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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... Decolonization, Democratization, and Communist Reform: The Soviet Collapse in Comparative Perspective robert strayer SUN Y College at Brockport he collapse of the Soviet experiment, and of the country that T embodied it, has surely been among the most dramatic and con- sequential events of the postwar world, and indeed of the twentieth 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 domi- nant ethno-nationalist discourse on a multinational polity; the pres- sure 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 Chi- nese reform program; the demonstration effect of the 1989 Eastern European revolutions — all of this and more testify to the “embedded- ness” of the Soviet Union in a network of international linkages, 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 University of Hawai'i Press.
ISSN
1527-8050

Abstract

Decolonization, Democratization, and Communist Reform: The Soviet Collapse in Comparative Perspective robert strayer SUN Y College at Brockport he collapse of the Soviet experiment, and of the country that T embodied it, has surely been among the most dramatic and con- sequential events of the postwar world, and indeed of the twentieth 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 domi- nant ethno-nationalist discourse on a multinational polity; the pres- sure 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 Chi- nese reform program; the demonstration effect of the 1989 Eastern European revolutions — all of this and more testify to the “embedded- ness” of the Soviet Union in a network of international linkages,

Journal

Journal of World History – University of Hawai'I Press

Published: Oct 1, 2001

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