The political collapse of the Soviet Union has been much better documented than the course of its economic and social disintegration. To get an inside account, Ellman and Kontorovich questioned former top Soviet officials and economic and other policy advisors (both Soviet and foreign) who were privy not only to the data but also to the internal policy debate during the 1980s. They have woven their informants' analyses of key issues and turning points into a compelling history of systemic collapse. Among the topics covered are: economic performance in the 1980s; the standard of living; the reliability of Soviet statistics; Gosplan's projections for the economy to the year 2000; the arms race as a drain on the civilian economy; the role of ideology and the party's role in the functioning of the economic system; the struggle over a transition program; the influence of foreign advisors; and the functioning and collapse of the supply system, the CMEA, and the foreign trade system. Professor Ellman is the recipient of the 1998 Kondratieff gold medal for his contribution to the development of the social sciences.

The inside story of the political collpase of the Soviet Union is far better understood than the course of economic and social disintegration. In order to capture the story, the editors compiled a list of questions which they addressed to former top Soviet officials and economic and other policy advisors (both Soviet and foreign) who were privy not only to data on the functioning of the Soviet economy but also to the internal policy debate during the 1980s. This volume assembles the Informants' analyses of key issues and the turning points, and weaves them into a compelling history of systemic collapse. Among the topics investigated are: economic policies in the 1980s; the standard of living: the reliability of Soviet statistics; Gosplan's projections for the economy to the year 2000; was the arms race starving the civilian economy? the role of ideology in supporting the functioning of an economic system; the party's participating in economic management; the influence of foreign advisors; the struggle over a transition program; the functioning and collapse of the supply system, the CMEA, and the foreign trade system.

The Soviet Union Under Brezhnev provides an accessible post-Soviet perspective on the history of the USSR from the mid-1960’s to the mid-1980’s. It challenges both the ‘evil empire’ image of the USSR that was widespread in the early 1980’s and the ‘stagnation’ label attached to the period by Soviet reformers under Gorbachev. The book makes use of a range of memoirs, interviews, archival documents and other sources not available before 1990 to place Brezhnev and his epoch in a broader historical context. The author: examines high politics, foreign policy and policy making explores broader social, cultural and demographic trends presents a picture of Soviet society in the crucial decades prior to the upheavals and crises of the late 1980’s While stopping well short of a full-scale rehabilitation of Brezhnev, Tompson rejects the prevailing image of the Soviet leader as a colourless non-entity, drawing attention to Brezhnev’s real political skills, as well as his faults, and to the systemic roots of many of the problems he faced.

This study analyzes the ordinary functioning of the Soviet system from Stalin's death through the Soviet collapse and Russia's first post-Soviet decade. Without overlooking the USSR's repressive character, the author treats it as a "normal" system that employed socialist and nationalist ideologies.

This book covers a wide variety of aspects of transition in Central and Southeast Europe and the CIS, including the socialist legacy, privatization and growth, skills, and banking reforms. It also covers the evolution of the global economy beyond transition, looking at complexity, risk management, the optimal transition path, and globalization.

In 1948, philosopher Richard Weaver argued that ideas have consequences. This book explores three diverse consequences flowing from one ideacommunism. In Soviet Russia, the idea became dogma, a type of secular religion. The Soviet Secular Religion skewed all the efforts of central planners in a pre-determined direction, with debilitating effects, from the reign of Lenin to Stalin and Brezhnev. SSR empowered Mikhail Gorbachev in his attempts at reform, even while it constrained those efforts, and blinded him to the unfolding collapse of the system. Formed soon after the Bolshevik Revolution, the Communist Party of India had its own theoreticians and leaders, and a diversity of opinions. But their reliance on Moscow's authority to maintain consensus meant for them dependence; in short, the CPI became a pawn of the Kremlin. Russian interests often conflicted with those of South Asia, confounding the CPI's chances for success. Moreover, the People's Republic of China promoted competing ideas, and the Moscow/Peking split prompted a mirroring, and fatal, schism within the CPI. In the United States, anti-communism fueled Containment, the Cold War paradigm. The most dangerous aspect of this conflict of ideas, a threat that was truly existential, was always 'The Bomb' (or rather, tens of thousands of them). American nuclear policy may be divided into three eras. In the 1940s and 50s, anti-communist ideology dominated political discourse, and the U.S. sought a preponderance in arms. Around 1960, rationality became the vogue, ushering in the era of Detente. Finally, ideology returned with the election of 1980, shaping policies that helped end the long confrontation of ideas. Where Soviet dogma obsessed over production, the American Ideology is engrossed with consumption. The book's afterword argues that American economic planners are unconsciously biased, in a manner similar if antipodal to that of Soviet economists. Something like a Gorbachev moment, where skewed indicators show progress even as the system collapses, is not impossible for the United States.

In this penetrating analysis of the role of political leadership in the Cold War's ending, Archie Brown shows why the popular view that Western economic and military strength left the Soviet Union with no alternative but to admit defeat is wrong. To understand the significance of the parts played by Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in East-West relations in the second half of the 1980s, Brown addresses several specific questions: What were the values and assumptions of these leaders, and how did their perceptions evolve? What were the major influences on them? To what extent were they reflecting the views of their own political establishment or challenging them? How important for ending the East-West standoff were their interrelations? Would any of the realistically alternative leaders of their countries at that time have pursued approximately the same policies? The Cold War got colder in the early 1980s and the relationship between the two military superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union, each of whom had the capacity to annihilate the other, was tense. By the end of the decade, East-West relations had been utterly transformed, with most of the dividing lines - including the division of Europe - removed. Engagement between Gorbachev and Reagan was a crucial part of that process of change. More surprising was Thatcher's role. Regarded by Reagan as his ideological and political soulmate, she formed also a strong and supportive relationship with Gorbachev (beginning three months before he came to power). Promoting Gorbachev in Washington as 'a man to do business with', she became, in the words of her foreign policy adviser Sir Percy Cradock, 'an agent of influence in both directions'.

China has become deeply integrated into the world economy. Yet, gradual marketization has facilitated the country’s rise without leading to its wholesale assimilation to global neoliberalism. This book uncovers the fierce contest about economic reforms that shaped China’s path. In the first post-Mao decade, China’s reformers were sharply divided. They agreed that China had to reform its economic system and move toward more marketization—but struggled over how to go about it. Should China destroy the core of the socialist system through shock therapy, or should it use the institutions of the planned economy as market creators? With hindsight, the historical record proves the high stakes behind the question: China embarked on an economic expansion commonly described as unprecedented in scope and pace, whereas Russia’s economy collapsed under shock therapy. Based on extensive research, including interviews with key Chinese and international participants and World Bank officials as well as insights gleaned from unpublished documents, the book charts the debate that ultimately enabled China to follow a path to gradual reindustrialization. Beyond shedding light on the crossroads of the 1980s, it reveals the intellectual foundations of state-market relations in reform-era China through a longue durée lens. Overall, the book delivers an original perspective on China’s economic model and its continuing contestations from within and from without.

Priests of Prosperity explores the unsung revolutionary campaign to transform postcommunist central banks from command-economy cash cows into Western-style monetary guardians. Juliet Johnson conducted more than 160 interviews in seventeen countries with central bankers, international assistance providers, policymakers, and private-sector finance professionals over the course of fifteen years. She argues that a powerful transnational central banking community concentrated in Western Europe and North America integrated postcommunist central bankers into its network, shaped their ideas about the role of central banks, and helped them develop modern tools of central banking. Johnson’s detailed comparative studies of central bank development in Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Russia, and Kyrgyzstan take readers from the birth of the campaign in the late 1980s to the challenges faced by central bankers after the global financial crisis. As the comfortable certainties of the past collapse around them, today’s central bankers in the postcommunist world and beyond find themselves torn between allegiance to their transnational community and its principles on the one hand and their increasingly complex and politicized national roles on the other. Priests of Prosperity will appeal to a diverse audience of scholars in political science, finance, economics, geography, and sociology as well as to central bankers and other policymakers interested in the future of international finance, global governance, and economic development.

Leonid Brezhnev was leader of the Soviet Union for almost two decades when it was at the height of its powers. This book is a long overdue reappraisal of Brezhnev the man and the system over which he ruled. By incorporating much of the new material available in Russian, it challenges the received wisdom about the Brezhnev years, and provides a fascinating insight into the life and times of one of the twentieth century's most neglected political leaders.