Vladislav Zubok

The Soviet Union and detente of the 1970s

Détente of the 1970s was a vital stage in global history of the 20th century, when the rise of Soviet communism stopped and the collapse of the Soviet bloc began. Soviet behaviour during détente was not a consistent policy, but rather an extension of Soviet conservative ideological regime under Leonid Brezhnev. Despite some windfall gains, the Soviet Union failed to capitalize on détente as it expected. Soviet overextension in the Third World and growing dependence of Soviet semi-autarchic economy on global trends prepared the ground for Soviet collapse one decade later.

Gorbachev and the End of the Cold War: Perspectives on History and Personality

The article explores the impact of Mikhail Gorbachev on the end of the Cold War and the self-destruction of the Soviet Union. It is based on a wealth of memoir literature, interviews, and primary sources, including the archival collections of the Gorbachev Foundation in Moscow. It first discusses the standard explanations of the Cold Wars end which highlight structural changes in the international system, a structural domestic crisis within the Soviet Union, and a radical shift of ideas in the Soviet leadership, showing the important anomalies they all leave unexplained. Then it analyzes Gorbachevs character, revealing what set him apart from other leaders, finally, assessing in detail how these traits influenced the ending of the Cold War. Particular attention is paid to the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany. The article concludes that many aspects of the end of the Soviet Union and the Cold War can only be understood through the Gorbachev personality factor, and that the impact of Gorbachevs personality cannot be understood until we abandon simplistic judgements.

With his back against the Wall: Gorbachev, Soviet demise, and German reunification

This article argues that Mikhail Gorbachev and his entourage conducted their policy on the German Question in the situation of the rapidly accelerating Soviet political and financial crisis. Therefore, their foreign policy can only be understood through the prism of domestic concerns and circumstances.

The Soviet Union and China in the 1980s: reconciliation and divorce

Abstract This article discusses Soviet and Chinese reforms and foreign policies in the 1980s in comparative perspective, in the light of recent archival findings. Ideological rivalry, the main driver of the Sino-Soviet tensions, disappeared and new interests of Beijing and Moscow pushed the two communist countries towards normalisation of relations. The role of geopolitics, security interests, and memories of the past played the role in the Sino-Soviet relations, but this role was secondary to the strategies of reforms and modernisation. Ultimately, the reformist aspirations in both countries pulled them towards the US-led global capitalist system, not towards each other. The article argues that key policy choices by Deng Xiaoping and Mikhail Gorbachev, which made possible China’s rise and the Soviet Union’s collapse, can be better understood in the comparative perspective.

‘Do not think I am soft …’: Leonid Brezhnev

Leonid Brezhnev stood at the helm of the Soviet Union when that country was at the peak of its power. The summits where Brezhnev negotiated with US presidents and other Western leaders were milestones of world diplomacy. Yet when Brezhnev died in November 1982 at the age of 75, there was not a comprehensive biography of the man. And so it has remained since. Simply put, Brezhnev’s personality has failed to attract historians. Russian historian Dmitry Volkogonov in his essay on Brezhnev portrayed him as the blandest and most one-dimensional of all Soviet leaders, to whom he attributed ‘the psychology of a middle-rank party bureaucrat — vainglorious, cautious, conservative personality’. A few ripples of revisionism have perturbed the quiet pond of historiography about his years: historians began to argue that ‘early’ Brezhnev was an energetic and effective leader, promoted a set of strategic policies in domestic and foreign affairs, and deserves more than a footnote in the study of Soviet leadership. Still, even though the Brezhnev years are better researched, the personality is not.1

In Memoriam Victor Zaslavsky (1937–2009)

Victor Zaslavsky was a living legend for my Moscow circle friends, young intellectuals who lived and studied in the Soviet Union in the early 1980s. He was already an émigré, teaching at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in St. Johns, Canada. One Italian journalist managed to bring to the Soviet Union his book Il Consenso Organizzato, published in 1981 in Bologna (it was later translated into English as The Neo-Stalinist State: Class, Ethnicity, and Consensus in Soviet Society). My university classmate who read it in Italian remembered years later that this book had helped him to understand the nature of…

The rise and fall of communism

Archie Brown, London, The Bodley Head, 2009, xv +720 pp British political scientist Archie Brown has accomplished a near-impossible project without getting bogged down and digressing into polemics....