How could Gorbachev and his advisers have misjudged the condition of the
Soviet Unionat the end of the 1980s? How unrealistic was their sense of
what the Soviet bloc represented at that time? How did the leaders of
the Soviet state perceive the problem of the nationalities in the USSR
and their relations with their East European allies? Russia, Ukraine,
and the Breakup of the Soviet Union offers an insightful new
perspective on these and other questions surrounding the decline and
fall of the Soviet system.
This book chronicles the final two decades in the history of the Soviet
Union and presents a story that is often lost in the standard
interpretations of the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe and the
USSR. Although there were numerous reasons for the collapse of
communism, it did not happen--as it may have seemed to some--overnight.
Indeed, says Roman Szporluk, the root causes go back even earlier than
1917. To understand why the USSR broke up the way it did, it is
necessary to understand the relationship between the two most important
nations of the USSR--Russia and Ukraine--during the Soviet period and
before, as well as the parallel but interrelated processes of nation
formation in both states. Szporluk details a number of often-overlooked
factors leading to the USSR's fall: how the processes of Russian
identity formation were not completed by the time of the communist
takeover in 1917, the unification of Ukraine in 1939-1945, and the
Soviet period failing to find a resolution of the question of
Russian-Ukrainian relations. The present-day conflict in the Caucasus,
he asserts, is a sign that the problems of Russian identity remain.
Without claiming that the collapse of communism or the breakup of the
Soviet Union was caused by any one factor, Russia, Ukraine, and the
Breakup of the Soviet Union makes an insightful and original
contribution to the discussion surrounding one of the most significant
political events of the twentieth century.
