Michael Kort - The Soviet Colossus: History and Aftermath

THE SOVIET

COLOSSUS

First published 2010 by M.E. Sharpe

Published 2015 by Routledge

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Copyright 2010 by Michael Kort

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Kort, Michael, 1944

The Soviet colossus : history and aftermath / by Michael Kort. 7th ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-0-7656-2386-7 (cloth: alk. paper)

1. Soviet UnionHistory. 2. RussiaHistoryNicholas II, 18941917. I. Title.

DK246.K64 2010

ISBN 13: 9780765623874 (pbk)

ISBN 13: 9780765623867 (hbk)

for
Eleza and Tamara
and
in memory of
Victor Kort

Two page spread map for pages vi & vii are to be picked up from previous edition flats that Bookmart sent to Courier

Pick-up map

PART I
THE FUNDAMENTALS OF RUSSIAN HISTORY

PART II
THE END OF THE OLD ORDER

PART III
LENINS RUSSIA

PART IV
STEELING THE REVOLUTION

PART V
THE SOCIALIST SUPERPOWER

PART VI
THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION

When the first edition of The Soviet Colossus was completed in 1984, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics stood imposingly as a troubled but immensely powerful and seemingly durable military superpower. By the time the second edition of the book appeared in early 1990, the USSR, after five years of perestroika and democratic reforms, had undergone change beyond what anybody had expected a few years earlier. However, while badly shaken by the pace and extent of change, the Soviet state and its vast imperium still seemed likely to survive, even if in a drastically altered form.

The third edition of The Soviet Colossus appeared as a witness to the shocking collapse of the Soviet Union, at one time the flagship of international Communism, the worlds largest country, one of the planets two nuclear superpowers, historys first and mightiest totalitarian state, and a country whose social system was based on an ideology that at the peak of its influence governed the lives of one-third of the worlds population and commanded the adherence of numerous intellectuals the world over. Yet this colossus crumbled over the course of a few short years and meekly ended up being proclaimed out of existence. The fourth through sixth editions of this book, retitled The Soviet Colossus: History and Aftermath, carried the narrative through a decade and a half of the post-Soviet era, by which time it was clear that Russias exit from Communism had not been an escape from the serious troubles that sprang from the Soviet experience and, further, that having left that experience behind, Russia was not evolving into a Westernstyle democratic, capitalist society.

The seventh edition of The Soviet Colossus continues the methodology of the earlier editions, which focused first on the historical background that shaped Russia before the Bolshevik Revolution and then on pivotal turning points that led in turn to the establishment of the Bolshevik dictatorship, the development of Stalinist totalitarianism, the reforms and counterreforms under Khrushchev and Brezhnev, the dramatic changes that swept the country under Mikhail Gorbachev, and, in 1991, the pathetic end of the great experiment Lenin and the Bolsheviks so confidently began in 1917. Regrettably, the 1990s did not see a successful transition to a democratic society and a functioning market economy but a spasmodic descent into a morass of political dysfunction, economic hardship, social disorder, unchecked criminality, and corruption on a massive scale. During the first decade of the new century, Russia under the leadership of Vladimir Putin has seen the establishment of greater order and an economic recovery, but at the price of the evolution of an authoritarian political system. In this edition, that apparent turning point is the subject of a new chapter, which covers Putins presidency and the first year of his tenure as prime minister. There are also revisions throughout the text as well as condensations of certain sections in order to keep this book at a manageable length.

A few explanatory words about dates and the spelling of Russian names. By the nineteenth century, the Julian calendar used in Russia until February 1918 trailed behind the modern Gregorian calendar by twelve days, and by the twentieth century, by thirteen days. All dates in this volume prior to February 1918 are given according to the modern Gregorian calendar (with Julian-style dates, when needed, in parentheses). The spelling of Russian names is always a problem since transliteration is an inexact science at best. My standard has not been one of the various imperfect systems of transliteration currently in use, but rather the injunction to make the text user-friendly to this volumes typical reader, who probably does not know Russian. This has been done in large measure by using the most familiar spellings of famous or common names (Trotsky not Trotskii) and the spelling of less well-known names as they appear most frequently in the mainstream American press. Thus (aside from in the endnotes and bibliography, and when referring to Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn), I use Alexander and Alexei rather than Aleksandr and Aleksei. Sometimes there are inconsistencies regarding the name itself: Russias tsars are called Nicholas or Paul since that is what American students are accustomed to seeing in their textbooks, while other Russians with the same name are called Nikolai or Pavel. Some Russian intellectuals who emigrated to the West and published major works there become Paul (Milyukov) and Nicholas (Berdyaev)the names that appeared on their booksinstead of Pavel and Nikolai. In most cases I have opted for Peter rather than Petr, Pyotr, or something similar. All of this will not satisfy the purist, but I think it will make it easier on the reader.

There is also the matter of what to call territories and peoples in the wake of post-Soviet name or spelling changes. When dealing with the period up to December 31, 1991, I refer to Belorussia, which in the text becomes Belarus on January 1, 1992. The people who live in that region are called Belarusians throughout the text. The country known today as Ukraine is called the Ukraine prior to January 1, 1992, and I use the conventional spelling Kiev throughout the text for the city, now often spelled Kyiv, that is its capital. communism is spelled with a lower case c when referring to that concept in the generic sense and with a capital c when referring to the Soviet variant and its various offshoots. Finally, from 1917 until 1946 top-level Soviet government officials were called commissars; thereafter they became ministers. To avoid unnecessarily wordy sentences, beginning in Chapter 15, which covers the period in which that change occurred, the term minister is used exclusively.