Chernenko: The Last Bolshevik : The Soviet Union on the Eve of Perestroika

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Transaction Publishers - 308 pages
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Konstantin Ustinovich Chernenko. a fig­ure wtm appeared to the outside worid as a commonplace Russian bureaucrat cut from the mold of a Gogol short story, was elevated in 1984 to the post of general sec­retary of the Communist party of the So­viet Union. Thus, a post held by such awesome, fearsome figures as Lenin and Stalin passed into the hands of someone perceived as a nondescript bureaucrat, de­void of ideas or initiative, and crippled by old age and infirmity.

A singular merit of this work is that it shows how far from the mark were these perceptions. This is the only full-length treatment of Chernenko. in contrast to the vast tomes written on his five predecessors as well as on the present incumbent, Mkrhail Gorbachev. The work delves into archival materials never before reported in either the East or West. The picture that emerges is not of some run-of-the-mill ap­paratchik, but of a figure who in the con­text of the Brezhnev era came forth with ideas that were revolutionary, at least in the sense of a realization of the deep mal­aise into which Soviet economy and so­ciety had fallen.

Zemtsov's volume explains the paradox of a servile conservative member of th Politburo becoming an innovative, even courageous, leader during the thirteen fateful months he held Soviet power, ft is a tribute to this effort at reconstruction that what emerges is a rounded human being and not simply a political actor. This ana­lytical study of the transformation of a peasant into a politician fills out a missing link without which the current impulse to reform in the U.S.S.R. is hard to under­stand or appreciate

 

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Table des matières

Ever Ready
39
Lessons of Political Maneuvering
59
The Party Boss
79
The Struggle for Succession
113
Leader for the Meanwhile
153
The Brezhnev Era Replayed
203
The Future Can Be Known from the Past
229
Bibliography
273
Fourth of July Orations 26
26
Essays 49
49
Peace Medals 137
137
Documentary Art 146
146
Poetry 203
203
Drama 239
239
Fiction 253
253
Epilogue
309

Glossary
289
Preface 5
5
Index
321
Droits d'auteur

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Page 32 - For the Lord shall comfort Zion; he will comfort all her waste places; and he will make her wilderness like Eden, and her desert like the garden of the Lord; joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.
Page 214 - WHEN mitred Zeal, in wild, unholy days, Bared his red arm, and bade the fagot blaze, Our patriot sires the pilgrim sail unfurl'd, And Freedom pointed to a rival world. Where prowl'd the wolf, and where the hunter roved, Faith raised her altars to the God she loved...
Page 17 - Lo, the poor Indian! whose untutor'd mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; His soul, proud science never taught to stray Far as the solar walk, or milky way...
Page 53 - And the title of King, which it has been customary to attach to his name, disguises and transfigures to the view the form of a squalid savage, whose palace was a sty; whose royal robe was a bearskin or a coarse blanket, alive with vermin ; who hardly knew the luxury of an ablution ; who was often glad to appease appetite with food such as men who are not starving loathe ; and whose nature possessed just the capacity for reflection and the degree of refinement, which might be expected...
Page 288 - The gradations of society, from that state which is called refined to that which approaches as near barbarity as connexion with an intelligent people will readily allow, are to be traced from the bosom of the states, where wealth, luxury and the arts are beginning to seat themselves, to those distant, and ever-receding borders which mark the skirts, and announce the approach, of the nation, as moving mists precede the signs of day.
Page 72 - You touch the great lonely land — as one feels it still to be — only to plant upon it some ugliness about which, never dreaming of the grace of apology or contrition, you then proceed to brag with a cynicism all your own.
Page 278 - One merit the writer may at least claim: that of calling forth the passions and engaging the sympathy of the reader by means hitherto unemployed by preceding authors. Puerile superstition and exploded manners, Gothic castles and chimeras, are the materials usually employed for this end. The incidents of Indian hostility, and the perils of the Western wilderness, are far more suitable; and for a native of America to overlook these would admit of no apology.

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