইউনিয়ন নামক সমাজতান্ত্রিক দেশ। কার্ল মার্ক্সের প্রজ্ঞা আর লেলিনের কর্মদক্ষতা মানুষের বুকে আশা জাগিয়ে ছিলো দরিদ্রহীন সমাজের। কিন্তু তত্ত্ব আর বাস্তবতায় বিশাল ফারাক। একসময় স্বপ্নের দেশ গঠন হলো আবার সবাইকে বিমূঢ় করে ভেঙে ও গেলো। বিংশ শতাব্দীর সবচেয়ে আলোচিত শব্দের একটা হচ্ছে কম্যুনিজম। কিন্তু এর মধ্যে ও রয়েছে শুভঙ্করী ফাঁকি। সেই স্বপ্নের জন্ম ও মৃত্যু নিয়ে লিখেছেন সেই দেশেরই রাষ্ট্রীয় উচ্চপদে থাকা একজন।যিনি খুব কাছে থেকে পর্যবেক্ষণ করেছেন কেনো এবং কিভাবে সোভিয়েত ইউ��িয়নের পতন হলো। বইটি কম্যুনিজমের হার্ডকোর আভ্যন্তরীণ বিষয় নিয়ে এবং সেসব সাধারণ পাঠকের জানার কথা না। যদি শুরুতে সেসব তথ্যের দিকনির্দেশনা থাকতো তাহলে আরো চমৎকার হতো।
June 20, 2024
Written in 1988, this book remains a valuable (and prescient) account of “humanity’s catastrophic encounter with communism during the twentieth century.”
July 30, 2024
With hindsight, an incredibly clear understanding and prediction of everything from the USSR to China.
Want to read
October 12, 2024Aus "The Power of Now" von Eckhart Tolle
November 21, 2010
The Grand Failure helps you understand Russian and Chinese versions of Communism, their achievements and flaws. The book was written before USSR passed into history, and what is left we know it as Russia. Though Brezezinski did not predict the fall of USSR in clear words, his analysis makes it amply clear that he was looking at the possibility. His observations about Chinese economic rise are more than visible now, hence, Brzezinski's scholarly work has an all time value for generations to come.
May 23, 2013
I purchased and read this book in hardback back when it was new - I ran across it tonight in my library and I'd say it's one of the all time more enjoyable books I've ever read. Particularly for when it was published. I remember one of my friends saying it was ridiculous because the USSR would have problems but never fail. Even as things were clearly changing people refused to believe it. It's a great book in my view then and now.
May 21, 2015
Nếu đọc năm 88 sẽ chỉ cho 3/5. Đọc ở thời điểm hiện tại sẽ xứng đáng 4/5.
Ở một số chương, tác giả phân tích và tiên đoán rất hay mà mình nghĩ một trong những thời điểm tốt nhất để đọc cuốn sách này chính là 25 năm sau khi nó được viết ra.
Có một dự đoán của tác giả rất hay: "Chủ nghĩa cộng sản thương mại có thể thoái hóa thành chủ nghĩa cộng sản tham nhũng", ngay thuật ngữ "chủ nghĩa cộng sản thương mại" cũng đã gợi lên nhiều điều để suy nghĩ.
Ở một số chương, tác giả phân tích và tiên đoán rất hay mà mình nghĩ một trong những thời điểm tốt nhất để đọc cuốn sách này chính là 25 năm sau khi nó được viết ra.
Có một dự đoán của tác giả rất hay: "Chủ nghĩa cộng sản thương mại có thể thoái hóa thành chủ nghĩa cộng sản tham nhũng", ngay thuật ngữ "chủ nghĩa cộng sản thương mại" cũng đã gợi lên nhiều điều để suy nghĩ.
April 12, 2016
top class cold war stuff. Must read for all the inside and the whole perspective about the soviet union during that era. And how hard the west tried to curb it. Also tells about the good and bad of communism and why the socialist philosophy fell steeply because of a certain brilliant yet egotistical figures. Cold War buffs, this is for you!
June 14, 2013
Spring 1989 was a bad time to publish a book looking at the future of Communism. Within months his prognosis for the gradual decline of communism was largely out of date. Interestingly he predicted the likely survival of China as a state capitalist society, managed by the Communist Party.
Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews