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The Unfinished Revolution

“On the topic of the Russian Revolution, it might appear that everythingworth saying has already been said. Both critics and defenders of the revolution repeat again and again what was already being said and written in the 1920s. Throughout the Soviet decades leftists repeatedly cited the pronouncements of . . .” read more

The Russian Parlimentary Elections: Results and Prospects

“In the weeks after the Russian parliamentary elections of 17 December last year, the view of the results that prevailed in official and businesscircles could be summarized as follows: ‘Nothing terrible has happened, and there won’t be big changes.’ Evidence that this view was shared by the Russian . . .” read more

Russia on the Brink of New Battles

“When, in August 1991, the world heard the news of the failure of the attempted coup d’état, millions of people across the globe rejoiced at the victory of democracy in Russia. The inhabitants of the country, however, were in a rather less euphoric frame of mind. Although the . . .” read more

The Importance of Being Marxist

“I hope that the almost Wildean title of my lecture is not misleading. I intend to be totally serious. If there is a place for irony in today’s talk, then it is as one of those ‘ironies of history’ about which Isaac Deutscher wrote so prophetically. I have . . .” read more

Perestroika: The Dialectic of Change

“To Western observers, Soviet society at the end of the 1970s seemed hopelessly conservative and arguments over the ‘unreformability of Communism’ became commonplace among dissidents and the liberal intellectuals who sympathized with them. Pessimism reigned even among official experts, many of whom, on their own admissiom, ‘had fallen . . .” read more

The Intelligentsia and the Changes

“When, in the spring of 1985, the third ceremonial funeral in three years took place in Moscow, most of the intelligentsia were in a state of apathy and pessimism. This was due, not to regret for the passing of the cpsu general secretary, Konstantin Chernenko, but to . . .” read more