Customer Reviews

The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire

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The focus of the book is on the imperial aims & actions of the Soviet Union, which is indeed a very large topic! Fortunately the book moves extremely quickly, taking the reader from Lenin's revolution to the end of the empire. This author has written detailed books about much of what he writes here, and doesn't feel compelled to "show off" with trivial details. He is detailed enough, however, to give a firm understanding of the events in question. As far as bias goes, I think everyone from (unaffiliated) Marxists, Maoists & Trotskyites (excluding Stalinists) to the moderate Right would not argue with the essence of Crozier's account of the Soviet domination of other nations, using Marxism as a convenient (and all too accepted) cover. If you aren't in denial of this fact, and want to know the details of the issue, you will be delighted by this book! It is clearly a lifetime achievement from an outstanding historian.

Another reviewer compared this book unfavorably to Shirer's similarly titled (and also excellent) book on the Third Reich. Having read both, I can say that Crozier manages to remain a little more detached than Shirer did, and did a far better job at telling the important story (including the essential facts) while avoiding the digressions Shirer was prone to. Still, for their relative subject matters, each is certainly unmatched in my opinion. Additionally, I don't know that either was out of line for occasionally expressing disgust when recounting the horrific deeds committed by the respective totalitarian regimes. Crozier does do much less of this, however, probably because the subject at hand is the expansion (and fall) of the empire, not the history of the Soviet Union per se.

~The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Empire~ by Brian Crozier is a solid history of the Soviet empire. Crozier gives a good backdrop to the embryonic beginnings of the empire as it takes up the mantle of Russian nation. He rightly recognizes and soundly documents the Soviet Union's concerted effort to broaden its influence and power on the world scene since its impetus. The COMINTERN was aggressive to spread communism throughout the world, and particularly focused on Spain and Italy in the early twentieth century. The totalist rivalries between communism and fascism are written with remarkable clarity. Following World War II, FDR naively sold eastern Europe into communist slavery and Stalin quickly inaugurated satellization. The resistance to communist rule in Hungary and Czechoslovakia are well documented.

Crozier does not fall into the fallacies of leftist revisionists who would be guilty of excluding events and obfuscating truth. The Soviet Union actively sponsored terrorism, and used covert violence in furtherance of its political agenda to undermine the West. Some terrorists were not orthodox Marxist-Leninists, but received ample support nonetheless, such as the Irish Republican Army in Ulster, Argentina's Montoneros. The Soviets even maintained a terrorist training school dubbed the Patrice Lumumba Friendship University to train terrorists and foment revolution in the Third World. The infamous Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, better known as Carlos the Jackal, a Venezuelan born son of a Marxist lawyer was one of their products. The Jackal spread a wave of terror throughout Europe. He was culpable for bombings in Paris, numerous murders, assassinations and the kidnapping of OPEC ministers in Vienna. This stark reality is something Marxist apologists ignore.

Leftists criticize Crozier for his introspection and "bias," but I'm apt to question their "bias" considering they ignore Soviet Stalinist atrocities, repression in eastern Europe and the Third World, as well as their state-sponsored terrorist campaigns. Crozier finds no fault with the CIA for whatever hand they may have had in Augusto Pinochet's coup to overthrow the Marxist Allende. Pinochet brought stability and prosperity to Chile, and saved it the perils of economic hardship from collectivization. American interests were served in stopping the spread of communism. Crozier poignantly chronicles the turning point of the Cold War where the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan is foiled and becomes their own Vietnamese quagmire. Thereafter, Ronald Reagan stifles the Red takeover of Grenada and then comes the period of Glasnost. The waning years of Soviet hegemony are covered with amazing clarity.

The vocal criticism volleyed against this volume is mostly by embittered lefties, American college-campus Marxists, and liberals in denial about communist crimes and the inhumane nature of the Soviet system. Crozier, a London-based historian is blunt and finds no fault with West and the United States for efforts to thrawt Soviet expansion. Ronald Reagan was right in calling the Soviet Empire an "evil empire."

"The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." -Edmund Burke

Crozier paints quite a dismal portrait of the collectivist powers that squashed all forms of dissent and pushed forward their grandiose vision for the world. This book lays out in plain view for the world to see-the anti-Communists were right. Marxists were fomenting revolution, terror, war, and all sorts of inhumane practices all through their lifespan and through their satellites and allies. Comrades and fellow travellers at home, similarly, were not the humanitarians they pride themselves on claiming to be (the right of the self-anointed, more like); instead, they were vicious thugs with no minds of their own, instead following orders barked at them by their leaders in Moscow, despite knowledge of Communism's crimes against humanity, peace, and culture; indeed, they turned their back on all this because it is the Marxist nature.
In that sense probably the best indication of this book's compelling style and content, which is backed by nigh-irrefutable evidence such as documents from the archives of Communist regimes, is that of the response it engenders from the far leftist crowd. You see, Marxism is in a most twisted sense the "intellectual" religion of modern times. People who surrender to it abandon all earthly rationality and participation in logical discourse. Instead, everything in life is placed into two categories: progressive and reactionary. "If you are not with us, you are against us." How odd, then, that these self-described nihilists should bemoan such a philosophy on the part of the free-marketers and the true democrats. This is why their best prepared and unified defense against this book is to point out that it is written by a right-winger, and that this somehow makes the book unobjective. One can only ask what they would say to a book that is similarly condemning of the Soviet system and all fellow travellers, yet written by leftists. In fact, this book (and others like it) is already written, and it is "The Black Book of Communism" (an equally, if not more so, recommended work on Communist reality).
So, in the end, anyone can go through the book and find points where they disagree with the conclusions that Crozier has drawn. Such is natural; human nature. But similarly they know that he has the facts on his side. The documentation. The statistics. The reason. This is what makes them hysterical, and it is only to their utter disgrace.

This piece deserved neither the condemnation nor the appelations it recieved from the other reviewers. As an "accesible" attack on the Soviet Union and a general ideological attack on communism, it does its job. For the common audience it is aimed for, this is probably an excellent book.

If looked at as a historical document, it fails. The piece glosses over quickly the Soviet empires run (despite its three hundred pages of inexes), and it does not seem interested in some of the more interesting questions and quagmires that a person like Pipes or Volkogonov or Conquest would immediately delve into. For a serious or rigorous mind, there are better books.

I did like the generative later discussions after the fall. Histories or quick discussions of Communist governments in the later 80's and 90's so far have gone pretty sparse. I found the quick discussions on them adequately competant enough to introduce students to the manual.

I found the comparison of the other viewers between Shirers book on the Nazis and Croziers book on the communists somewhat accurate. Both were ideological attacks for the masses. I tend to be more forgiving of ideological attacks on the Soviets than the Nazis- no one was informed of anything when Shirer painted the Nazis as hysterical monsters. But there are still people who fall for the "ooops, I did it again" theory of Soviet massacres, like it was some tea and crumpet party gone terribly wrong, but gosh mister, they meant well. Nazis are ghost stories for bad kiddies now. Communists are in a dozen governments with a "what, me worry?" look on their faces.

That having been said, I still prefer anything Pipes has ever written than Crozier. But then, I prefer anything Crozier has ever written to anything by Edward Herman.

So there ya go. Good if you're not a historian and not likely to be reading more on the subject and you need a succintly written history. Bad if you are.

Crozier's book is a near chronological summary of the key events of the Soviet Empire's rise and fall. He details the political struggles within virtually every nation targeted by Soviet and Chinese communism over the past 90 years. While the book was interesting reading, I found myself skimming over many details that I knew I would immediately forget (such as the ever-changing titles of the communist parties of each nation, and the names of the players involved). Crozier presents the facts engagingly; his heavy interjection of his own opinion being an effective instrument towards this end.

Despite the impressive scope of the book, some of its conclusions seem sparsely substantiated even amidst the mass of detail. Crozier gives his opinion with an authoritative voice and has impressive credentials that lend weight to his conclusions. But, I was often left wanting further evidence to nail these conclusions down; evidence seemingly existent, but almost as if it had been edited out to save space.

All in all, with its appendices, and summaries on the likes of Lenin, Castro, Ho Chi Minh, Che Guevara, Kim Il Sung, Tito and the entire menagerie of communist revolutionaries, Crozier's book is a good read and an especially valuable reference resource.

A sadly disappointing book. Though it is a commendable and detailed timeline of Soviet expansionist history, it holds two grave flaws:

1) The right-wing slant is a serious problem, regardless of the reader's own political viewpoint. All history is subjective to a degree, but histories written from such an extremist view -- left OR right -- simply render themselves extremely suspect. Slanted too far, histories become propaganda....ironically, one of the very concepts Crozier attacks in the USSR.

2) Reading this book, one learns a lot about what happened, but very little about why. For example, the collapse of the USSR in the late '80s seems to have....well....just happened. There is some discussion of the political forces involved, but mostly just the results, not the cause. And virtually zero on the economic forces at work. The book provides very little true insight into WHY things turned out the way they did.

Some odd oversights too. For example, the USSR's compromise over Austria and eventual withdrawal after WWII was a very curious exception to their otherwise uncompromising domination of occupied Eastern Europe. Yet this entire episode gets a few fleeting sentences and no real explanation.

I loved this book! Despite its size (830 pages!) the book is not a long read. First of all, 1/3 of the book is taken up by appendixes, notes, and the index. Secondily, the book is broken down into easily digestable chapters that covers a specific period within a geographical location (e.g. Cuba, Korea, Poland). The chapters are short and well written. Yet the whole book is fluid and is hard to put down. You will get the big picture, but you will also get interesting nuggets of information that make the book so enjoyable to read (such as the portrayal of Che Guevara or Mao Tse Tung's true thoughts on Stalin). I love reading about history but fear the dry writing that often plagues it. This is not such an account.

If you intersted in history, political science, foreign policy, or the Soviet Empire in general, this book is a must read.

The review by Amazon.com gave kudos to Mr. Crozier for his "careful documentation", and the book does in fact contain many interesting Soviet archival documents. What is not mentioned is that these documents provide little evidence to support Mr. Crozier's thesis that the Soviet Union was at the center of an expansionist and monolithic Marxist conspiracy which had world domination as its goal. More than that, they often contradict it.

Mr. Crozier's stale thesis is not what interests me, though. Suffice to say that it is really not much different than the sort of right-wing apologia that a few wackos sometimes distribute on campus. What is interesting, however, are the documents themselves. Aside from the very first one (a supposed secret speech by Stalin which is almost certainly a forgery), they could be of some use when writing research papers. The first bunch deal with the NKVD's killing of Polish POWs in 1940 and later attempts to deny it. Next are some rather mundane memos that cover annual Soviet financial aid to foreign Communist parties. The largest sum, $5 million to the Italian Communist Party, amounts to an insignificant $2.00 per party member. Much more interesting are those documents dealing with Sino-Soviet relations, including some transcripts of conversations between Stalin and Mao. How Mr. Crozier was able to conclude that China was ever a Soviet satellite from these sources is a mystery to me. Also of great value are the minutes of Politburo meetings on the topics of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, the "Prague Spring" of 1968, and the invasion of Afghanistan in 1978. These present a picture of a very cautious Soviet leadership that only turned to military force, after much hesitation, after it became clear that the local governments of these countries were losing control of events.

Mr. Crozier's methods can be summed up as follows: he claims that the sky is blue, and shows it to you. Next, he claims that water is wet, and lets you touch it. Finally he tells you that cows can fly and that the moon is made of green cheese, and expects you to believe him. The documented facts presented in this book can be found in many others, while the undocumented "facts" are worthless because they are not facts at all. I'll keep the archival stuff, but the rest of this book will be used to provide liners for the bottom of my birdcage.

This is a good, readable survey of the history of the Soviet Union from its beginning to its collapse. In addition to his narrative, the author includes appendices with page after page of document texts that are irrefutable evidence supporting his arguments. Many of these are once-secret, internal documents from the Soviets themselves which were released since the Soviet breakup. Other studies published by institutions such as Yale University support Crozier's conclusions. Unfortunately there are still persons who are blinded by misinformation and propaganda planted by the Soviets during the Cold War, and by wishful thinking, who refuse to accept the truth about Marxism's shortcomings. The United States was not always perfect, yet an objective study, which requires examination of documents such as Brian Crozier includes, along with other scholarly material now available from other sources, shows that there was not a moral equivalency between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., and that the U.S.S.R. was an evil, expansionist state from Lenin onwards.