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Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000

stephen kotkin

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In the Cold War era that dominated the second half of the twentieth century, nobody envisaged that the collapse of the Soviet Union would come from within, still less that it would happen meekly, without global conflagration.
In this brilliantly compact, original, engaging book, Stephen Kotkin shows that the Soviet collapse resulted not from military competition but, ironically, from the dynamism of Communist ideology, the long-held dream for "socialism with a human face." The neo-liberal reforms in post-Soviet
Russia never took place, nor could they have, given the Soviet-era inheritance in the social, political, and economic landscape. Kotkin takes us deep into post-Stalin Soviet society and institutions, into the everyday hopes and secret political intrigues that affected 285 million people, before and
after 1991. He conveys the high drama of a superpower falling apart while armed to the teeth with millions of loyal troops and tens of thousands of weapons of mass destruction. Armageddon Averted vividly demonstrates the overriding importance of history, individual ambition, geopolitics, and
institutions, and deftly draws out contemporary Russia's contradictory predicament.

245 pages, Paperback

First published November 29,2001

This edition

Format
245 pages, Paperback
Published
November 16, 2003 by Oxford University Press
ISBN
9780195168945
ASIN
0195168941
Language
English

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About the author

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stephen kotkin

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Stephen Mark Kotkin is an American historian, academic, and author. He is the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a senior fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. For 33 years, Kotkin taught at Princeton University, where he attained the title of John P. Birkelund '52 Professor in History and International Affairs, and he took emeritus status from Princeton University in 2022. He was the director of the Princeton Institute for International and Regional Studies and the co-director of the certificate program in History and the Practice of Diplomacy. He has won a number of awards and fellowships, including the Guggenheim Fellowship, the American Council of Learned Societies and the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship. He is the husband of curator and art historian Soyoung Lee.
Kotkin's most prominent book project is his three-volume biography of Joseph Stalin, of which the first two volumes have been published as Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928 (2014) and Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 (2017), while the third volume remains to be published.

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Profile Image for Kimberly .
niabv
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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I borrowed this book from the library because I bought the game Crisis In The Kremlin when it was on sale, hoping to passively learn more about the Soviet Union. Well it didn't work, the game kept bringing up historical situations and personalities that I had no idea about so I kept ending up with the USSR's economy in the toilet and getting overthrown by Soviet elites. This book was recommended in a Facebook group I'm in and it covers the exact time period that the game is set in.

There is a lot of stuff in here that is new to me. I had no idea how the Soviet government worked or how its economy was run. I'd thought that the authoritarian police state portrayed in US media was an exaggeration but it seems like there was a basis in fact. And they were really envious of the rich consumerist lifestyle in capitalist countries.

Mikhail Gorbachev and the Soviet liberal elites really come off as naive chumps, sincerely believing that the US and Europe had its best interests at heart. I expect they were disabused of that notion in the 90s when Western carpetbaggers came and looted the country. No wonder they look to a strong man like Putin to protect them.

Thanks to this book, I think that I have a good chance of not getting defenestrated in my next game of Crisis In The Kremlin.
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Ishvaku
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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This author popped on a bunch of podcasts after Putin invaded Ukraine. He’s an intelligent guy and has intimate knowledge of Soviet history.

Published in 2001, this book might seem a bit dated, but it is an historical narrative and still a great listen. The title is a bit misleading as the book is more of an accounting how the Soviet collapse happened, and Russia emerged as the dysfunctional state that we see today. The author carefully blends facts, statistics and analysis to give a full picture of what was basically a total shitshow.
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Kako-02
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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A very intriguing perspective on the collapse of the USSR, but one that reframes it as a process that started as early as the '70s and continues on through to 2000 (the book was first published in 2001). All in all, a very interesting book that also summarized the key elements/events in Kotkin's argument. I did appreciate how Gorbachev and the rest of the Soviet elite & leadership let perestroika continue to its conclusion and didn't use all their state & military tools to preserve the USSR in the end (hence the focus on the "averted Armageddon"). I read the 2001 edition (though Kotkin later updated it in 2008), and obviously I'm here in the year 2024 where we've seen what Putin's Russia has done in the 20+ years since the book came out. I had to laugh at Kotkin's comment at the end about how surely the new Russia wouldn't go in for fascism, so that didn't age well. I am definitely more interested in exploring some more Soviet and Russian analyses, however (unfortunately I've always been week on economics). One last thing I was struck by--Western analysts were freakin' terrible at trying to figure anything out about what was going on in the USSR in the '80s and '90s.
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Snivius
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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Più che soddisfatto e contento delle informazioni sul contesto storico e sugli avvenimenti.
Pungenti le citazioni usate come piccoli affreschi introduttivi ai capitoli. Ma efficaci.

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Cap.1 I crudeli scherzi della storia
Poi venne Leonid Il'ič [Breznev]. […]. Si viveva alla grande. Rubando con calma e bevendo con calma [una voce si inserisce: non con calma]. Questo è quanto.
Ion Drutá, scrittore moldavo

La chiusura degli impianti è diventata un triste luogo comune della vita industriale [...]. Milioni di persone [...] hanno sperimentato direttamente o indirettamente le conseguenze di tali chiusure sulla propria vita, su quella di parenti, amici e comunità.
Tony Dickson e David Judge sul mondo capitalista durante l'era Breznev

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Cap.2 Rivivere il sogno
Siamo fermamente convinti che nell'ambito di una competizione pacifica i popoli saranno in grado di conseguire la propria soddisfazione e i sistemi sociali di assicurare loro un'elevata qualità della vita e garanzie per il futuro, libero accesso all'educazione e alla cultura, migliori forme di democrazia e libertà. Non abbiamo dubbi che in questo tipo di competizione il comunismo prevarrà.
Nikita Chruščëv, Prefazione al Nuovo programma del Partito comunista, 1961

A differenza di Breznev, di Gorbacèv mi ha colpito la sincerità.
Milovan Dilas, 1988

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Cap.3 Il dramma delle riforme
Non capisco come si possa combattere il Partito comunista sotto la direzione del Partito comunista [...]. Non capisco come la perestrojka possa essere portata avanti dalle stesse persone che hanno condotto il paese al punto di aver bisogno della perestrojka.
Michail Zadornov, autore satirico russo, 1989

Liberalizzazione e democratizzazione sono intrinsecamente contro-rivoluzione.
Leonid Breznev, affermazione confidenziale al Politburo, maggio 1968

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Cap.4 In attesa della fine del mondo
Ci sono cose - che chiamo gli ultimi baluardi - che devono essere difese fino alla morte, come nelle battaglie per Mosca (1941) e Stalingrado (1942-1943). È impossibile separarci. Non possiamo separarci. Ci sarebbe una terribile guerra, ci sarebbero disastri.
Michail Gorbačëv, 28 novembre 1990

LUnione Sovietica assomigliava a una barretta di cioccolato con le linee di separazione già incise a beneficio dei futuri consumatori.
Nikolaj Leonov, capo analista del Kgb

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Due giorni dopo Gorbačëv concordò con El'cin di dimettersi dalla presidenza sovietica. Il 25 dicembre la bandiera rossa con la falce e il martello fu ammainata dal Cremlino e sostituita dal vessillo rosso, bianco e blu della Russia. Il 27 dicembre, ovvero quattro giorni prima di quando avrebbe dovuto liberare il suo ufficio, la segretaria chiamò a casa Gorbačëv per avvertirlo che vi si stavano già installando El'cin e due collaboratori - i quali, ed erano appena le 8.30 del mattino, avevano già svuotato una bottiglia di whisky per festeggiare.

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Cap.5 Sopravvivenza e «cannibalismo» nelle province industriali
Il passato [dell'economia sovietica] è scritto nella composizione e nella localizzazione dei suoi beni immobili, nelle linee delle sue strade e ferrovie, nelle dimensioni e tipologia dei suoi impianti industriali, nelle sue maestranze, nei carburanti che consuma e nelle materie prime che utilizza. Nemmeno un leader perfetto e una riforma perfetta, qualunque fosse, potrebbero correggere in una generazione ciò che ha ne richieste due per essere costruito.
Thane Gustafson, specialista della Russia, 1989

«Io credo» dice Ivan a Volodija «che il nostro sia il paese più ricco del mondo».
«Perché?» chiede Volodija.
«Perché nonostante tutti abbiano rubato allo Stato per quasi sessant'anni c'è ancora qualcosa da rubare».
Hendrick Smith, The Russians, 1976

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Cap. 6 Democrazia senza liberalismo?
Proprio come non si può avere capitalismo dove tutto è pianificato, allo stesso modo non si può avere capitalismo dove tutto è in vendita, almeno non se gli articoli in commercio includono gli impiegati del pubblico registro che si occupa dei contratti e dei titoli di proprietà. Il mercato presuppone una burocrazia onesta e competente […]. L’idea che i singoli possono godere della libertà individuale semplicemente se non sono continuamente tormentati dai poteri pubblici seriamente messa in discussione dalla perturbante realtà della nuova Russia.
Stephen Holmes, filosofo politico statunitense, 1997

Tutti i miei telefoni erano controllati. E non solo i telefoni, ne sono sicuro.
Vjaceslav Kostikov, fedele addetto stampa di Boris El'cin
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El'cin presentò unilateralmente una nuova «Costituzione presidenziale», che venne approvata tramite plebiscito (quando gli fu mostrato un risultato parziale dei risultati il presidente prese una biro e aumentò i «si» da poco oltre il 50% a circa il 60%).

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Cap. 7 Idealismo e tradimento
Malgrado il dispotismo, l'oppressione […] e i privilegi della classe dirigente, molte persone - soprattutto i comunisti - credevano alle illusioni contenute negli slogan.
Milovan Dilas, La nuova classe, 1957

[…] la minaccia delle forze sovietiche, convenzionali e strategiche, dell'ambizione di potere sovietica, del crescente spionaggio e terrore di Stato rimane grande. Questa è la realtà. Chiudere gli occhi non la farà scomparire.
Ronald Reagan, Soviet Military Power, 1987
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FROM BOOK: Il destino dell'Ucraina. Il futuro dell'Europa (Simone Attilio Bellezza)
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Torra27
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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A pretty consise overview of the Soviet collapse and the post-Soviet Russia. It doesn't go much at all into the post-Soviet Ukraine, Belarus, or any of the Central Asian states, with the Caucasus region (Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia) getting only a passing mention. If you're unfamiliar with the late Soviet and early post-Soviet eras, this is an alright book for learning about it, but not with much detail. If you're looking for something on Central Asia or the non-Russian post-Soviet states, than you're best to look elsewhere.
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Misame
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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Relatively short summation of the Soviet downfall. Basically, in order to make internal improvements they started allowing some openness about themselves and the west. This let everyone see the shortcomings of the communist way and how far behind the west they were. The government was super old and detached from the realities of the day to day lives of the people. So it all fell apart and miraculously the military let it happen and no actual shit hit the fan. Other than the looting of the economy by essentially criminal insiders and Yeltsin cronies.
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Viewtful
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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I picked up that small but dense and information-packed book in order to get a feel for the author, Stephen Kotkin, before I tackle his monumental 3-parts and several thousand pages long biography of Stalin.

I was not expecting all that much from a 200 pages book that covers 30 years of Soviet history but I was wrong. Kotkin makes a powerful and persuasive argument for an institutional interpretation of the Soviet collapse. You will not find him blaming the usual suspects: the military-industrial complex, Yeltsin, Reagan, the arms race, bad western advice, western hubris, etc. And it is worth noting that contrary to most western academics he does not have a very good or romanticized opinion of Gorbachev (his economic policies or lack thereof, not the man himself, who always refused to use force to keep things together).

So what went wrong? To keep it short: trying to reform the system to make it more democratic while still refusing market prices and mechanisms, or private property was just trying to square the circle (Kotkin's analogy, which he makes several times). Socialism with a human face was bound to fail. The men involved did not matter all that much, institutions did. It is the first time I see somebody saying this so persuasively and unambiguously.

Of course, being so short, the book goes very fast on a lot of important aspects of Soviet history so you definitely need prior knowledge before reading this. It is excellent on the economics and institutional side. I found this book to be the perfect companion to go with the recent Taubman's excellent biography of Gorbachev which largely eluded those issues.

As for what went wrong after 1991, or what could have been done to prevent the meltdown, I will just quote Kotkin, page 7: 'give any country some 15000 rust-belt factories, perhaps two-thirds of them non-viable in market conditions, as well as several million brigands empowered to act in the name of the state, and see how quickly such a place achieves the "transition" to paradise.'

I read the paperback edition which was published in 2008 about the time when Medvedev got president and Putin switched to prime minister. It has an extra chapter on what happened between 2000 and 2008 and will happen from that point onward. Obviously it feels a little dated, but still, the author was quite prescient on a few important points.

Now I have to read more books from Kotkin, and not just the Stalin biography.
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A_inWonderland
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
March 26,2025
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An intriguing analysis of the Soviet collapse that essentially argues Gorbachev inherited an unsalvageable political model instead of directly condemning socialism or idealism.
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