Russia's Failed Revolutions PDF Download

Author: Adam B Ulam
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 550

View

Book Description

Author: Anders Åslund
Publisher: Peterson Institute
ISBN: 0881325376
Category : Capitalism
Languages : en
Pages : 389

View

Book Description

Author: Adam Bruno Ulam
Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 9780297779407
Category : Disidentes - Rusia
Languages : en
Pages : 453

View

Book Description

Author: Michael McFaul
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801439001
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 408

View

Book Description
For centuries, dictators ruled Russia. Tsars and Communist Party chiefs were in charge for so long some analysts claimed Russians had a cultural predisposition for authoritarian leaders. Yet, as a result of reforms initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev, new political institutions have emerged that now require election of political leaders and rule by constitutional procedures. Michael McFaul—described by the New York Times as "one of the leading Russia experts in the United States"—traces Russia's tumultuous political history from Gorbachev's rise to power in 1985 through the 1999 resignation of Boris Yeltsin in favor of Vladimir Putin. McFaul divides his account of the post-Soviet country into three periods: the Gorbachev era (1985-1991), the First Russian Republic (1991–1993), and the Second Russian Republic (1993–present). The first two were, he believes, failures—failed institutional emergence or failed transitions to democracy. By contrast, new democratic institutions did emerge in the third era, though not the institutions of a liberal democracy. McFaul contends that any explanation for Russia's successes in shifting to democracy must also account for its failures. The Russian/Soviet case, he says, reveals the importance of forging social pacts; the efforts of Russian elites to form alliances failed, leading to two violent confrontations and a protracted transition from communism to democracy. McFaul spent a great deal of time in Moscow in the 1990s and witnessed firsthand many of the events he describes. This experience, combined with frequent visits since and unparalleled access to senior Russian policymakers and politicians, has resulted in an astonishingly well-informed account. Russia's Unfinished Revolution is a comprehensive history of Russia during this crucial period.

Author: Michael McFaul
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801456967
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 797

View

Book Description
For centuries, dictators ruled Russia. Tsars and Communist Party chiefs were in charge for so long some analysts claimed Russians had a cultural predisposition for authoritarian leaders. Yet, as a result of reforms initiated by Mikhail Gorbachev, new political institutions have emerged that now require election of political leaders and rule by constitutional procedures. Michael McFaul traces Russia's tumultuous political history from Gorbachev's rise to power in 1985 through the 1999 resignation of Boris Yeltsin in favor of Vladimir Putin. McFaul divides his account of the post-Soviet country into three periods: the Gorbachev era (1985-1991), the First Russian Republic (1991-1993), and the Second Russian Republic (1993-present). The first two were, he believes, failures—failed institutional emergence or failed transitions to democracy. By contrast, new democratic institutions did emerge in the third era, though not the institutions of a liberal democracy. McFaul contends that any explanation for Russia's successes in shifting to democracy must also account for its failures. The Russian/Soviet case, he says, reveals the importance of forging social pacts; the efforts of Russian elites to form alliances failed, leading to two violent confrontations and a protracted transition from communism to democracy. McFaul spent a great deal of time in Moscow in the 1990s and witnessed firsthand many of the events he describes. This experience, combined with frequent visits since and unparalleled access to senior Russian policymakers and politicians, has resulted in an astonishingly well-informed account. Russia's Unfinished Revolution is a comprehensive history of Russia during this crucial period.

Author: Vladimir Mau
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191529117
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 390

View

Book Description
This volume provides an challenging and controversial explanation of the recent events in Russia. It examines the causes, processes, and consequences of Russia's recent political development. Drawing on, and criticizing the existing literature, the book also shows how the recent Russian experience casts light on general theories of revolution and comparative political developments. The transformation in Russia is usually compared with transformations in other post-communist countries. The authors argue that the Russian transformation should be explained in the logic of the great revolutions of the past such as the English Civil War, the French Revolution, and the Bolshevik Revolution. The difficulties and inconsistency of Russian reforms are usually explained as a result of mistakes made by reformers. This book argues, however, that these problems should be considered as a natural consequence of the 'weak state'. In revolution the weakness of state power is inevitable (resulting from social fragmentation, property rights transformation, changes in the interests of different social groups). Hence, the authors argue that most of the transitional problems in Russia were unavoidable. The authors go on to argue that revolutions are usually considered as rapid change made through violence. However, the spontaneous character of change in the situation of a weak state is a much more important feature of any revolution than violence. The book contains unique interviews with four leaders of the Russian transformation - Mikhail Gorbachev, Alexander Yakovlev, Yegor Gaidar, and Gennadii Burbulis - as well as the personal experience of the authors, who were deeply involved in the practical process of Russian transformation.

Author: Laura Engelstein
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199794219
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 866

View

Book Description
Author's Note -- Part I: Last Years of the Old Empire, 1904-1914 -- Part II: The Great War : Imperial Self-Destruction -- The Great War Begins -- Germans, Jews, Armenians -- Tearing Themselves Apart -- Conflict and Collapse -- Part III: 1917 : Contest for Control -- Five Days that Shook the World -- The Provisional Government and the War -- August-September : From Putsch to Coup -- Bolshevik October -- Death of the Constituent Assembly -- Politics from Below -- Part IV: Sovereign Claims -- The Peace that Wasn't -- Treason and Terror -- Finland's Civil War -- Baltic Entanglements -- Ukrainian Drama, Act I -- Colonial Repercussions -- Part V: War Within -- The Unquiet Don -- Foreign Bodies -- Trotsky Arms, Siberia Mobilizes -- Kolchak : the Wild East -- Ukraine, Act II -- War Against the Cossacks -- Miracle on the Vistula -- War Against the Jews : 1919-1920 -- The Last Page -- War Against the Peasants -- Part VI: Victory and Retreat -- The Proletariat in the Proletarian Dictatorship -- The Revolution Turns Against Itself -- Conclusion: Revolution Against Itself

Author: Stephen Anthony Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198734824
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481

View

Book Description
The Russian Revolution of 1917 transformed the face of the Russian empire, politically, economically, socially, and culturally, and also profoundly affected the course of world history for the rest of the twentieth century. Now, to mark the centenary of this epochal event, historian Steve Smith presents a panoramic account of the history of the Russian empire, from the last years of the nineteenth century, through the First World War and the revolutions of 1917 and the establishment of the Bolshevik regime, to the end of the 1920s, when Stalin simultaneously unleashed violent collectivization of agriculture and crash industrialization upon Russian society. Drawing on recent archivally-based scholarship, Russia in Revolution pays particular attention to the varying impact of the Revolution on the various groups that made up society: peasants, workers, non-Russian nationalities, the army, women and the family, young people, and the Church. In doing so, it provides a fresh way into the big, perennial questions about the Revolution and its consequences: why did the attempt by the tsarist government to implement political reform after the 1905 Revolution fail?; why did the First World War bring about the collapse of the tsarist system?; why did the attempt to create a democratic system after the February Revolution of 1917 not get off the ground?; why did the Bolsheviks succeed in seizing and holding on to power?; why did they come out victorious from a punishing civil war?; why did the New Economic Policy they introduced in 1921 fail?; and why did Stalin come out on top in the power struggle inside the Bolshevik party after Lenin's death in 1924? A final chapter then reflects on the larger significance of 1917 for the history of the twentieth century - and, for all its terrible flaws, what the promise of the Revolution might mean for us today.

Author: Victor Serge
Publisher: Haymarket Books
ISBN: 1608462676
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 554

View

Book Description
Serge exposes the heart of the vital first year of the most important working class revolution in history.

Author: Isaac Deutscher
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 132

View

Book Description
The George Macaulay Trevelyan lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge January-March 1967 - Social structure - Class struggle - The Soviet Union and the Chinese Revolution.