A Normal Totalitarian Society: How the Soviet Union Functioned and How It Collapsed

A Normal Totalitarian Society: How the Soviet Union Functioned and How It Collapsed
ISBN-10
1315482711
ISBN-13
9781315482712
Category
Political Science
Pages
288
Language
English
Published
2017-07-05
Publisher
Routledge
Author
Vladimir Shlapentokh

Description

Shlapentokh undertakes a dispassionate analysis of the ordinary functioning of the Soviet system from Stalin's death through the Soviet collapse and Russia's first post-communist decade. Without overlooking its repressive character, he treats the USSR as a "normal" system that employed both socialist and nationalist ideologies for the purposes of technological and military modernization, preservation of empire, and expansion of its geopolitical power. Foregoing the projection of Western norms and assumptions, he seeks to achieve a clearer understanding of a civilization that has perplexed its critics and its champions alike.

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