The Nature Of Soviet Power

This in-depth exploration of five industries in the Kola Peninsula examines Soviet power and its interaction with the natural world

This in-depth exploration of five industries in the Kola Peninsula examines Soviet power and its interaction with the natural world.

Drawing upon extensive archival and other original sources, Soviet Power and the Countryside offers a new approach to understanding the political dynamics that led to the collapse of the Soviet order. A detailed analysis of the design, implementation and collapse of Soviet policy toward the countryside is used to explore the implications of a broadening of participation in the policy process from the 1960s. Neil J. Melvin argues that the new knowledge about rural society created as a result of this process provided the basis for a fundamental change in the nature of power relations in the Soviet order, leading to the decay and eventual collapse of policy making institutions.

This book investigates the energy resources of the Soviet Union and how they are being utilized for increased industrial production.

The closed nature of the Soviet Union, combined with the West’s intellectual paradigm of Communist totalitarianism prior to the 1970s, have led to a one-dimensional view of Soviet history, both in Russia and the West. The opening of former Soviet archives allows historians to explore a broad array of critical issues at the local level. Provincial Landscapes is the first publication to begin filling this enormous gap in scholarship on the Soviet Union, pointing the way to additional work that will certainly force major reevaluations of the nation’s history. Focusing on the years between the Revolution and Stalin’s death, the contributors to this volume address a variety of topics, including how political events and social engineering played themselves out at the local level; the construction of Bolshevik identities, including class, gender, ethnicity, and place; the Soviet cultural project; and the hybridization of Soviet cultural forms. In showing how the local is related to the larger society, the essays decenter standard narratives of Soviet history, enrich the understanding of major events and turning points in that history, and provide a context for the highly visible socio-political and cultural role individual Russian provinces began to play after the breakup of the Soviet Union.

The purpose of this book is not to assert that there are limits to Soviet power but, through an examination of selected aspects of Soviet foreign and domestic policy, to understand what limits there are and to assess their significance and severity. The authors have assumed that the vast size of the Soviets' nuclear arsenal and considerable energy reserves, and that their vigorous and communicative new leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, their record of forceful interventions in Eastern Europe, Afghanistan, and Africa, and other indicators of ability to exert influence and control in world affairs were recognizable to most Americans.

Efter afslutningen af 2. Verdenskrig begyndte Den Kolde Krig, hvor magtbalancen mellem vest og øst blev en vigtig del af USA's og USSR's udenrigs- og sikkerhedspolitik.