| ID | 105035 |
| Title Proper | Everything you think you know about the collapse of the Soviet Union is wrong |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Aron, Leon |
| Publication | 2011. |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | Every revolution is a surprise. Still, the latest Russian Revolution must be counted among the greatest of surprises. In the years leading up to 1991, virtually no Western expert, scholar, official, or politician foresaw the impending collapse of the Soviet Union, and with it one-party dictatorship, the state-owned economy, and the Kremlin's control over its domestic and Eastern European empires. Neither, with one exception, did Soviet dissidents nor, judging by their memoirs, future revolutionaries themselves. When Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party in March 1985, none of his contemporaries anticipated a revolutionary crisis. Although there were disagreements over the size and depth of the Soviet system's problems, no one thought them to be life-threatening, at least not anytime soon. |
| `In' analytical Note | Foreign Policy vol. , No. 187; Jul-Aug 2011: p.64-70 |
| Journal Source | Foreign Policy vol. , No. 187; Jul-Aug 2011: p.64-70 |
| Key Words | Soviet Union ; Russian Revolution ; Kremlin ; Mikhail Gorbachev ; Communism ; Cold War ; US Strategy ; Economy ; Russia |