Soviet Union History

I’m reading the first volume of Stalin right now by Kotkin. Not an easy read by any means but is supposed to be the premier biography on Stalin. He only uses actual source materials from the Soviet archives.

I think his Magnetic Mountain may be more of an overview of The Soviet Union.

Either way, Kotkin is very interesting. He is the leading historian on the Soviet Union and is a professor at Princeton. But rather than being an apologist for Marxism and Communism, he blasts it. He also looks and sounds just like Joe Pesci. It’s really funny to listen to someone so brilliant talk the way he does.

I enjoyed Lenin's Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire by Dave Remnick

I found this book assumes you have a decent background in the subject when presenting some of the information.

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And how reliable of a narrator is Kruschev?

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I find these experiences interesting as they offer a direct insight into the person’s point of view.

Great book, written by a Russian scholar. Looks at policy from the perspective of each premier, from Stalin to Gorbachev. Also through a lens of of the ideological contradiction of a government claiming to support "The revolution" while simultaneously enacting extreme authoritarian acts and seeking an imperialist practical foreign policy.
One of the things I found interesting was how erratic Khrushchev was...and apparently usually drunk.
Another was his take on Brezhnev...actually somewhat positive.
One of the more surprising things was the negative view he takes of Gorbachev. Although less surprising when you think of it. Gorbachev oversaw the collapse of Soviet society and the rapid decline of Russia's international status.

Good read. From an interesting perspective.

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One of the things I found interesting was how erratic Khrushchev was...and apparently usually drunk.

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Thanks for the recommendation, book ordered.

I just finished Berlin 1961 which is good. It looks at the interaction between Kennedy and Khrushchev. Kennedy had a lot to learn. Khrushchev came off as pretty interesting, a bit of a loose canon more concerned about hanging on to power and improving life in the Soviet Union than anything else. He was far less into communist revolution than the rest of the communist block, especially the Chinese. Not the tyrant that Stalin was. His autobiography is something I want to read some day.

Any real history of the Soviet Union will have at it's core Joseph Stalin.

Stalin made the country into the power it became, but at it's roots even dating back to 1880's corruption would play a major role through out it's history.


Once Stalin grains undisputed power it set in motions a domino on the brink of super power, but corrupt to the core; it would only take one event to make that domino fall and that event turned out to be Chernobyl.

Stalin is the best place to start a history of the Union.

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it would only take one event to make that domino fall and that event turned out to be Chernobyl.

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I'm just finishing up A Failed Empire and an argument could be made that the first domino was the invasion of Afghanistan. Add in low oil prices and Gorbachev taking power with his reforms. Chernobyl certainly had a huge impact on Gorbachev's thinking about the hopeless situation of nuclear war.

Gulag by Anne Applebaum is a good read if you want to learn more about the brutality of the Soviet prison system. I read it several years ago in college.

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One of the things I found interesting was how erratic Khrushchev was...and apparently usually drunk.

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Khrushchev had a 4th grade education. Stalin got everyone drunk to spill secrets. Nikita just happened to be the guy they usually made dance and laugh at.

Cska gfy