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The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union Hardcover – May 13, 2014

by Serhii Plokhy (Author)

4.5 657 ratings

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On Christmas Day, 1991, President George H. W. Bush addressed the nation to declare an American victory in the Cold War: earlier that day Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned as the first and last Soviet president. The enshrining of that narrative, one in which the end of the Cold War was linked to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the triumph of democratic values over communism, took center stage in American public discourse immediately after Bush's speech and has persisted for decadeswith disastrous consequences for American standing in the world.

As prize-winning historian Serhii Plokhy reveals in The Last Empire, the collapse of the Soviet Union was anything but the handiwork of the United States. On the contrary, American leaders dreaded the possibility that the Soviet Unionweakened by infighting and economic turmoilmight suddenly crumble, throwing all of Eurasia into chaos. Bush was firmly committed to supporting his ally and personal friend Gorbachev, and remained wary of nationalist or radical leaders such as recently elected Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Fearing what might happen to the large Soviet nuclear arsenal in the event of the union's collapse, Bush stood by Gorbachev as he resisted the growing independence movements in Ukraine, Moldova, and the Caucasus. Plokhy's detailed, authoritative account shows that it was only after the movement for independence of the republics had gained undeniable momentum on the eve of the Ukrainian vote for independence that fall that Bush finally abandoned Gorbachev to his fate.

Drawing on recently declassified documents and original interviews with key participants, Plokhy presents a bold new interpretation of the Soviet Union's final months and argues that the key to the Soviet collapse was the inability of the two largest Soviet republics, Russia and Ukraine, to agree on the continuing existence of a unified state. By attributing the Soviet collapse to the impact of American actions, US policy makers overrated their own capacities in toppling and rebuilding foreign regimes. Not only was the key American role in the demise of the Soviet Union a myth, but this misplaced belief has guidedand hauntedAmerican foreign policy ever since.

Review

Pittsburg Tribune-Review
Especially provocative given current affairs, this book doesn't dismiss U.S. Cold War policy's contributions but contends the USSR fell mainly because of its imperial nature, ethnic mix and political structure, with the inability of Russia and Ukraine, the biggest Soviet republics, to agree on continuing unity as the straw that broke the Soviet camel's back.”

Ukrainian Weekly
A meticulously documented chronicle of the evil empire's demise.... [Plokhy]is the voice Ukrainians have been yearning for."

Library Journal, Starred Review
Plokhy's cleanly written narrative presents a clear view of the complex events and numerous parties involved in the Soviet Union's demise as well as the reasons that the Soviet government could not ultimately rein in Ukrainian and Russian national movements. VERDICT: Plokhy's fine scholarship should be set alongside such great works as David Remnick's Lenin's Tomb and Vladislav M. Zubok's A Failed Empire. An excellent text for historians, students of current events, and anyone fascinated with political intrigue.”

Publishers Weekly
One of a rare breed: a well-balanced, unbiased book written on the fall of Soviet Union that emphasizes expert research and analysis.”

Spectator, UK
[A] superb work of scholarship, vividly written, that challenges tired old assumptions with fresh material from East and West, as well as revealing interviews with many major players.”

Sunday Times, UK
[An] incisive account of the five months leading up to the Union's dissolution His vibrant, fast-paced narrative style captures the story superbly.”

Mail on Sunday, UK
Our memories of the upheavals of 1989-91 blur into one picture, with the Soviet collapse indistinguishable from the fall of the Berlin Wall, the death of communism and the end of the Cold War. Now along comes Serhii Plohkyto bring part of that historical blur into focus in a day-by-day account of the Soviet empire's final five monthsPlohky's account of the coup is a riveting thriller”

Literary Review, UK
Almost a day-by-day, blow-by-blow account of the actions and reactions of the main figuresVery relevant to today's Ukrainian crisis...The dramatic events of the second half of 1991 are very well recounted.”

Times of London, UK
Serhii Plokhy's great achievement in this wonderfully well-written account is to show that much of the triumphalist transatlantic view of the Soviet collapse is historiographical manure.”

Winner of the 2015 Lionel Gelber Prize

Winner of the 2015 Pushkin House Russian Book Prize

Wall Street Journal
A stirring account of an extraordinary momentwhat elevates The Last Empire from solid history to the must-read shelf is its relevance to the current crisis.”

Foreign Affairs
Using recently released docu¬ments, Plokhy traces in fascinating detail the complex events that led to the Soviet Union's implosion”

Financial Times
A fine-grained, closely reported, highly readable account of the upheavals of 1991.”

Slate
Serhii Plokhy's extraordinarily well-timed new book makes a convincing case that contrary to the triumphalist American narrative of Cold War victory, or the more recent paranoid Russian narrative of Cold War defeat, the U.S. never anticipated the breakup of the Soviet Unionin fact, the U.S. tried to use what little influence it had over the situation to prevent itPlokhy makes a convincing case that the misplaced triumphalism of the senior Bush's administration led to the disastrous hubris of his son's.”

Telegraph, UK
A fascinating and readable deep dive into the final half-year of the Soviet Union.”

About the Author

Serhii Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University. A three-time recipient of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies prize and author of Yalta: The Price of Peace, Plokhy lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Print length

520 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Basic Books
Publication date

May 13, 2014
Dimensions

6.5 x 1.75 x 9.25 inches
ISBN-10

0465056962
ISBN-13

978-0465056965
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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Basic Books; 1st edition (May 13, 2014)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 520 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0465056962
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0465056965
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.7 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 1.75 x 9.25 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,223,652 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #374 in Russian & Soviet Politics
- #2,036 in European Politics Books
- #2,793 in Russian History (Books)

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4.5 657 ratings

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Serhii Plokhy

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Serhii Plokhy is the Mykhailo Hrushevsky Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard and the director of the university's Ukrainian Research Institute. The author of numerous books, including "The Last Empire," which received the Lionel Gelber Prize for the best book on international relations, and "Chernobyl," which was awarded the Baillie Gifford Prize for non-fiction, Plokhy lives in Burlington, Massachusetts.

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Peter J. Piaseckyj

a very grave difference in today's Russian-Ukrainian war

Reviewed in the United States on July 20, 2014

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Prof. Serhii Plokhy is an erudite, careful and discerning researcher of primary sources, who has written the definitive account of the implosion of the Soviet Union. I was in Kyiv on business in 1991 and was a witness to the events described in the book, but was not fully aware of the undercurrents swirling around me. I even knew some of the Ukrainian political figures.

I agree with Timothy Colton, of Harvard University, and author of "Yeltsin: A Life", where on the back jacket of the book he writes, quote... "..The Last Empire ...equally notable for its penetrating analysis of this exceptionally complex set of events. It is particularly revealing on the contradictions built into U.S. policy and on the contributions to the outcome of the many nations of the USSR, including the Ukrainians, whose pivotal role has often been neglected in previous studies."...unquote. This is because Prof. Plokhy is fluent in Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian. It is so refreshing to read an American scholar who does not have to transliterate from Russian. For example he translates the name of the Belarusian dictator from Belarusian, namely Lukashenka and the Ukrainian capital correctly from Ukrainian as Kyiv.

This book confirmed many of the activities I was witness to. The most profound and amazing was the Communist Party's legislative push in gaining Ukrainian independence.

There are, however, several topics on which I would comment. They are Crimea and the biographical information of Mikhail and Raisa (nee Titarenko) Gorbachev.

On pages 176, 280 and 281 prof. Plokhy incorrectly states that Crimea was transferred from the Russian Federation to Ukraine. What he should have said was that it was an exchange of territory, a very grave difference in today's Russian-Ukrainian war.

February 19, 1954 the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR adopted a decree "On the transfer of the Crimean Oblast from the RSFSR to the UkrSSR."

The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (UkrSSR) transferred to the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR), in exchange for Crimea its historic territories which bordered on the Smolensk, Kursk, Belgorod and Voronezh oblasts (regions). The Rostov region in 1924 was transferred to the city of Taganrog. In the transferred territories the majority of the population at that time identified themselves as Ukrainian. Ukraine also transferred to Russia the region of Shakhty in Donbas and Starodub in the Chernihiv/Sivershchyna region. It resulted in the transfer to the RSFSR of land from Ukraine equal to the area of Crimea with a Ukrainian population of over 1.2 million people.

On April 26, 1954 the Supreme Soviet under Soviet law, adopted the law "On the transfer of the Crimean Oblast from the RSFSR in the UkrSSR"

On page 11 Prof. Plokhy writes that Mikhail and Raisa (nee Titarenko) were half Russian and half Ukrainian. This is the official Communist Party line and currently supported by Wikipedia, but my information is different.

In 1991 I met and spoke with a KGB General who came from the same Kuban Cossack Village as the Horbach family. The Russian version of the surname Horbach is Gorbachev. According to him Gorbachev was Ukrainian.

Tatiana Lysenko the author of "The Price of Freedom" wrote about the Gorbachevs. She responded to my request for more information, quote..." Both ethnic Ukrainians! It was told to me by the well-known Moscow writer Nina Danhulova (deceased) who personally knew Raisa and Mikhail and came from the same area as Mikhail Gorbachev. ... Michael's grandfather - Andrey Horbach was of Ukrainian origin (Kuban Cossack).... Kuban Cossacks are ethnic Ukrainians, and it (Stavropol territory) was previously Ukrainian Kuban land ... So Michael was pure ethnic Ukrainian .... What I know about Raisa. Yes, her father Titarenko moved from Chernihiv (Ukraine) to Siberia (Altai Territory) in 1929 to build a railway ... Raisa's mother - Alexandra Parada comes from a peasant family of settlers to Siberia. The family probably also came from Ukraine. This is what I know. "...unquote.

Gail Sheehy, a contributing political editor to Vanity Magazine and the author of "The Man Who Changed the World (Gorbachev's biography)", 1990. Quote..."Gorbachev's ancestors were Ukrainian Cossacks...settling in the southernmost wilds of the territory of Stavropol...Gorbachev's great-grandparents settled in the village of Privolnoye, Stavropol. The family first came there from Ukraine in 1840's ...Gorbachev has confirmed that his maternal grandparents were also Ukrainian. Gopkalo (Hopkalo) was the family name, according to villagers. Growing up, Misha learned the Ukrainian language at home (though by official edict such a language no longer existed) and was firmly rooted by ballads and poetry in his Cossack past and the pride of his free peasant forebears. ...the neighbors told me. "They had their own farm, too. They lived over on the edge of the village, where all the Ukrainian were settled."...unquote.

I believe that for any reader seriously interested in the Imperial history of Russia/Soviet Union, Ukraine, Belarus and the foreign policy of the United States, this is a must read!

26 people found this helpful

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Michael Griswold

The Fall of the Soviet Empire

Reviewed in the United States on October 16, 2020

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Serhii Plokhy in The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union offers a very detailed narrative of the final few months of the Soviet Union. Plokhy’s narrative is one of intense conflict and sadness, which seems like an odd mix considering that the United States and the Soviet Union had been in conflict for half a century.

Mikhail Gorbachev becomes an increasingly isolated figure declining in importance as time goes by besieged on all sides. His desire to keep the Union together with himself at the head first butts up against Boris Yeltsin-who has wrapped himself in a Russified form of democratic populism and wants power for himself and assails Gorbachev for not moving far enough with reforms. Gorbachev is also besieged by hardliners who view Gorbachev as betraying the Soviet system and attempt to get rid of him.

Beyond these dramas internal to the Soviet Union, Plokhy gives voice to the considerations of various international actors including; George H.W. Bush who made every effort to support Gorbachev and his efforts to stay in power until events on the ground in the Soviet Union overtook any influence Washington could have. Of particular note are the Ukrainian independence leaders whose actions helped hasten the dissolution of the Soviet Union and in certain respects planted the seeds for the Russian-Ukrainian conflict that is ongoing today.

In reading The Last Empire, I could not help but feel like I was reading a slow motion human tragedy given what has occurred in Russia in the decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

6 people found this helpful

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history at its finest; clear, definitive, authoratative, deeply researched

Reviewed in the United States on November 3, 2015

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“The Last Empire” details historically and politically the collapse of the Soviet Union as it came about in the five months from August through December, 1991. Seghii Plokhy focuses on its four main players, Boris Yeltsin, Mikhail Gorbachev, Leonid Kravchuk and George H.W. Bush and its main parts; the attempted coup against Gorbachev in August, the negotiations and stratagems over union, federation or commonwealth status, the evolving interests of Russia, Ukraine, the Baltic states and the Central Asian countries, the all important referendum in Ukraine, the surprising Belavezha Agreement and the gradual marginalizing of Gorbachev as his influence waned. Plokhy, tho Ukrainian, is a matter-of-fact, unbiased chronicler of the timeline who deeply researched the archives of Russia, Ukraine, the United States and interviewed many of the main participants.

He notes Kravchuk’s caginess in negotiating Ukrainian independence and then having it overwhelmingly endorsed by the referendum in December. In this regard, Ukrainian leadership was the most unappreciated factor ending the Soviet Union. Yeltsin comes off as “a much more complex figure than might be suggested by the popular image of him as the grave digger of communism, killer of the Union and founder of modern Russia.” Gorbachev's portrait varies from his Western image; he finds evidence - post Belavezha Agreement - that at the end Gorbachev was rebuffed by the commander of Soviet forces in his attempt to secure military assistance in overturning the enforcement of its terms. In March, 1991, he brought the army into “the streets of Moscow to intimidate Boris Yeltsin and his supporters.” Gorbachev’s readiness to use military force is contrary to the image normally presented.

Plokhy is complimentary to Bush and James Baker, but effectively rebuts traditional American triumphalism as it being the reason for the fall of the Soviet Union. “[T] United States wrote the score for the end of the Cold War and helped to bring down communism by promoting human rights, but the end of the conflict was also in the interests of the Soviets, and the downfall of communism was largely their achievement, not the Americans.”

The writing is clear, uncomplicated, narrative and un-argumentative, wholly unlike some foreign policy tomes in the marketplace. This paperback version has an informative introduction entitled “Empire Strikes Back” describing the important events after the release of the hardback version in May 2014. The index is thorough and easy to use. Maps are less than adequate and could be better.

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Brian Dawson

Readable and very interesting

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 13, 2023

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The author of this book offers an alternative theory to the generally accepted one that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was primarily an American victory with one that the real reason was in the relationship between Russia and Ukraine and the subsequent failure to come to an agreement that would have made both independent along with the other Slavic and Muslim republics of the union (excluding the Baltic states that gained outright independence) but still part of a confederation of former Soviet republics. I found the book very readable and would recommend it to anyone with an interest of this time period.

2 people found this helpful

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Lenins Bombe

Reviewed in Germany on January 28, 2023

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V. Putin soll einmal gesagt haben, dass Lenin eine Zeitbombe hinterlassen habe und Stalin habe sie nicht entschärft.
Diese Zeitbombe war die Umwandlung des zaristischen Imperiums in eine Union sozialistischer Republiken.
Mit Perestroika und Glasnost verlor das imperiale Zentrum schrittweise seinen Griff auf die Kolonien, die jetzt nach tatsächlicher und nicht nur behauptetet Souveränität strebten.
Plohky's Buch beschreibt, teilweise taggenau, die letzten Monate des letzten Imperiums der Welt, der UdSSR.
Ich kann das Buch nur empfehlen, nicht nur weil es ein detaillierter Bericht über das Ende der UdSSR ist, sondern weil es verständlich macht, warum die russischen Eliten der Ukraine den Krieg erklärt haben.
Damit hat schon Gorbatschov gedroht, als die Ukraine 91 ihr Referendum zur Unabhängigkeit abhielt.
Gorbatschov, obwohl noch Präsident der UdSSR und Oberbefehlshaber, hatte aber nicht mehr genug macht dazu.
Interessanterweise hatten die USA unter Bush sen. so gar kein Interesse weder an der Unabhängigkeit der Ukraine, Belarus und Russland noch am Zerfall der UdSSR.

Wenn Imperien sich auflösen, folgen in der Regel weitere Konflikte. Das osmanischer Imperium und der nahe Osten; England, Indien, Pakistan; Frankreich, Vietnam, Algerien.

Der Zerfall des "letzten Imperiums" wird uns alle noch lange in Atem halten, leider.

One person found this helpful

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Arbër cami

Good history lesson

Reviewed in France on December 20, 2022

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A must read if you want to understand today's war that russia started. From the coup against Gorbachev, to the fall of the Soviet Union, to the creation of the old soviet states we know them today and also the start of the problems between Ukraine and russia. Easy to read.

One person found this helpful

Paradesi K.Yarikipati

A definitive history of disintegration and downfall of of the USSR

Reviewed in India on October 19, 2021

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It is a tragic story of how the democratic forces unleashed by Gorbachev had engulfed and vanquished him..and adefinitive history of disintegration and downfall of the USSR..a great read

One person found this helpful

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Decline of the Russian Empire

Reviewed in Canada on December 5, 2019

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Plokhy has written an excellent and much-awaited account of the decline and fall of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, aka the Soviet Union. The USSR inherited the mantle of the Russian Empire, which began with Ivan the Terrible's conquest in 1552 of the non-Russian Tatars of the Khanate of Kazan, and expanded over the centuries to include many other non-Russians and their homelands: Ukrainians, Georgians, Finns, Poles, Siberians, and many others. The new empire, created with Lenin's blessing by "Commissar of Nationalities" Joseph Stalin and called the USSR, included nearly all those non-Russian nationalities and territories. It declined rapidly under the democratizing reforms of Mikhail Gorbachev's six-year programme of "glasnost' and perestroka" -- ironically, since he intended to preserve the empire -- and finally disintegrated altogether in the last months of 1991. The author has shown, as has not been done before, that it was the non-Russians, and in particular the Ukrainians, who were key in ensuring that final disintegration and the phoenix-like re-emergence of a collection of mostly independent peoples. (Though not all: the largest emerging republic, often referred to as simply "Russia", was the "Russian Federation", which still imperialistically ruled many non-Russians such as Chechens, Daghestanis, Bashkirs, Tatars, etc., in what amounts to a smaller yet still existing empire.) But the story of the last days of the USSR is carefully-researched and well-told, and with its analysis of the crucial role of non-Russians in that development it is a must-read for anyone interested in modern history and in particular the background of presently-fraught Russian-Ukrainian-US relations.

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