Spies and Commissars PDF Download

Author: Robert Service
Publisher: Soft Skull Press
ISBN: 1610391403
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
Traces the power struggle between the Bolsheviks and the West at the dawn of the Russian Revolution, offering insight into the roles of diplomats, reporters, dissidents and others who impacted foreign policy throughout subsequent decades.

Author: Martyn Burke
Publisher: Martyn Burke
ISBN: 9780395354902
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description

Author: Robert Service
Publisher: Pan Macmillan
ISBN: 1509883029
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 400

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Book Description
In Kremlin Winter, Robert Service, acclaimed biographer of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky and one of the finest historians of modern Russia, brings his deep understanding of that country to bear on the man who leads it. 'One of our most accomplished, erudite and prolific historians of modern Russia.' – Rodric Braithwaite, New Statesman Vladimir Putin has dominated Russian politics since Boris Yeltsin relinquished the presidency in his favour in May 2000. He served two terms as president, before himself relinquishing the post to his prime minister, Dimitri Medvedev, only to return to presidential power for a third time in 2012. Putin’s rule, whether as president or prime minister, has been marked by a steady increase in domestic repression and international assertiveness. Despite this, there have been signs of liberal growth and Putin – and Russia – now faces a far from certain future. Robert Service reveals a premier who cannot take his supremacy for granted, yet is determined to impose his will not only on his closest associates but on society at large. Kremlin Winter is a riveting insight into power politics as Russia faces a blizzard of difficulties both at home and abroad. 'A masterful portrait of Putin and Russia' – Jack Coleman, Daily Telegraph

Author: Edward Lucas
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1408831031
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 402

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Book Description
From the capture of Sidney Reilly, the 'Ace of Spies', by Lenin's Bolsheviks in 1925, to the deportation from the USA of Anna Chapman, the 'Redhead under the Bed', in 2010, Kremlin and Western spymasters have battled for supremacy for nearly a century.In Deception Edward Lucas uncovers the real story of Chapman and her colleagues in Britain and America, unveiling their clandestine missions and the spy-hunt that led to their downfall. It reveals unknown triumphs and disasters of Western intelligence in the Cold War, providing the background to the new world of industrial and political espionage. To tell the story of post-Soviet espionage, Lucas draws on exclusive interviews with Russia's top NATO spy, Herman Simm, and unveils the horrific treatment of a Moscow lawyer who dared to challenge the ruling criminal syndicate there.Once the threat from Moscow was international communism; now it comes from the siloviki, Russia's ruthless 'men of power'.

Author: Robert Service
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674036154
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 656

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Book Description
This illuminating portrait of Leon Trotsky sets the record straight on the common misconceptions about the man and his legacy. Completing his masterful trilogy on the founding figures of the Soviet Union, Service delivers an authoritative biography.

Author: Robert Service
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 161039500X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 602

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Book Description
On 26 December, 1991, the hammer-and-sickle flag was lowered over the Kremlin for the last time. Yet, just six years earlier, when Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and chose Eduard Shevardnadze as his foreign minister, the Cold War seemed like a permanent fixture in world politics. Until its denouement, no Western or Soviet politician foresaw that the standoff between the two superpowers -- after decades of struggle over every aspect of security, politics, economics, and ideas -- would end within the lifetime of the current generation. Nor was it at all obvious that that the Soviet political leadership would undertake a huge internal reform of the USSR, or that the threat of a nuclear Armageddon could or would be peacefully wound down. Drawing on pioneering archival research, Robert Service's gripping investigation of the final years of the Cold War pinpoints the extraordinary relationships between Ronald Reagan, Gorbachev, George Shultz, and Shevardnadze, who found ways to cooperate during times of exceptional change around the world. A story of American pressure and Soviet long-term decline and overstretch, The End of the Cold War: 1985-1991 shows how a small but skillful group of statesmen grew determined to end the Cold War on their watch and transformed the global political landscape irreversibly.

Author: Robert Service
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674021082
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
The first history of modern Russia from 1991 to the present day by one of the leading historians of the 20th century USSR and Russia. In 1991, in a huge experiment with a people and in a state of euphoria, Boris Yeltsin abolished the USSR and recreated the Russian nation. At the point of its declaration is was in a state of economic and social disarray and yet there were high hopes. Hopes which have subsequently been dashed. Robert Service brings to bear his vast knowledge of the people and the country to put the recent upheavals into context and he shows that not everything changed for the worst 1991. The Gorbachev years have allowed the Russian people to give a priority to living a private life and shutting the door on the state. They could think what they liked. The could enjoy intellectual and religious freedom, and indulge in recreations their income would allow. Gays and Lesbians could come 'out'. The Youth culture could finally be loosed from contraints. This is a broad political, social and cultural history of one of the newest nations ever to be formed.

Author: G. Hosking
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1349265322
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 220

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Book Description
This book looks at the past and present condition of Russian nationalism. Its chapters examine the influence of tsarist and Soviet official policies upon national identity, and seek to explain the broader political, social and cultural factors which helped or hindered the ambitions of rulers. The changeability of Russian national consciousness is exmphasised. Several chapters also highlight the various long-standing inhibitions to the emergence of a consolidated civic nationalism in a Russian Federation which gained its independence at the break-up of the USSR.

Author: Robert Service
Publisher: PublicAffairs
ISBN: 1610391411
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 482

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Book Description
The early years of Bolshevik rule were marked by dynamic interaction between Russia and the West. These years of civil war in Russia were years when the West strove to understand the new communist regime while also seeking to undermine it. Meanwhile, the Bolsheviks tried to spread their revolution across Europe at the same time they were seeking trade agreements that might revive their collapsing economy. This book tells the story of these complex interactions in detail, revealing that revolutionary Russia was shaped not only by Lenin and Trotsky, but by an extraordinary miscellany of people: spies and commissars, certainly, but also diplomats, reporters, and dissidents, as well as intellectuals, opportunistic businessmen, and casual travelers. This is the story of these characters: everyone from the ineffectual but perfectly positioned Somerset Maugham to vain writers and revolutionary sympathizers whose love affairs were as dangerous as their politics. Through this sharply observed exposéf conflicting loyalties, we get a very vivid sense of how diverse the shades of Western and Eastern political opinion were during these years.

Author: Robert Service
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 9780674025301
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 622

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Book Description
Service offers a history of communism, drawing the uncomfortable conclusion that the poverty and injustice that enabled its rise are still dangerously alive. Unsettling and compelling, this is a comprehensive study of one of the most important movements of the modern world.