The Collapse of the Soviet Union: Turning Points

by Paul A. Winters (Editor)

The breakup of the Soviet Union, which effectively ended the cold war, was one of the most monumental world events of the twentieth century. This anthology chronicles the disintegration of the Soviet empire, from the reforms of the 1980s.

288 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 1998

Reviews

[La26 · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a really good book if you need varying views on factors that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union (as made obvious by the title). I used this as a stepping stone when writing a huge paper on the topic. A lot of great historians/economists and scholars are mentioned and they’re all from different backgrounds. There’s even primary sources for ex: extracts from Gorbachev’s speeches. The best part is, the sources mentioned are all cited and you can look them up online to find full versions of those authors’ texts. It offers a great summary of viewpoints and covers a lot of factors like the economy, social aspects, the military & Cold War. Highly recommend going through it, especially since it contains great sources that are all conveniently compiled in a small book.

[Adam · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of essays with varying intrigue.

A few quotes that feel relevant to modern times:

“The episode [sparked by Yeltsin’s alleged comments on border revisions] served to remind everyone in Ukraine that before the Russians were Communists they had been imperialists, and that, despite Yeltsin's protestations, they might become imperialists again.”

“No great power—and the Russians see themselves as a once-and-future great power—is likely to tolerate for long the kinds of harassing situations Russia has on its borders. Inevitably, pressure will grow in Russia for a foreign policy that addresses them. No democratic leader will be able to ignore it.”

[Chris · Rating 1 out of 5]

The Collapse of the Soviet Union is, at best, a bunch of not-very-relevant, repackaged essays. The title, and the series name “Turning Points in World History,” would lead you to believe that this volume addressed the fall of the Soviet Union, and that upon reading, one would have a better idea of what happened than they did before. This isn’t the case. The book starts off with a quite useful 20 page overview of problems leading up to the collapse of the union, as well as various issues and major events during the process. However, what follows is two hundred or so pages worth of repackaged essays. A few are quite interesting. Most were written shortly after (or sometimes even prior to) the actual end of the Soviet Union, and are too caught up in the moment to be of much general historical use. Several even speculate that the union won’t collapse, or otherwise make interesting, but completely unhelpful, guesses of what may happen. What is most strange is that some essays are cut down, one assumes, for length, but that irrelevant speculation was left in.

This book was published seven years after the end of the Soviet Union. A tremendous amount of literature and analysis was published in those seven years, it would have made much more sense to use that material, or else title your work ‘Parts of Essays and Articles Written while the Soviet Union was Falling.’ I can only assume the publisher didn’t want to pay for actually useful articles. Tucked in the back of this book as an afterthought are some of the primary sources which are far more valuable than anything else in the book.