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Decolonization, Democratization, and Communist Reform: The Soviet Collapse in Comparative Perspective

Decolonization, Democratization, and Communist Reform: The Soviet Collapse in Comparative... robert strayer SUNY College at Brockport the the country that T he collapseit,ofhastheSoviet experiment, and ofdramatictwentieth embodied surely been among the most and consequential events of postwar world, and indeed of the century. But how might this event, and the processes leading to it, be placed most effectively in a world historical context? How should world historians, as opposed to Russian or Soviet historians, treat the passing of the Soviet Union into history? One response might be to focus on the external roots of the Soviet collapse. The negative comparison with an economically flourishing capitalist world; the delegitimizing impact of an increasingly dominant ethno-nationalist discourse on a multinational polity; the pressure of Western containment policies and Cold War expenditures; the declining price of oil on the world market in the 1980s; the corrosive consequences of the Afghan debacle; the stimulus of a successful Chinese reform program; the demonstration effect of the 1989 Eastern European revolutions--all of this and more testify to the "embeddedness" of the Soviet Union in a network of international linkages, many of which exacerbated the declining domestic sources of Soviet cohesion and vitality. Alternatively, world historians might highlight the global outcomes or the global significance http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Journal of World History University of Hawai'I Press

Decolonization, Democratization, and Communist Reform: The Soviet Collapse in Comparative Perspective

Strayer, Robert W.
Journal of World History , Volume 12 (2) – Oct 1, 2001
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Publisher
University of Hawai'I Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2001 by University of Hawai'i Press.
ISSN
1527-8050
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Abstract

robert strayer SUNY College at Brockport the the country that T he collapseit,ofhastheSoviet experiment, and ofdramatictwentieth embodied surely been among the most and consequential events of postwar world, and indeed of the century. But how might this event, and the processes leading to it, be placed most effectively in a world historical context? How should world historians, as opposed to Russian or Soviet historians, treat the passing of the Soviet Union into history? One response might be to focus on the external roots of the Soviet collapse. The negative comparison with an economically flourishing capitalist world; the delegitimizing impact of an increasingly dominant ethno-nationalist discourse on a multinational polity; the pressure of Western containment policies and Cold War expenditures; the declining price of oil on the world market in the 1980s; the corrosive consequences of the Afghan debacle; the stimulus of a successful Chinese reform program; the demonstration effect of the 1989 Eastern European revolutions--all of this and more testify to the "embeddedness" of the Soviet Union in a network of international linkages, many of which exacerbated the declining domestic sources of Soviet cohesion and vitality. Alternatively, world historians might highlight the global outcomes or the global significance

Journal

Journal of World History – University of Hawai'I Press

Published: Oct 1, 2001

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