The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union [Paperback]

Ronald Suny (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0804722471 | ISBN-13: 978-0804722476 | Publication Date: December 1, 1993 | Edition: 1

This timely and pathbreaking work shows how and why the dramatic collapse of the soviet Union was caused in large part by nationalism, that is, by the increasingly urgent demands of the subject nationalities of the Soviet Union for independence and autonomy.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“This is a briliant tour-de-force analysis of the history of ethnopolitics in the tsarist and Soviet empires. Students and scholars alike will welcome the succinct outline of state policies, social processes, and focal events forming the identities of groups and nations. . . . A very important and useful book . . . more durable than other recent publications dealing with the ethnic dimension of the Soviet collapse.”—Slavic Review

“Here is the book of choice if one wants a succinct treatment of nationalism past and present in the former Soviet Union.”—Foreign Affairs

From the Back Cover

“This is a briliant tour-de-force analysis of the history of ethnopolitics in the tsarist and Soviet empires. Students and scholars alike will welcome the succinct outline of state policies, social processes, and focal events forming the identities of groups and nations. . . . A very important and useful book . . . more durable than other recent publications dealing with the ethnic dimension of the Soviet collapse.”—Slavic Review
“Here is the book of choice if one wants a succinct treatment of nationalism past and present in the former Soviet Union.”—Foreign Affairs

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Stanford University Press; 1 edition (December 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804722471
• ISBN-13: 978-0804722476
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #231,700 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars USSR dug its own grave by its incubation of smaller nations, April 11, 2003

By 

Pillarist (Azerbaijan) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Paperback)

Suny stresses the development and creation of nationalism within the Soviet Union as the main cause of its collapse. This nationalism, he states, is built on common interests, imagined communities (loaned from Benedict Anderson), rituals, symbols, flags, songs, collective events and the expression of goals.

Suny describes how, especially under Lenin, the development of nationalism was encouraged the Soviet Union. It was this naïve trust in the institutionalization of previously non-existent nationalism within the Soviet Union which lead to inner conflict and desire for the new nations to break free from the Diets, from Russia's rule.

Suny points out that nationalism and nationality are not artificial by blending his moderately constructivst view on nationalism with the suggestion that nationalities might be rooted in "ethnies" (Anthony D. Smith's term). Suny also contributes war with the strengthening of the nation.

In the book he describes clearly the reasons to why regions in the Soviet Union became independent nations and why this process occured on different terms in these different areas. The nations he pedagogically discusses are Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In part the author contributes the short-sightedness of the Russian policy of building nations to the failure of Marxists in the 19th and early 20th century to realize the importance of nationalism.

Ethnicity and class were not obliterated in the Soviet Union and it remained an empire open mostly for Russians and Slavs. In Caucasus the local peoples were constantly kicked around by the Soviet Union and surrounding empires. In Azerbaijanis' capital, Baku, the Azerbaijan's were marginalized by the influx of skilled-workers (mostly from Northern lands).

Eventually due to Stalin's strangle-hold; the following "thaw" under Chruschev, Breshnev, Chernko; due to Gorbachev's bumbling and the intiative of Russian satellite states; the aforementioned nine nations broke free from the retarding Russian rule and became independent nations.

This book provides an interesting perspective on the development of nations and nationlism and their seeming inevitability in a world ruled by such things such as democracy, capitalism, class and race. Suny has written this book in an orderly fashion and covered in detail the specific nations and the struggles within. However, this book is lacking many details in the effort to depict the downfall of the Soviet Union from a somewhat tenuous perspective that favors political ideology and momentum of specific classes as the sole firebrands of revolution.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for reference book for term paper, December 28, 2010

By 

Zero's mom - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union (Paperback)

I bought this book for my son's term paper and he found it chock full of information for his project. Plus it was a great read for the rest of the family.