An entirely bourgeois anti-communist attack on the truth. Kotkin wears his hatred for communism on his sleeve and it poisons his entire narrative. Read Socialism Betrayed by Roger Keeran and Thomas Kenny instead.

Princeton University historian Stephan Kotkin’s monograph, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse, 1970-2000, asserts that the Soviet Union collapsed is not wholly due to Mikhail Gorbachev, but the series of attempts to reform the Soviet Union in the postwar era following the death of Stalin. Stephan Kotkin’s multi-faceted argument on the Soviet Union collapse relies on two aspects: agency and structure. Kotkin argues that the fall of the USSR was inevitable with hyper-inflated rates of modernization, inability to adapt its heavy industrial economy to a more consumer-based economy, poor leadership in handling privatization, and the obsession with perestroika and glasnost. Gorbachev refused to shake the imagery of a Marxist-Leninist Utopian society. However, the cracks in the Soviet structure became too much for him to fix and lead to the dismantling of the USSR. The fall of Soviet socialism carried into Russia as unresolved tensions left the country to scramble to build itself up once Gorbachev was ousted and the weak leadership of President Boris Yeltsin took over.
tUnlike many Cold War History works, Kotkin explores more than the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the following two years of the dissolution of the USSR by examining the USSR in the 1970s to the 2000s, where remnants of the geopolitical strife between the Western nations and Russia still lingered. Armageddon Averted explores the decay of the utopian socialist society that Gorbachev dreamed of in the 70s was due to fall sooner. However, it was saved by the boost in Siberian Oil that temporarily quelled the unstable economy for a few more years. Kotkin emphasizes the economic failure of Gorbachev, but it is important to note that under Russian President Boris Yeltsin, the use of vouchers confused Russian citizens and left much of the property to be bought by wealthy elites leaving high rates of corruption and inflation. In addition, the rapid build-up of foreign debts and false modernization led many Satellite Nations to seek independence.
tStephan Koktin interprets the Soviet legacy as the failure of “reform socialism” needing to destroy itself in order to mend the damage done within the seventy-four years as the USSR. Armageddon Averted notes that the collapse of the USSR had minor violence, but the Baltic states and other nations under Soviet control witnessed riots and crackdowns that ended in tragedy. The riots in Kazakhstan in 1986, skirmishes between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1988, a crackdown in Azerbaijan in January 1990, a crackdown in the Baltic states in January 1991, to name a few scruffles that rocked the Soviet control over the disorienting political change participated in the dissolution. Leaders in the Soviet Bloc had agency and declared their independence. Kotkin emphasizes that it was not the multitude of riots and skirmishes that led to the demise, but Gorbachev’s poor leadership that is using force to restore order and preserve the USSR. The author seldomly reflects on the moral dilemma that Gorchabev faced in straying from the Stalinist and Breshnev’s blunt force in safeguarding the USSR and upholding his idea of humane socialism.
tThis book serves as a vessel for those interested in Soviet Union history to learn about the decline without all the nitty-gritty facts and in-depth analysis on documents locked up in archives for years. Most of the sources used are secondary sources, but also included memoirs of Soviet leaders. There are some challenges to this not serving an academic tone to the writing as some of the talking points in the early chapters are not fleshed out enough, like the 1970s. This ideology-driven work makes an illuminating perspective on how the Soviet Union has multiple opportunities to be preserved, but many political elites acted too late. Kotkin chides other Russian historians and Sovietologists who place heavy emphasis on the West’s influence on Russia and not enough on the socialist system that built the nation is also the reason for its collapse. A criticism to the aspect on fleshing talking points out, Koktin needed to discuss more the influence the oligarchs, who owned the oil, media, and transportation sectors, placed on the political elites that corrupted many systems that led to mistrust in the USSR and the early years of the Russian Federation. To reform the political sphere under socialism meant to disrupt the services of the oligarchs and the economy.

A brief, concise account of one of the great own-goals of all time, explaining how an empire with the largest military establishment in world history, internal stability, high financial credit ratings, and possessing a nuclear arsenal capable of annihilating the world several times over simply liquidated itself, with hardly a shot fired.

While this book had some interesting anecdotes and points about the collapse of the USSR, something about the writing made it feel that little "stuck"; I did not come away from the book with many "big picture" points. To be fair, it is a 220-page book with large print and so cannot be expected to cover the circumstances and causes of the USSR collapse with any kind of comprehensive view. So it reads more like a long magazine article on the subject rather than a focused book.

An insightful examination of the Soviet collapse that argues that the peaceful fall of the USSR was due to the ideological defection of the country's own communist elites, out of a combination of idealism and opportunism, from doctrinaire Marxist-Leninism, not Western pressure. In essence, the Soviet Union was dismantled by the people running it because those same officials no longer believed in a communist future that was worth killing for.

As the title suggests, what Kotkin is interested in with this book is the question of “why, when the Communism was in collapse, did not the USSR begin World War Three to defend it?” His answer will surprise some: he says that Communism was still quite sustainable at the end of the 1980s, with no need for sweeping reform, but chose to commit suicide for largely ideological reasons. The real reasons for Perestroika and Glasnost were not economic necessity or because of large-scale popular resistance, but simply that the “true believers” in the system wanted to restore “the promise of the Revolution and the spirit of October” to a society that had lost any sense of hope. Gorbachev, committed to a “humane socialism,” then failed to use military force to re-establish power when it was clear that such a thing was not possible. This largely removes the US and Western powers from the equation, and thus will not be popular with some, but his argument remains worth considering.

Kotkin is a trained historian with a background in Eastern Europe, but this book is written in a breezy, accessible style that makes it readily understandable by popular readers. Professional historians may be a bit less impressed with his use of sources and methodology. Fifteen years later, Russianists will be especially conscious of his predictions vis-à-vis the Putin regime and the future of “democratic” Russia. In his preface, Kotkin argues that “the best way to understand Russian politics was mostly to ignore the grand ‘reform’ programmes…and instead closely to track prime real estate,” an observation that seems to have chilling relevance to the US in this era during the rise of a new elite represented by Donald Trump.

Read this because of the author's recent Hoover Institute interview which was interesting.

It's a fairly sensible breakdown of the collapse of the soviet union, with an emphasis on the latter stage developments toward the 90s, with some coverage of the post-breakdown - which only stretches to the year 2000. This causes some headaches when you read it with an additional 20 years of hindsight as his pro-western optimism, including hopeful words about Putin, don't shine too bright anymore. Rather than a total paradigm shift it starts looking more like a hiccup.

However, the analysis of all the things that could have gone wrong is compelling, there are many more moving parts than we tend to think about now, more actors within Russia with their own agendas, the shattering of the Union freeing nations that could in turn have caused all kinds of havoc, nuclear arms split across borders and so on. Ultimately the Soviet Union is more a fizzle than a bang, and Kotkin tries to show the almost inadvertent choices that leads to collapse, as the Soviets gradually embrace reforms that open the floodgates for disparate powers looking for wider changes.

What it is: a synthesis of secondary literature and the author's reflections on the dissolution of the Soviet Union, beginning in the 1970s malaise through 2000.

What it argues: the Soviet Union died from the rise of a young generation, the Khrushchev generation, who attempted to apply reforms away from the Stalinist heavy-industry model. Because of WWII, there never really was a generation between the old Stalinist guard and the young generation (Gorbachev). The specific implosion of the Soviet Union (1991) was a mixture of the coup plotter's ineptness and Gorby's unwillingness to resort to military counter-measures. Although Kotkin describes the implosion of the USSR as a fleecing, democracy without liberalism, etc., he does note they had little other options and reminds us regularly that it could have been MUCH, MUCH worse. (Pointing to Yugoslavia.)

What I would have wanted to see: more detailed explanations of the comparison with Yugoslavia--more than a metaphor, but a real systematic comparison. More discussion of the position of USSR scientists, whom Kotkin says were just "too patriotic" to sell out military secrets. (Which may be true for some, but I want to see more than a statement proving that.)

What's good: the "rustbelt" imagery, which postions the USSR economy alongside a global challenge to meet the new computer industries; the language and style (fairly readable for a non-academic audience); the proliferation of points (Yeltsin ruled as a tsar and Russia became a series of fiefdoms under his administration.

Хороший и (что нечасто встречается в подобном нонфикшене) краткий обзор распада СССР, его причин, хода и последствий.
По мнению Коткина, именно Горбачев в первую очередь является непосредственным виновником: он хотел следовать своим романтическим представлениям о "социализме с человеческим лицом", но не рассчитал, что предпринимаемые меры попросту подрывают сам фундамент государства (на партийном контроле и партийной дисциплине держалось всё здание, и как только была введена гласность и упразднена однопартийная система - это самое здание рухнуло в одночасье).
Также Коткин полагает, что с распадом СССР на самом деле история не закончилась - этот распад продолжался вплоть до начала 2000-х (повествование заканчивается периодом начала президентского срока Медведева). По сути, радикального слома не произошло, поскольку подавляющее большинство партийных функционеров и руководителей предприятий остались на своих местах.
Не все выводы кажутся бесспорными, особенно с позиций сегодняшнего дня, но чтение, безусловно, познавательное и интересное. Хорошо идёт в комплекте с книгами Юрчака, Гайдара, Иноземцева, Дубнова и Плохия.

“There was a Shakespearian quality to the system’s surprise, yet ultimately logical self-destruction, inaugurated by romanticism and consummated by treason.”

A great, at times poetic, study that lays out its thesis in clear, cogent terms. Even if you disagree on some finer points, this is a clear and succinct narrative, suitable for beginners and experts alike.

Začnem od konca.
Knižka končí zoznamom odporúčanej literatúry, čo je celkom štandardné.
Čo štandardné nie je, je to, že tento zoznam obsahuje knižky s alternatívnymi a odporujúcimi pohľadmi na tematiku, bez toho že by boli označené za chybné alebo nesprávne. Bravo Kotkin.

A teraz k samotnej knižke:
Názov knihy je zavádzajúci. Vyhnutie sa armageddonu pri páde sovietskeho zväzu kniha popisuje úplne okrajovo a prakticky ho nevysvetľuje. Strhnime teda pánovi profesorovi jednu hviezdičku. Ale to tiež bude posledná.

História, geopolitika a podobná háveď ma zaujíma a o rozpade sovietskeho zväzu som čo-to vedel, chýbal mi však komplexnejší pohľad na jednotlivé udalosti, ich pôvod a následky. Kotkin má podľa mňa čisto subjektívne Rusov rád ako národ, ale neberie si ani na sovietsky, ani na postsovietsky režim rukavičky. Nemá problém vyzdvihnúť čo a ako urobil Gorbačov, Jeľcin, ale tiež neskôr Putin a aké to malo následky.
Či to bolo správne, alebo nesprávne, zlé alebo dobré nech si čitateľ rozhodne sám.

Po prečítaní knihy som si nie istý, že rozumiem viac rozpadu ZSSR, skôr by som povedal že mu rozumiem menej, ale zato lepšie.
Stále sa zdá niečím s vysokou pravdepodobnosťou v danom období, jeho priebeh sa však naopak stáva skoro neuveriteľným, podobne ako návrat Putinovho Ruska medzi hráčov s ktorými treba počítať v posledných 10-15 rokoch.

Pevne dúfam, že profesor Kotkin popri svojej sérii o Stalinovi nájde čas na pokračovanie, ktoré popíše udalosti po roku 2008. Toto už síce robí v diskusiách, ale kniha je kniha.

Na 220 stranách a 35 stranách poznámok sa kniha dosť dobre číta a v konečnom dôsledku som asi rád že nemá rádovo 1000 strán ako prvý diel Stalina...

Have not read this but Kotkin is a You Tube star.
Sounds like Joe Pesci, but would never try to hurt Caulkin.