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7 books match the query 'USSR'

cover of A Life for Belarus: The Fall and Postmortal Rise of the USSR

A Life for Belarus

The Fall and Postmortal Rise of the USSR

Stanislau Shushkevich

Central European University Press, 2025

This memoir of the first president of an independent Belarus (1991-1994) tells about the revival of independent Belarus, the difficulties in establishing a democracy and a market economy, a hardened Soviet mentality, and the political immaturity of the intelligentsia and obduracy of the old nomenklatura.

Stanislau Shushkevich, born in 1934, narrates his path from a son of an “enemy of the people” to a doctorate in physics, and then to be the first head of independent Belarus. A series of entertaining essays discuss some major events as well as some minor ones that are barely known. The book describes Shushkevich’s role in hosting the Belavezha Accords, which brought about the end of the Soviet Union, and explores the motivation behind the decision for the de jure dissolution of the empire at a time when the major world leaders were categorically against the division of the USSR into independent states. The author draws particular attention to the role of the Baltic States in the late perestroika period. He also addresses the political passivity of the Soviet intelligentsia and the reasons for the revival of the Soviet Union in Russia and Belarus.

Shushkevich, who lives in Minsk, also provides valuable insights into contemporary Belarus, including an assessment of Lukashenka’s controversial role in recent events.

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cover of After the USSR: Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Politics in the Commonwealth of Independent States

After the USSR

Ethnicity, Nationalism, and Politics in the Commonwealth of Independent States

Anatoly M. Khazanov

University of Wisconsin Press, 1996

 A world-renowned anthropologist, Anatoly M. Khazanov offers a witty, insightful, and cautionary analysis of ethnic nationalism and its pivotal role in the collapse of the Soviet empire.
    “Khazanov’s encyclopedic knowledge of the history and culture of post-Soviet societies, combined with field research there since the 1960s, informs the case studies with a singular authoritative voice. This volume is destined to be an absolutely necessary reference for the understanding of ethnic relations and the politics of minorities in the ex-USSR into the next century.”—Leonard Plotnicov, editor of Ethnology

First Paperback Edition

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cover of Against Their Will: The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR

Against Their Will

The History and Geography of Forced Migrations in the USSR

Pavel Polian

Central European University Press, 2003

During his reign, Joseph Stalin oversaw the forced resettlement of people by the millions – a maniacal passion that he used for social engineering. The Soviets were not the first to thrust resettlement on its population – a major characteristic of totalitarian systems – but in terms of sheer numbers, technologies used to deport people and the lawlessness which accompanied it, Stalin’s process was the most notable. Six million people of different social, ethnic, and professions were resettled before Stalin's death. Even today, the aftermath of such deportations largely predetermines events which take place in the northern Caucasus, Crimea, the Baltic republics, Moldavia, and western Ukraine. Polian's volume is the first attempt to comprehensively examine the history of forced and semi-voluntary population movements within or organized by the Soviet Union. Contents range from the early 1920s to the rehabilitation of repressed nationalities in the 1990s, dealing with internal (kulaks, ethnic and political deportations) and international forced migrations (German internees and occupied territories). An abundance of facts, figures, tables, maps, and an exhaustively-detailed annex will serve as important sources for further researches.
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cover of An Empire of Others: Creating Ethnographic Knowledge in Imperial Russia and the USSR

An Empire of Others

Creating Ethnographic Knowledge in Imperial Russia and the USSR

Alexis Hofmeister

Central European University Press, 2014

Ethnographers helped to perceive, to understand and also to shape imperial as well as Soviet Russia's cultural diversity. This volume focuses on the contexts in which ethnographic knowledge was created. Usually, ethnographic findings were superseded by imperial discourse: Defining regions, connecting them with ethnic origins and conceiving national entities necessarily implied the mapping of political and historical hierarchies. But beyond these spatial conceptualizations the essays particularly address the specific conditions in which ethnographic knowledge appeared and changed. On the one hand, they turn to the several fields into which ethnographic knowledge poured and materialized, i.e., history, historiography, anthropology or ideology. On the other, they equally consider the impact of the specific formats, i.e., pictures, maps, atlases, lectures, songs, museums, and exhibitions, on academic as well as non-academic manifestations.
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cover of From Washington to Moscow: US-Soviet Relations and the Collapse of the USSR

From Washington to Moscow

US-Soviet Relations and the Collapse of the USSR

Louis Sell

Duke University Press, 2016

When the United States and the Soviet Union signed the first Strategic Arms Limitation Talks accords in 1972 it was generally seen as the point at which the USSR achieved parity with the United States. Less than twenty years later the Soviet Union had collapsed, confounding experts who never expected it to happen during their lifetimes. In From Washington to Moscow veteran US Foreign Service officer Louis Sell traces the history of US–Soviet relations between 1972 and 1991 and explains why the Cold War came to an abrupt end. Drawing heavily on archival sources and memoirs—many in Russian—as well as his own experiences, Sell vividly describes events from the perspectives of American and Soviet participants. He attributes the USSR's fall not to one specific cause but to a combination of the Soviet system's inherent weaknesses, mistakes by Mikhail Gorbachev, and challenges by Ronald Reagan and other US leaders. He shows how the USSR's rapid and humiliating collapse and the inability of the West and Russia to find a way to cooperate respectfully and collegially helped set the foundation for Vladimir Putin’s rise.
 
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cover of The Hot 'Cold War': The USSR in Southern Africa

The Hot 'Cold War'

The USSR in Southern Africa

Vladimir Shubin

Pluto Press, 2008

This book analyses the causes of armed conflicts in Southern Africa during the Cold War. It examines the influence of the various external forces in the region during this period and their relationship to local movements and governments.

The book focuses on states experiencing violent internal conflict and foreign intervention, that is Angola, Mozambique, Namibia , South Africa and Zimbabwe.

The author provides an unique history of the key part that the Soviet Union played in these developments. Spanning 30 years, the book explores how each country struggled for genuine independence against colonialism and apartheid and their place in the wider conflicts encompassed by the Cold War.

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cover of The USSR and Iraq: The Soviet Quest for Influence

The USSR and Iraq

The Soviet Quest for Influence

Oles M. Smolansky, with Bettie M. Smolansky

Duke University Press, 1991

In The USSR and Iraq, the first major study of Soviet-Iraqi relations, Oles M. Smolansky examines the history of the relationship between these two countries during the past twenty years and attempts to dispel the misconception that the Soviet Union has enjoyed undue influence over Iraq.
Drawing on ten years of research in Western, Arab, and Soviet sources, Smolansky analyzes the complex issues at the center of Soviet-Iraqi relations from 1968 through 1988, including the nationalization of the oil industry, the Kurdish question, the Iraqi Communist Party, the affairs of the Persian/Arabian Gulf, and, ultimately, the war between Iraq and Iran.
Smolansky concludes that Iraq has never been under the dominant influence of Moscow, nor has it even been a loyal Soviet ally. In fact, Iraq has managed to reap major benefits from the relationship without losing its autonomy or sacrificing its major interests. The author discusses the Soviet Union and Iraq within the larger framework of the nature of influence relationships between great and small powers.
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