The "Mystery" of the soviet collapse

Journal of Democracy

Volumn 17, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 21-35

  Aron, Leon ^a  

^a AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 33646750753     PISSN: 10455736     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Review

References (48)

1. Kennan is quoted in Paul Hollander, Personal Will and Political Belief (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 1.
2. Pipes's quote appears as a back-cover endorsement on the same book. See also Martin Malia, "A Fatal Logic," The National Interest (Spring 1993): 80 ;
3. and François Furet, The Passing of an Illusion (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 500-501.
4. Irina Starodubrovskaya and Vladimir Mau, Velikie revolutsii on Kromvelya do Putina (Great revolutions from Cromwell to Putin) (Moscow: Vagrius, 2004), 109.
5. Yegor Gaidar, Dologoe vremya (Moscow: Delo, 2005), Table 8.30;
6. Irina Starodubrovskaya and Vladimir Mau, Velikie revolutsii. Table 8.5;
7. and Anders Åslund, How Russia Became a Market Economy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1995), Table 2-5.
8. Yegor Gaidar, Dologoe vremya, 339;
9. Anders Åslund, How Russia Became a Market Economy, 48.
10. Peter Rutland, "Sovietology: Notes for a Post-Mortem," The National Interest (Spring 1993): 121.
11. Anders Ålund, How Russia Became a Market Economy, 47, 50-51.
12. Anders Åslund, "How Small Is Soviet National Income?" in Henry S. Rowen and Charles Wolf, eds., The Impoverished Superpower (San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1990), 37.
13. As quoted in Paul Hollander, Political Will and Personal Belief (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999), 87.
14. Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (New York: Free Press, 1968), 13, 69;
15. Thomas S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1962)
16. . 10. Karl Marx, "Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy" and "Manifesto of the Communist Party," in Robert C. Tucker, ed.. The Marx-Engels Reader (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978), 4-5, 474-77.
17. See, for example, H.H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills, From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978), 47.
18. Theda Skocpol, Social Revolutions in the Modern World (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 11;
19. and Charles Tilly, European Revolutions, 1492-1992 (Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1996), 5.
20. Vladimir Nabokov, Lectures on Literature (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1980), 286.
21. I use the term "structuralist" rather than " structural" deliberately in order to underscore the reductionism of the former. Structuralism, of course, is an indispensable analytical method that seeks explanations for social phenomena in the relatively permanent realities and patterns of interaction that are generally unaffected by variations among individual components. Cultural structures in a particular society, for example, can include status, roles, norms, and expectations as well as goals, purposes, and interests plus the acceptable modes of reaching for such goals. See, for instance, Lewis A. Coser, ed., Masters of Sociological Thought (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1971), 181;
22. and Robert K. Merton, Social Theory and Social Structure (New York: Free Press, 1968), 186-87. Structural analysis may very profitably include ideas and other "metaphysical" factors.
23. See William H. Sewell, Jr., "Ideologies and Social Revolutions: Reflections on the French Case," in Theda Skocpol, ed., Social Revolutions in the Modern World (Cambridge, Mass.: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 169-98.
24. As quoted in Eric Selbin, "Agency and Culture in Revolutions," in Jack A. Goldstone, Revolutions: Theoretical, Comparative, and Historical Studies (Belmont, Calif.: Thomson. 2003). 77.
25. Charles Tilly, European Revolutions, 14, 17, 49, 184, 234-35, 239-41.
26. Theda Skocpol, Social Revolutions in the Modern World (1994), 9, 112, 199.
27. Theda Skocpol. Social Revolutions in the Modern World (1994), 9, 100-107 passim.
28. Tatiana I. Zaslavskaya, "The Correlation Between Healthy and 111 Forces Is Not in Our Favor." interview with Fredo Arias-King, Demokratizatsiya 13 (Spring 2005): 297.
29. Vladimir Mau, "Economic Reforms and Revolution," in Yegor Gaidar, ed., The Economics of Transition (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2003), 36.
30. Interview with Mikhail Gorbachev, ITAR-TASS news agency (Moscow), 13 October 1992.
31. Nikolai Ryzhkov, Perestroika: Istoriya predatel'stv (Perestroika: The history of betrayals), (Moscow: Novosti. 1992), 33, 94.
32. Vladmir Treml, "Gorbachev's Anti-Drinking Campaign: A Noble Experiment or a Costly Exercise in Futility," RL Supplement (RL 2/87), 18 March 1987, 6.
33. Mikhail Gorbachev, "Krepit" klyuchevoe zveno ekonimiki" (To strengthen the key link of the economy), Pravda (Moscow), 10 December 1990.
34. Nikolai Ryzhkov, Perestroika. 243.
35. The GNP figure is from Anders Ålund, "How Small Is Soviet National Income?" in Henry S. Rowen and Charles Wolf, Jr., The Impoverished Superpower (San Francisco: Institute for Contemporary Studies, 1990), 37.
36. The figures for the Soviet budget come from Judy Shelton, The Coming Soviet Crash (New York: Free Press, 1989), 9; and for health care from Vladimir Treml.
37. "Gorbachev's Anti-Drinking Campaign," 12.
38. Nikolai Ryzhkov, Perestroika. 95.
39. Aleksandr Yakovlev, Muki prochteniya bytiya (The torments of reading life) (Moscow: Novosti, 1991), 31, 7-8.
40. Aleksandr Yakovlev, "Reformatsiya v Rossii" (Reformation in Russia), Obshshestvennvf nauki i sovremertnost'. 30 April 2005, 5.
41. This material from Yakovlev. like that found in the succeeding several paragraphs, comes from Sumerki, 380, 382, 464, 389, 404, 394, 378-79, 390, 476, 373, and 471.
42. Marietta Chudakova, "Itogi and perspektivy sovremennoy rossiyskoy revolutsii: Krugliy stol uchyonykh" (Results and prospects of the modern Russian revolution: A roundtable discussion by scholars), Obshestvennye nauki i sovremennost', No. 2 (2002): 24.
43. Aleksandr Yakovlev, Muki prochteniya bytiya, 190.
44. "Dossier," Moskovskie Novosti, 21-27 October 2005, 6.
45. Aleksandr Yakovlev, Muki prochteniya bytiya, 260-61.
46. Aleksandr Yakovlev, "Reformatsiya v Rossii," 5-15.
47. Aleksandr Yakovlev, Muki prochteniya bytiya, 7-8.
48. Aleksandr Yakovlev, Sumerki, 520.