The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union by Serhii Plokhy

The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union Reviews

• 
  Patrick Blackburn

  Simply put, this is a stunning book. It's not every day an author is able to rewrite history, and do so credibly. When I read, on the inside cover, the following sentence: "...the collapse of the Soviet Union was anything but the handiwork of the United States," I feared that it was going to attempt to diminish the role the U.S. played. On the contrary. I have read about 20 books on the subject and this is one of the best accounts of US-Russia relations from 1980-present (Hoffman's "The Dead Hand" is another). After reading "The Last Empire," I have a greater appreciation of the actions George Bush (HW) took (and accomplished) during this time. The significant impact of Secretary of State George Schultz was revealing as well.
  
  Plokhy takes you right into private meetings all over the world during a six-month period in 1991. From the unbelievably tense meetings between Yeltsin and Gorbachev, to meetings by leaders of former Soviet states (namely Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and Belarus) about the nature of the role they will play in this new world, there is no shortage of intrigue in "The Last Empire".
  
  This book is not only for those who are interested in the end of the Cold War and the breakup of the Soviet Union. The timing, with what is currently happening in that part of the world this book, is perfect. The author is an expert on Ukranian affairs (he is director of the Ukranian Research Institute at Harvard University) and spends a lot of time discussing Ukraine's (significant) role in the breakup of the Soviet Union. He even spends time on Crimea, which makes this book as relevant today as it was 25 years ago, if not more so. After reading "The Last Empire," I feel like I have a much better understanding of what (Putin's) Russia is trying to do (which doesn't make it any less disturbing). Whether you are interested in 1991 Russia, 2014 Russia, or both, "The Last Empire" absolutely must be added to your library. You won't be sorry.
• 
  Micah Cummins

  Serhii Plokhy’s 2014 book, The Last Empire, examines in fine detail the collapse of the Soviet Union. Plokhy, the Director of the Ukrainian Research Institute, and Professor of Ukrainian History at Harvard University is a Ukrainian American historian who has written extensively on the subjects of Ukrainian, Russian, and Soviet history. Plokhy places himself along with others in his field who, “...argue that while the lost arms race, economic decline, democratic resurgence, and bankruptcy of communist ideals all contributed to the Soviet implosion, they did not predetermine the disintegration of the Soviet Union. That was caused by the imperial foundations, multiethnic composition, and pseudo federal structure of the Soviet state, features whose importance was fully recognized neither by American policymakers in Washington nor by Gorbachev’s advisers in Moscow.”
  
  The Last Empire focuses on the last months of the Soviet Union, late July to December 1991. The Soviet Union, or the USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), was a country in Eastern Europe which was made up of fifteen republics. Formed in 1922 in the wake of the Russian Bolshevik revolution, the city of Moscow served as the USSR’s capital until the Soviet Union was dissolved in December of 1991.
  
  In The Last Empire, Plokhy dives straight into the subject in an authoritative manner, challenging a common western ideology of “the triumphalist interpretation of the Soviet collapse as an American victory in the Cold War.” Instead, Plokhy argues that the fall of the Soviet Empire was destined from the beginning, and indeed toppled from the inside. Using recently declassified documents, Plokhy relies heavily on letters, diaries, and phone records to fully immerse his reader into the drama of the subject.
  
  We follow Mikhail Gorbachev, the President of the Soviet Union, as he struggles to keep the USSR from crumbling through his fingers. We are witness to two United States Presidents, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush, as they both work through their own negotiations and policy deals with Gorbachev and the Soviet Union. Many other prominent names grace the pages of the drama as well. The President of Russia, Boris Yeltsin, the sworn enemy of Gorbachev, and the first democratically elected President of Russia, features as a key player as the drama unfolds. We are also given front-row seats to Ukraine’s long-lasting struggle down the path to Soviet, and Russian, independence. Leonid Kravchuk, the first president of Ukraine, plays a large part in the narrative of The Last Empire as he, and many other native Ukrainians, fought with the Soviet Union and tried to win the favor of the West.
  
  The relationship between President Gorbachev and President Bush is given much attention, illuminating how both were forced between personal ideologies and their countries, and how far they were willing to go for what they believed in. The Yeltsin-Gorbachev conflict also provides another layer of drama to the story, as do their interactions with other Soviet and Western leaders.
  
  The Last Empire as a whole is a comprehensive and well-presented book. Plokhy chose to include much of the true dialogue that was passed between members of the key figures of the story, giving the reader an even more detailed and intimate look into the interpersonal and political lives of the most powerful leaders of the late twentieth century. The Last Empire is at once both detailed, and accessible, making it a must-read for anyone looking to deepen their knowledge or simply learn about the subject for the first time.
• 
  Shabbeer Hassan

  A rather well-written account on the last days of the Soviet Union, its relationship with US during those waning days of Cold War with a rather special focus on the machinations of Bush-Gorbachev-Yeltsin triumvirate. Much has been written about the collapse of Soviet Union (SU) and all too frequently, US ingenuity coupled with SU's ineptitude has been touted as one of the main reasons for the end of Cold War. This suited both US (bolstering its superpower status, Bush Sr.'s political career) and Russia (improving relations with US leading to better financial deals and more importantly, rise of jingoistic nationalism and the political fortunes of those depended on it)
  
  Serhii Plokhy brings a fresh perspective into this by doing away with the above erroneous assumption and rather puts the spotlight on Gorbachev's out of touch idealism, Yeltsin's hunger for power and enmity towards Gorbachev, political ambitions of Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk as the main causes. Historically, as seen from Bush Sr.'s personal diaries, correspondences, and other recently declassified files, the role of US in the demise of SU was quite minimal. As long as treaties were signed regarding diplomatic, arms-control agreements and concessions, the US was more than happy with the outcome. Though the book also rightfully gives its due to Bush Sr. and James Baker's diplomacy in the earlier stages of the dissolution talks with Gorbachev.
  
  It's an interesting book for many reasons as stated above but also chiefly for bringing a fresh pair of eyes on an old, tired historical narrative transforming it into a rather an important primer for understanding Putin's current political manoeuvres.
  
  My Rating - 5/5
• 
  Mike

  
  “It wasn’t quite the fourth of July.”- John Stepanchuk, acting US consul in Kiev.
  
  Plokhy’s stated goal here is to dispute the narrative, which according to him is generally accepted in the west, that the United States ‘won’ the Cold War, arguing that the primary causes were internal to the Soviet Union- the crumbling economy, Gorbachev’s democratic reforms, the hatred that existed between Gorbachev and Yeltsin, etc. Whether or not the ‘triumphal’ narrative is particularly strong, or particularly widely believed, an attempt at clarification is generally a good thing.
  
  The irony of the aforementioned narrative, according to Plokhy, is that George H.W. Bush and most of those in his administration (with the exception, perhaps ominously, of Dick Cheney) were not unreservedly enthusiastic about the prospect of the Union’s collapse, one seemingly reasonable reason for this being the question of nuclear disarmament; there was also a general sense of hesitancy and caution about what would follow that collapse. Bush seems to have exercised this caution despite domestic pressure, for example from the Ukrainian diaspora in America (apparently large enough to be electorally significant), to act, to push Gorbachev to recognize Ukrainian independence. Plokhy, who is Ukrainian, refers in passing to H.W. Bush’s “Chicken Kiev” speech, in which he hedged on the issue of Ukrainian independence, as a “gaffe”- I’m not sure that it was, and I’m not sure that Plokhy’s book really supports the idea that it was, either.
  
  The book is notable for its focus on Ukraine and the Ukrainian independence movement. One thing that jumped out at me immediately is the way in which the current problems in Ukraine seem to have been foreshadowed. Yeltsin, upon the Union’s having more or less ceded central power to Russia, warned that “if any republic breaks off Union relations with Russia, then Russia has the right to raise the question of territorial claims.” When Yeltsin’s press secretary was asked to be more specific about which republics Yeltsin was addressing, the secretary mentioned parts of northern Kazakhstan, Abkhazia in Georgia, and the Crimea and Donbass in Ukraine. Yeltsin continued to threaten Ukraine with partitioning until the Ukrainian referendum, the result of which, according to Plokhy, was 90.32% in favor of independence (David Remnick wrote that it was “a few votes shy of 90 percent”). In the Lugansk and Donetsk oblasts, now disputed territories, the results were 83% and 77%, in favor of independence. Even in Crimea, “more than 54% voted in favor.” Of course, this is not evidence that the ‘referendums’ that have been held in those areas during the past couple of years are illegitimate, even though they are. The Russian 'ark', as Plokhy says, was leaving the harbor, economically speaking, and one gets the sense that many Ukrainians, even in the east, saw their neighbor as a dead weight; but my (anecdotal, second-hand) understanding is that life in the 90s for the average Ukrainian was not any easier than for the average Russian, financially speaking.
  
  The US seemed to influence events inadvertently. Bush, for example, threatened to withhold economic assistance from the Union, economic assistance that the Union needed, if Gorbachev sent Soviet troops to crush resistance movements in the Baltics. When the central government displayed a disinclination to use force, the Baltics knew they could break away. It seems that the Bush administration understood that things could happen that way. But one of the points that Plokhy makes quite clear is that it wasn’t necessarily an advantage for the United States to have to deal with a splintering superpower, a potential “Yugoslavia with nukes.” Better, really, to deal with a relative moderate rendered somewhat complaisant, who could still maintain a level of control over the whole.
  
  There are a number of passages about Gorbachev ‘losing’ his struggle for power and relevancy with Yeltsin, and the indignities that Yeltsin later subjected Gorbachev to, that take on the tone of Greek tragedy. At one point Plokhy writes that “…he changed the world and his country for the better by his actions but failed to change himself.” I’m not really sure what that last part means, but Plokhy also summarizes Gorbachev’s achievements: “the end of the Cold War, the dismantling of the totalitarian system, the democratization of Soviet politics, and the opening of the country to the world.” Not damn bad, I would say.
  
  The writing in this book is kind of dry, and the dryness includes the occasional ‘hooks’ that seem out of place in a history book. One chapter, for example, begins with the sentence ‘He knew he was being followed.’ There are some grammar mistakes, and Plokhy repeatedly confuses the words ‘former’ and ‘latter.’ Plokhy is Ukrainian, and I found myself wondering throughout the book whether or not it was translated; there is no indication on the cover or the title page that it is. Then, in the acknowledgments section, I noticed that he thanks an editor for “Englishing” his prose. Grammar mistakes from a non-native speaker are entirely understandable, but it makes it seem like the book hasn’t been edited very thoroughly, and that perhaps it was rushed to publication in order to capitalize on the fact that Russia is back in the news. There is also a kind of awkward coda where Plokhy circles back to discrediting the narrative of American triumphalism, forgotten for hundreds of pages, and criticizing H.W. Bush for employing rhetoric to that effect as he began his re-election campaign in 1992. I think it’s kind of difficult to condemn Bush for simply taking rhetorical advantage of the situation (Bush allegedly even told Gorbachev, in private, “not to pay any attention to what he would say during the presidential campaign”), never mind that he lost the election anyway. Plokhy then links this triumphal narrative to a growing false sense that America needed to provide ‘moral clarity’ in and police other parts of the world, and therefore, to Bush II’s disastrous invasion of Iraq. That seems like a bit of a stretch to me.
  
  Of course, there is always this song by Kino, “Changes”, which according to a member of the Russian Duma was written by the CIA to encourage dissatisfaction among the people:
  
  
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5xQf...
  
• 
  Jerome Otte

  A clear, well-researched, and well-written history of the fall of the Soviet Union. While the idea that the US caused the Soviet Union’s collapse has been discredited, this myth has suited both the Americans (who have used it for political gain) and the Russians (who have used it to dodge blame and accusations of incompetence) Despite these, Plokhy stresses the role played by pure chance.
  
  In a lively, readable narrative Plokhy covers all of the private negotiations within the Soviet government and between the leaders of the foreign states. He also emphasizes the often-forgotten desire of President Bush (both a an ally and personal friend of Gorbachev) and US policymakers to prevent a Soviet collapse, a prospect they compared to a “Yugoslavia with nukes.” Plokhy covers Gorbachev’s policies and how they led to the Soviet Union’s ultimate breakup, all the while stressing the contingency of events and especially the interaction between Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and the opportunistic Ukrainian president Leonid Kravchuk. Plokhy discusses how Kravchuk’s decision to declare Ukraine’s independence led Yeltsin to do the same, and how the the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union led to the collapse of Gorbachev’s political career. Plokhy’s rendition of the August coup is particularly dramatic. Gorbachev comes off as idealistic and out of touch, Yeltsin as boorish and erratic.
  
  Plokhy credits the efforts of these republics with the Soviet Union’s collapse, and convincingly argues that the US was a bit player. Again, although frequently overlooked, US policy was to preserve the USSR’s integrity, since the US viewed Gorbachev as an ally and because of fears that a breakup could result in a regional war, and potentially a nuclear one. There was concern that a breakup could damage the nuclear agreements between the US and the USSR, and the immediate goal of the US was to extract as many Soviet diplomatic and arms-control concessions as possible before the Soviet Union collapsed. The ultimate breakup of the Soviet Union was not the result of US foreign policy, and Plokhy covers the often overlooked effect that Soviet electoral politics, the Gorbachev-Yeltsin rivalry, and Russian-Ukrainian relations had on the USSR’s fate. The Russians valued their alliance with the US since it gave them legitimacy. While not able to exercise much influence over events, Plokhy argues that the diplomacy of Bush and Baker was sensible and realistic. “In the final analysis,” Plokhy concludes, “George Bush’s policies contributed to the fall of the Soviet Union, but they often did so irrespective of the desires of his administration, or even contrary to them.”
  
  A few parts are a bit plodding and tedious, but Plokhy succeeds in telling a nuanced, insightful and human story.
• 
  Wick Welker

  A republic dissolves with a bang and a whimper.
  
  I am not knowledgeable about the fall of USSR or even the creation of USSR and want to be and that's why I did this audiobook. I found this to be very detailed (too much for what I was interested in) going into such lengths as to very specific phone calls between Bush and Yeltsin and Gorbachev ect. Now that's my fault, not the author's fault. I did get from this book what I wanted but it took a while. You'll learn everything about why the fall happened and everything that lead up to it including the Ukraine's involvement with the collapse of the USSR and its impact of the wounded psyche of Russia are still ongoing today. Anyway, I wish I were smarter and more informed to write a better review for this excellent work.
• 
  Richard

  This details the undoing of the Soviet Union, basically between July and December, 1991, in very clear and readable prose. I came to this book because, despite its being one of the great historic moments of the twentieth century (at least), I knew next to nothing about it or its major players.
  
  Gorbachev who had ended the Cold War in 1989 had unloosed the democratic demon, leading to elected parliaments in the republics that formed the Soviet Union. While he tried to maintain the central role of the Union and his own presidency, Yeltsin in Russia, and the Ukrainian and Belarus leaders, chosen by those freely elected parliaments, moved toward independence for their republics. In August, hard-liners had attempted to turn back the democratic movements and to re-establish Union control at the center, isolating Gorbachev, but, due in large part to Yeltsin, they failed.
  
  The US concerned itself with the nuclear issue as weaponry was placed in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan; in order to avoid upsetting the status quo, the Bush (41) administration attempted to keep Gorbachev and the USSR in existence and succeeded longer than they might have otherwise.
  
  The Union was undone on 8 Dec 1991 when Russia, Ukraine, and Belarus opted for independence, later signing with the Islamic republics--all of them save the Baltics who had been given their independence from the USSR earlier and Georgia (which sent a representative) were signatories, and the Union was done. Gorbachev would give his resignation speech on 25 December and was treated shabbily by Yeltsin in the aftermath. The book offers much more in the way of specifics, interplay, and evolution of the stance of the republics.
  
  Plokhy rejects the US claim of "victory" as campaign rhetoric introduced by Bush in his comments after Gorbachev's resignation. The pope is never mentioned as an influence.
  
  What was/is very interesting is the role of Ukraine and its first president, Leonid Kravchuk. There was fear that the various republics would see ethnic strife as the Union lost power, and Ukraine has a large ethnic Russian population, but they voted in a majority for independence. Russia could not do without Ukraine, but Kravchuk was every bit Yeltsin's match, managing to get his way on a variety of issues. Reading this, however, one can understand Putin's desire to regain Russia's dominance in Ukraine but also in the other republics, perhaps recreating a Russian union in the image of the Czarist and Communist empires. A turn to the West, as Ukraine has done, can only be viewed from the Kremlin as intolerable.
  
  Besides Kravchuk, Secretary of State James Baker comes off very well.
• 
  Matt

  The Last Empire, by Serhii Plokhy, is a comprehensive and detailed account of the last few months of the Soviet Union. It starts with the August Coup and ends with Gorbachev's resignation in December. The book focuses on the Bush, Kravchuk, Gorbachev, and Yeltsin perspectives.
  
  This is a must read for those studying Soviet/Russian history and is an excellent start to studying both the fall of the USSR and Gorbachev's reign.
• 
  Suzannah

  December 1991. Russian president Boris Yeltsin goes to Belarus to help save the Soviet Union, where he is greeted warmly by the Belarusian Speaker of Parliament, Stanislau Shushkevich:
  
  Shushkevich did his best to smooth over the jarring effect of Yeltsin's "goodwill gift" presented to the Belarusian parliament earlier that day. It was a seventeenth-century tsarist charter to the Belarusian city of Orsha, taking it under Russian protection. What Yeltsin and his advisors regarded as an instance of Russo-Belarusian friendship to be emulated in the future was perceived by the democratic opposition in the Belarusian parliament as a symbol of Russian imperialism. Yeltsin's gift was met with shouts of "Shame!"
  
  This is just one of the many telling historical details in Ukrainian academic Serhii Plokhy's study of the dissolution of the USSR between August and December 1991, which he pitches justly as the dissolution (I would say the partial dissolution) of the last classical European empire. When I realised the book dealt with such a limited time period, I was a little worried I might not have the context to understand what was going on. In 1991 I was alive, but only just. I certainly had no understanding of geopolitics. Happily, my worries were baseless. Plokhy gets you up to speed in the first few chapters and then follows a tight cast of characters - Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Bush I and Kravchuk - through the tumultuous events of those months, telling a story that at times reads like a thriller.
  
  Plokhy's thesis - which is surely more well-founded, and less self-absorbed than the American boast to have "won the Cold War" is that the independence declaration of Ukraine was the decisive blow that caused the USSR to disintegrate.
  
  Yeltsin and his advisers felt much more affinity with the Union than is usually allowed for in commentary about them. Not even the most radical of Yeltsin's advisers had the dissolution of the USSR on their original agenda... Neither Gorbachev nor Yeltsin imagined a viable Union without Ukraine. It was the second Soviet republic after Russia in population and economic contribution to the Union coffers. The Russian leadership, which was already skeptical about bearing the costs of empire, could be persuaded to do so only together with Ukraine. Besides, as Yeltsin told George Bush on more than one occasion, without the Slavic Ukraine, Russia would be outnumbered and outvoted by the Central Asian republics, most of which, with the notable exception of Kazakhstan, relied on massive subsidies from the Union centre.
  
  One particularly horrifying detail that ought to give us a good deal of perspective on current 2022 events is how Yeltsin himself - a far better democrat than Vladimir Putin ever has been, although that admittedly does not require a very high bar - responded to the prospect of the USSR's dissolution:
  
  Many of Yeltsin's advisers regarded the Commonwealth [of Independent States, the body created to link the republics when the USSR was dissolved] not as an instrument of divorce but rather as a means of Russian control over the post-Soviet space. They believed that Russia needed to free itself from the burden of supporting a traditional empire, but in twenty years, once it recovered from its systematic and political problems, the republics would come back to Russia of their own free will.
  
  But this was obviously wishful thinking, of the same sort that could contribute to the massive depopulation of Belarus in WWII and the poisoning of one-fifth of its agricultural land in 1986 and then have the nerve to present its parliament with a memento of their imperialist subjection. Some of the republics did return - notably Belarus, once it became a dictatorship. Others would need to be forced back to the fold, like Georgia. And then, of course, Ukraine, first and boldest, would demand special treatment...
  
  Vladimir Putin referred to the dissolution of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century," and this book makes it perfectly clear why he might blame Ukraine above all the other former Soviet republics for that event. But of course it isn't a catastrophe: it's a eucatastrophe. As I've dug into recent Russian history this year, the one event I keep coming back to in sheer wonder is the fall of the USSR. The century, and the region, that saw one brutal regime after another; the slaughter of millions by hunger, bullets, and war; the deportation or enslavement of whole populations; also experienced one staggering, improbable, largely bloodless moment of freedom and hope.
  
  Things have gotten bad again since. Amidst the former communist states, Russia, Belarus, Hungary, and Azerbaijan are once again ruled by dictators. Ukrainians are fighting for their lives and Armenians face a dark future. But the USSR will never rise again, and it fell in the most unlikely way imaginable. And the fact that Providence intervened in this way should give all of us hope.
• 
  Brandy

  Read this for a grad class.
  
  This book is just incredible. I can't wait for a second edition so that Plokhy can write an afterward or something to comment on the recent/current Ukrainian crisis. Just fascinating. Plokhy gives a blow by blow of the last four months of the Soviet Union, with a focus on Gorby, Yeltsin, Bush 1, and the maybe less obvious but massively important Kravchuk. My only issue was that I had to keep writing the date at the top of the page haha.
  Will absolutely keep this on my shelf for reference and will recommend to anyone who wants to understand what happened in 1991. So good.
• 
  Sajith Kumar

  The forces of communism and western liberalism joined hands briefly for a while to take on the might of the Axis powers during World War II. Burying the differences and bridging the yawning chasm that divided their own ideologies, this united force admirably eliminated the threat of a Nazi takeover of the world. After the victory, however, it became evident that the natural instincts of the two camps could not be concealed any longer. The Cold War began shortly, as the USA and USSR played with their pawns and puppets at various theatres of war in the world. They fought with each other – killing, maiming and destroying resources – but without firing a shot directly at each other. The balance was so precarious that the world was scary at the thought of a sudden nuclear holocaust triggered as a result of a false move by any one of the opponents. In 1985, Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev took the reins of power in the Soviet Union through the regular route – as the General Secretary of the Communist party. Gorbachev thought and acted differently, as he recognised the ideological bankruptcy of communism which had given the Soviet people nothing but misery and turmoil. He wanted to emulate the west to obtain its level of material prosperity. This came as an interlinked package with democracy. Gorbachev slowly opened up the political space for pluralism. The Soviet people, who were eagerly awaiting liberation from the communist yoke, rushed out of the union in a stampede before anyone could figure out what was happening. This book tells the story of the decimation of the Soviet Union in just five months from August to December of 1991 when the Communist party was dissolved and the nation crumbled to dust. Serhii Plokhy is a Ukrainian-American historian and author specialising in the history of Ukraine, Eastern Europe and Cold War studies.
  
  Plokhy terms the Soviet Union as the ‘last’ empire. This is not in the sense that there will be no more empires in the future, but because it was the last state that carried on the legacy of the ‘classical’ European and Eurasian empires of the modern era such as the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman, British or French. Anti-imperialism was a pet slogan of the communist rhetoric, but the irony of the very political state through which it was being manifested was itself an instrument of imperialism is sure to come as a realization for the naive among the communists. The hallmarks of an imperial centre were visible in Russia, the largest constituent of the union that led all the other republics. The member states were de jure free to secede at will, but this option always remained in the realm of imagination. Russia controlled the political, economic, cultural and social webs that linked many nationalities and ethnic groups. But there were differences as well. The metropolis – Russia – commanded huge energy resources on which the other republics eagerly counted on. This dependence had become a millstone around Russia's neck by the time of Gorbachev. This has also contributed to the metropolis’ desire to dissolve the empire.
  
  Plokhy argues that the fate of the Soviet Union was decided in the last few months of its existence, between the coup that began on August 19 and the meeting of the leaders of the Soviet republics in Almaty on December 21, 1991. The reluctance of the political elite of Russia and Ukraine to find a modus vivendi within one state structure drove the final nail in the coffin of the union. The road to disintegration was ready in the early Gorbachev years. His attempts to reform Stalin’s centralised system of economic management had accelerated the speed of its collapse. Perestroika’s economic reforms failed, with increasing shortages of goods and growing scope for criticism of party policies. The Communist party lost its race with its opponents. The author identifies one more factor for the unwillingness of the non-Russian republics to prop up the Soviet structure. The coup, though organised by the KGB, was unprofessional which simply fizzled out when it encountered the first signs of resistance among the crowds that surrounded Yeltsin and his Parliament building in Moscow. Yeltsin’s stature grew immensely overnight. He could exert his control over the armed forces. It looked as if he liberated Gorbachev from the coup leaders’ captivity in Crimea. Yeltsin and his Russian cronies tried to exploit this bargaining chip to step into the shoes of Gorbachev and assume control of the central organisation that still held the union afloat. The other republics immediately got wind of this operation which indirectly helped catalyse their decision to depart. Most of these units were under the Tsarist regime before the Bolsheviks took over and they wanted no trek with a new Russian hegemony under Yeltsin. Ukraine was steadfast in asserting independence as shown by the sweeping majority for secession in a referendum held on December 1.
  
  This book somewhat captures the plight of the common people during the last days of the communist state. But this does not attract the required attention from the author who continues with a blinkered version of the political narrative. Soviet Union desperately wanted food aid from the west to tide over the winter of 1991 in the form of eggs, powdered milk and mashed potato mix. They appealed to the Americans to release the material stored by US army which would be thrown out after its expiry period of three years, implying that their shelf life of three years would be acceptable to the Russians. Plokhy then dishes out an old comment made by Nikita Khruzhchev in which he threatened to bury the West. The stark contrast between the times of Khruzhchev and Gorbachev is visible here.
  
  The author also tracks the crucial influence exerted by George H W Bush, the US President. All the factions which strove for power in the Soviet republics obliged Bush with interviews and factual reports in return for economic and food assistances and diplomatic recognition. The US was mainly concerned with the safety and unified control of the nuclear arms stored in four republics – Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus. Luckily for the US and the rest of the world, all states except Russia expressed their desire to let go of the nuclear capability. Russia collected weapons from the other states and assumed control of them. They also agreed to abide by the arms-control treaties signed by the Soviet Union earlier. This appropriation was timely, as radical Islam was beginning to tighten its hold on the central Asian and Caucasian regions. Plokhy argues that Bush tried to save the union from collapse, but once it had become certain that it was unavoidable, entered into a pragmatic arrangement with the successor states.
  
  That leaves us with the image of Gorbachev, who is treated with respect by the author, but not unduly so. He won the Peace Nobel and is glorified across the world as the man who brought in a crucial change for the better in world politics by destroying communism. The west considers Gorbachev to have ended the Cold War and responsible for dismantling of the totalitarian system, democratization of Soviet politics and the opening of the country to the world. Even with all these achievements, Plokhy assert that Gorbachev was not the ‘blue-eyed boy’ made out by the west as far as native Russians were concerned. The reason for this is purely economic. When Gorbachev allowed the fundamentals of political freedom to percolate in Russian society, it accelerated the demise of the old structures that ensured at least some amount of succour for the common man. Even basic foodstuffs went off store shelves when the first whiff of political freedom touched the mercantile community. The people arraigned Gorbachev responsible for this state of things. The author claims that the Russian people were irritated even to hear Gorbachev's broadcasts over the radio.
  
  This book is written with a superior bias to American interests and politicians. We read of Russian leaders, including Gorbachev and Yeltsin politely presenting status reports to the American president in person or through phone. They are also portrayed as bending to American pressure. While there may be some truth in this, the overall picture painted in the book is quite embarrassing to Soviet interests and sovereignty. Another incident narrated is that of the Russian foreign minister Kozyrev inquiring about the differences in meaning of the terms ‘federation’, ‘association’ and ‘commonwealth’ with an American scholar on the eve of a crucial meeting of the Soviet republics convened to decide on the most suitable form of political organisation for them. The book also includes a good collection of monochrome plates of the major actors and events of the era.
  
  The book is strongly recommended.
  
• 
  Skut333

  Вже стало звичкою чекати нових перекладів книг Сергія Плохія і ця не була винятком. Напевне для мене вона є еталонним історичним чтивом, щоб так захопливо і водночас скурпульозно зробити виклад потрібно дійсно мати талант. Та крім того автор береться зовсі не за легку справу розслідувати останні дні кончини СРСР. Як маститий детектив він береться пролити світло хто ж дійсно ввігна останній кіл.
  Водночас це чудова книга для дипломатів, оскільки є неперевершеною ілюстрацією відносин з усіма тонкощами двох противоборчих країн та систем.
  Дуже раджу!!!!
• 
  Віта

  Напевно, в історії розпаду срср, як її бачить Сергій Плохій, найбільше вразило розігрування Горбачовим в останні дні при владі етнічної карти. Єльцин навіть про око не вдавав, що його обходить становище росіян, які могли опинитися з розпадом союзу за кордоном. Для успішних політичних ігор йому не потрібні етнічні росіяни Прибалтики, бо мав підтримку тамтешніх націонал-демократів. А от завдяки передсмертним політичним метанням Горбачова стало зрозуміло, звідки ростуть ноги у путінських маніпуляцій етнічними питаннями і його ставок на міжетнічні конфлікти.
  Доля росіян за кордоном - у випадку проголошення радянськими республіками незалежності - була останнім аргументом Горбі для збереження срср.
  
  "Він уважав, що югославська трагедія зблідне порівняно з тим, що може статися в Радянськ��му Союзі, якщо численні етнічні меншини проведуть нові державні кордони. Його аргумент базувався на долі росіян - колишніх господарів імперії - та дискримінації, перед якою вони могли постати в нових незалежних державах.
  - Сімдесят п'ять мільйонів людей живуть за межами своєї малої батьківщини, - стверджував Горбачов, посилаючись на місця проживання радянських національностей та змішане населення Союзу. -  То що, всі вони стануть громадянами другого сорту? І хай нас не заколисують, що все буде гарантоване у двосторонніх договорах, які підписують республіки. Не вірте, що це розв'яже проблему. Має бути збережено державу, яка забезпечить правовий захист кожній людині.
  Далі Горбачов посилався на російськомовних мешканців регіонів, які, не знаючи місцевих мов, не зможуть повноцінно брати участь в політичному процесі.
  - Самохіть чи ні, а виходить, що деяких громадян - мешканців прибалтійських республік зараховують наче до другого сорту".
  
  Чи це лише мені здається, чи російському політику навіть на думку не спадало, що можна вивчити мову республіки, в якій живеш?
  
  Путін застосовує цей підхід до ведення зовнішньої політики.
  
  "Те, що тепер вважають винаходом Володимира Путіна, - агресивна політика інтеграції колишніх радянських республік до спільних інституцій та протидія членству України та Грузії в НАТО і структурах Європейського Союзу, - також походить від подій 1991-го. (...) Російсько-український конфлікт за Крим та спровокована і підтримувана Росією війна на Донбасі сягають корінням планів радянської еліти 1991 року та сподівань російських політиків відносно російського домінування в регіоні того періоду. Тривала війна, яка вже рахує вбитими та поранентми десятки тисяч громадян України та Росії і принесла руйнацію цілого регіону, може перетворитися на ще більш руйнівний конфлікт. Розпад Радянського Союзу далеко не закінчився. Остання імперія продовжує свої конвульсії".
  
  Так писав Сергій Плохій у 2015 році і як у воду дивився, передбачаючи теперішнє повномасштабне вторгнення.
• 
  Socraticgadfly

  Plokhy writes a very worth successor to his Yalta book, which I've also read.
  
  With a bit more time separation, unlike Gorbachev and other "principals" who have already written away, and academic detachment, but with the connection of Ukranian heritage and being born in the USSR, Plokhy is well-positioned for a book like this.
  
  And he doesn't disappoint.
  
  Much of his focus is on neither Gorbachev but Boris Yeltsin, but on Ukraine's Leonid Kravchuk, as he pivots from being a Ukrainian Communist apparatchik to its leading politician, and pushing for the full break-up of the USSR.
  
  Plokhy also explains the nearly 40 years of Russian-Ukrainian dynamics within higher Soviet ranks, from the start of Khrushchev on. He then ties in Kazakhstan's Nursultan Nazarbayev as the other key player, after the failure of the August 1991 coup, in the drama.
  
  Without this being an actual biography, one gets good snapshots of Yeltsin, Gorbachev and Kravchuk. My only regret is that there's not a bit more about the Central Asian dynamics, or maybe the Caucasian ones.
  
  On the American side, Plokhy spends somewhat less time. He could have gone another 40-50 pages with some dynamics, but he does note that US attitudes toward keeping the USSR alive were divided within the Bush administration, with Defense Secretary Dick Cheney being most hawkish about a breakup.
  
  With the recent Russian-Ukranian tensions, Plokhy also has ironically good timing, per what I have noted above. For more on Soviet ethnic dynamics, especially in western Ukraine, his Yalta book may be of some additional help.
• 
  Vadim

  Сергей Плохий, вовлекая в научный оборот рассекреченные архивы президента США Джорджа Буша-старшего, дает ответ на вопрос, кто погубил Советский Союз. Детальная реконструкция событий июля-декабря 1991 года показывает, что это не Ельцин, надеявшийся при возможности получить союзную корону, не Буш, положивший почти все яйца в корзину поддержки Горбачева и сохранения его во главе Союза, а растущее национальн��е движение, олицетворением которого можно считать Кравчука.
  
  Книга хороша не только общей картиной, но и деталями. В решающие моменты сначала у ГКЧП, а потом у Горбачева не оказывается ни одного верного полка, которые захотели бы им помочь. Иногда демократия работает очень окольными путями.
• 
  Tomas Repka

  Although the main thrust of the book is the outwardly paradoxical foreign policy stance of the United States to keep the Soviet Union alive. The key chapters are those on the mutual relations between Russia and Ukraine, which not only led to the break-up but in which the roots of the future military conflict can be traced. If Yugoslavia was a case of immediate escalation of unresolved issues, the Ukraine-Russia conflict hibernated for several years. It will take all the longer to resolve it, which is far from settled.
  
  I highly recommend this book.
• 
  Тимощук В'ячеслав

  Мені було 5 років коли розвалився СРСР, але я майже нічого не памʼятаю з того періоду. В 1991-му мене найбільше турбувало, що саме смачного мама принесе з роботи і чи відпустять мене погуляти в дворі після обіду. А тим часом відбувалися визначні події, що міняли світ. Розвалювалася остання світова імперія, зникала комуністична загроза, яка багато десятиліть тримала в страху весь світ. Трохи образливо, що формально живучи в той час, я не можу нічого розказати про це, не маю ніякої власної думки, щодо тих подій. Тож читання книги відомого історика Сергія Плохія "Остання імперія. Занепад і крах Радянського союзу" мало на меті заповнити прогалину в цих знаннях і скласти повне враження в моїй голові про події, в результаті яких Україна отримала незалежність.
  Насамперед, маю сказати, що було дещо дивно читати цю книгу, адже фактично доводилося уявляти собі з точки зору дорослої людини часи, про які у мене були геть інші, дитячі спогади. Це, з одного боку, створювало певний дисонанс, а з іншого дозволяло краще зрозуміти тогочасного середньостатистичного обивателя, адже типовий українець в 1991-му був дещо інфантильною людиною. У читача, мало обізнаного з східноєвропейською, зокрема українською ментальністю може скластися враження, наче події розвалу Союзу керувалися елітами, окремими персонажами, на взаємодії яких і складена уся книга Сергія Плохія. Фактично це хронологічний і дуже детальний опис основних подій, що призвели до розвалу Союзу, аж до наведення точних діалогів між основними учасниками подій. Автор з неймовірною ретельністю реставрував хронологію подій, віднайшов і розписав хто, коли, кому і навіщо говорив ті чи інші слова. Це створює дуже захопливу картинку в уяві читача. Проте, як я зазначав раніше, в того, хто не розуміється на особливостях нашої ментальності, може скластися думка, що саме ці спікери парламентів, президенти республік і їх радники спричинилися до руйнування комуністичного колосу. Проте в книзі Сергій Плохій спочатку завуальовано, а в епілозі прямо вказує, що без позиції українського керівництва, яка спиралася на результати референдуму 1-го грудня 1991 року ситуація могла розвиватися геть інакше. За усіма цими переговорами, путчами і домовленостями стоїть просте, чітке, впевнене (ви тільки подивіться на відсоток тих хто був на референдумі за Незалежність) твердження українців про те, що держава має бути незалежною. І як на мене, найбільша заслуга автора як раз в чіткій артикуляції цього факту. Без нас, без українців, без нашої боротьби і нашого голосування нічого могло б і не статися, Союз міг би пережити кризу, оговтатися і знову стиснути свої щупальці навколо наших ший. Ми, наші батьки, бабусі і дідусі не дали цього зробити тоді. Ми на референдумі обрали свій шлях, а тепер в кривавій війні з росією маємо відстояти свій вибір. І я не сумніваюся що ми це зробимо.
  Попередні покоління викопали яму для СРСР, наші батьки поклали в неї труну, в якій лежали руїни імперії. Ми цю могилу засиплемо, а наші діти вирішать, що на ній посадити калину, чи щось інше.
• 
  Oleksandr Golovatyi

  Лучшие цитаты:
  
  "Недовольство партийной элиты начало назревать после аварии на Чернобыльской АЭС (апрель 1986 года). Электростанция подчинялась Москве, но ликвидация последствий аварии, как и эвакуация людей из зоны бедствия, легла на плечи украинских властей. Кроме того, Москва настаивала на проведении первомайской демонстрации – в то самое время, когда Киев накрыло радиоактивное облако."
  
  "Но если Горбачев и Ельцин были руководителями, в чьем ведении находились крупные регионы, то Кравчук представлял собой типичного аппаратчика, бюрократа от партии."
  
  "Помощник Горбачева Анатолий Черняев, сопровождавший генсека во время встречи с канцлером Германии Гельмутом Колем, проходившей в Киеве в начале июля, записал в дневнике: “Ощущение, будто в каком-то большом западноевропейском, скорее немецком, городе: XIX век, улицы, зелень, прибрано, чисто, ухожено… И, в общем, […] сытно… по сравнению с Москвой!”"
  
  "Никсона 1972 года, когда за обедом, данным в его честь украинскими официальными лицами, Никсон назвал Киев “матерью городов русских”"
  
  "Ельцин возглавлял сопротивление заговорщикам, якобы намеревающимся спасти Советский Союз. Россия восстала против собственной империи"
  
  "К шести часам утра танки Таманской дивизии окружили Останкино; еще час спустя в город начали входить остальные подразделения Таманской и Кантемировской дивизий, хорошо знакомые москвичам по парадам на Красной площади. Всего в город были направлены около 4 тысяч человек личного состава, более 350 танков, около 300 бронетранспортеров и 420 грузовиков."
  
  "Буш действительно хотел уберечь Союз от распада: его тревожила сохранность ядерного оружия. Еще до встречи с Кравчуком Чейни и эксперты Министерства обороны подготовили проект меморандума о ядерном разоружении. Текст получили союзники США в Западной Европе, а также Г��рбачев."
  
  "Чечню возглавил сорокасемилетний генерал-майор авиации Джохар Дудаев. Месяцем ранее он ушел в отставку с должности командира дивизии стратегических бомбардировщиков, дислоцированной в Эстонии. Дудаев был свидетелем борьбы прибалтов за независимость и желал того же для Чечни. Народ Дудаева немногим уступал эстонцам в численности: согласно переписи, в Эстонии проживало около миллиона эстонцев, а в Чечне – около 750 тысяч чеченцев. В обеих республиках русские и представители других славянских народов составляли от четверти до трети нас��ления. Однако между Эстонией и Чечней имелось существенное различие. Первая имела статус союзной республики, а ее право на независимость признавали и Буш, и Ельцин."
  
  "После официальной беседы американец предложил министру разговор наедине. Морозов согласился, хотя и недоумевал: он не владеет английским, а Бжезинский – русским. Но Бжезинский, поляк по происхождению, перешел на родной язык – а Морозов отвечал по-украински. Они вполне понимали друг друга."
  
  "Геннадий Бурбулис, правая рука Ельцина, именно Киеву приписывал последний гвоздь в гроб СССР. “Действительно, самым настойчивым, самым упорным в отрицании Союза был Кравчук, – рассказывал Бурбулис в интервью."
• 
  Mihkel

  Siinse looduskaitseala juhataja Sergei Baljuk, kes elas üsna Viskuli lähedal Belovežje ürmetsa servas asuvas Kamenjuki külas, saabus koju hilja õhtul ja äratas oma naise, teatades talle vapustava uudise: "Nõukogude Liit on lagunenud". Kuuldu ei jõudnud naisele kohe pärale. "Olin poolärkvel ega saanud aru, mis on juhtunud või mida peab nüüd tegema," on meenutanud Nadežda Baljuk. "Aga tema oli nii ärritatud ja närvis ja kordas kogu aeg: "Nõukogude Liitu ei ole enam, ei ole.""

  
  
  Plohhi meistritöö on köitvalt kirjutet ja rikkaliku sisuga ajalooteos, mille tähelepanelikes pintsitõmmetes joonistuvad selgelt välja nii laiemaid motiivid kui erinevaid pisidetailid (Ukraina parteiaparatšikute eemaldamine liidu tippvõimu juurest Perestroika raames kui yks Ukraina separatismi põhjuseid). Nende kaudu saab lugeja hõlpsalt haarata tervikprotsessist hargnevate arvukate niidiotsade olemust nii iseseisvalt kui laiemasse konteksti asetatuna, st mis täpsemalt viis mingi sündmuseni ja millist mõju omas see tulevikus. Rohkesti on kasutatud tykke võtmetegelaste omavahelistest vestlustest, telefonikõnedest, päevikutest jne, mis lisavad tekstile yksjagu elulisust.
  
  Samuti leiab tykati ajalooliselt mõnevõrra vähetähtsaid, kuid pigem inimlikul tasemel huvitavaid stseene (nt Augustiputši toetanud marssal Ahromejevi enesetapukiri Gorbatšovile, millele lisas viiekümnerublase, et tasuda ta võlg Kremli selvekohvikule).
• 
  Anatoly Bezrukov

  Отличная книга, показывающая последние пять месяцев существования СССР: от саммита СССР-США в конце июля до нового года 1992 г.
  Читается практически как "Игра престолов": несколько политических сил, у каждой свои интересы и ограничения, и всё это сплетается в очень сложный клубок.
  США, например, не особо были заинтересованы в полном распаде СССР, т.к. опасались за судьбу ядерного оружия; СССР был важен как гарант относительной стабильности на Ближнем Востоке и в Средней Азии и т.п. В то же время эта общая позиция не распространялась на Прибалтику, поскольку её подконтрольность СССР Америка не признавала изначально, с 40-х годов. А вот на Украину Штаты изначально смотрели как на неотъемлемую часть СССР, хотя, как и Прибалтика, Западная Украина была присоединена к Союзу в тот же период по тому же пакту Молотова-Риббентропа. Но в то же время в США была довольно большая украинская диаспора, традиционно поддерживавшая республиканцев, поэтому совсем не учитывать их интересов Буш, которому предстояли выборы, тоже не мог.
  В общем, всё очень сложно. И очень интересно.
  Из минусов: Плохий делает упор на политические и национальные факторы, но мало пишет про экономику, а это все-таки тоже был весьма значимый фактор (особенно если судить по "Гибели империи" Гайдара). Также довольно мало про Чернобыли и почти совсем ничего про Афганистан, хотя это, кажется, тоже были значимые факторы распада.
  Но даже без этого довольно интересно.
• 
  Jillian Frost

  A great deep dive into the political climate of Russia in the early 1990s. Highly recomend this if you are interested in the subject.
• 
  Anthony Nelson

  Incredibly relevant given current events. A fascinating explanation of how the collapse of the Soviet Union was not inevitable.
• 
  Abu Syed sajib

  A gripping narration about the last couple of months of the USSR. The writer did a remarkable job in describing this vast, often chaotic period of history without any bias.
  Highly recommended...
• 
  Jacob Stelling

  A really well-written, if at times unnecessarily drawn out, summary of the pivotal months which saw the collapse of the Soviet Union.
  
  This account brings to life to motivations and the characters of the key men involved, from Yeltsin and Gorbachev to George H.W. Bush, challenging the traditional narrative which presented the collapse as clear-cut or inevitable.
• 
  Dominic

  I started reading when Russia was amassing troops at Ukraine’s borders. I didn't think that Putin would actually attempt to invade the entire country (as opposed to the two oblasts of Donbas and Luhansk, where an intervention of some sort was kind of expected) and deny its existence as a sovereign state.
  The Last Empire is not primarily about Ukraine but about the demise of the Soviet Union. The title alludes to the fact that the Soviet Union was not a monolithic bloc but a grouping of distinct republics bound together by a central structure (i.e. an empire). Plokhy’s thesis is that the age of nationalism has overtaken the age of empires, and that the Soviet Union was doomed to fail like the Habsburg or British empires before. I grew up believing that the Soviet Union simply went bankrupt because of disastrous central planning and the superiority of the US, who outspent the USSR in the arms and technology race.
  The book describes how Ukraine played a crucial role in this downfall. The last President of the Soviet Union and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Michael Gorbachev, initiated Perestroika (Reconstruction) and Glasnost (Openness) and ended the Cold War. This led to the independence of the Baltic states, which in turn prompted other Soviet republics to also seek emancipation. Although Gorbachev wanted to modernize the Soviet Union, he absolutely did not want to abolish it (and with it his own position at the top). Gorbachev did everything he could to keep the Soviet Union together and, ironically, the Bush administration (featuring Secretary of State James Baker who’s excellent biography
  The Man Who Ran Washington: The Life and Times of James A. Baker III I just read and highly recommend) had the same goal, in the interest of stability and because of concerns about nuclear weapons stationed in multiple republics. But the Soviet Union, or a similar, maybe less restrictive, union could only survive if the Slavic republics, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, agreed to it (otherwise, the Muslim population of the other republics would outnumber them and Yeltsin couldn’t have that). In 1991, Ukraine held a referendum where about 90% of the population voted for independence. Even in the areas mainly populated by native Russians, more than 50% voted for independence.
  In the end the republics agreed to a loose commonwealth of independent states. By that time Yeltsin was the strong man in the top position in Russia. Yeltsin and Gorbachev couldn’t stand each other and Yeltsin made sure that Gorbachev was unceremoniously booted into retirement. As a final insult, Bush claimed the demise of the Soviet Union as his achievement in his unsuccessful attempt at re-election, even though he had fought hard for the Soviet Union to remain in place.
  The Last Empire is an interesting and eye-opening book, but sometimes an exhausting read. The cast of actors is huge, the Russian names complicated, and I often got them mixed up. For me, a tad less detail would have been even better.
  
  As I'm writing this, it's day 5 of Putin's war in Ukraine. I'm shocked and sad and I still can't believe that someone can be so evil and demented as to bomb a sovereign country in Europe without cause in the 21st century.
• 
  Michael Samerdyke

  An interesting, if sometimes frustrating, book.
  
  Plokhy looks at the last six months of the USSR to see why this superpower fell apart. He makes the point (often overlooked) that the USA didn't exactly want the USSR to break up for fear of what would happen to its nuclear weapons. Fears of a "Yugoslav Civil War with nukes" were pretty strong at that time.
  
  Plokhy emphasizes the desire of Ukraine for independence as a key factor in breaking up the USSR. Indeed, it is fascinating reading his account of 1991 in light of what we are seeing in 2014. The basic tensions were there back then, but the different leadership brought about a different outcome.
  
  The frustrating part of the book is that much of it deals with Gorbachev and Yeltsin. Gorbachev comes across as out of touch, and Yeltsin comes across as erratic. So while the writing is clearly on the wall, events are tugged this way and that by the clash of these two personalities.
  
  I'm definitely glad that I read this book. I think it is quite accessible to the general reader, and it should be read by those who think everything is due to Ronald Reagan.
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  Vicky Buck

  A well-written account of the final days (or months) of the Soviet Union, accounting for its collapse by the culmination of nationalist movements and power struggles, especially after the August Coup.
  Plokhy uses the recently declassified documents/ records of conversations between key players in the US, Soviet Union, and republic leaders. There is a superb level of detail and contextualisation of the documents.
  
  Because this is not written chronologically (Plokhy returns to conversations or earlier dates), the reader has to be constantly aware of what happened when, since many conversations and decisive events happen within the course of days/ weeks/ months. For this, it might have been useful to include a timeline of events.