Vladislav M. Zubok. A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev. New Cold War History Series. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. 504 pp. $22.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-8078-5958-2.
Reviewed by Nikolas K. Gvosdev
Published on H-Diplo (October, 2009)
Commissioned by Christopher L. Ball (DePaul University)
Could the Soviet Union have avoided the Cold Asian states to pose a challenge to Soviet security War?[1] Would Joseph Stalin and his successors (p. 8). Within Franklin D. Roosevelt's administra‐ have been able to make the necessary ideological tion, there was some receptivity to these con‐ and geopolitical compromises that would have cerns. Reporter W. L. White summed up the pre‐ prevented the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics vailing view, as it stood in late 1944: "We should (USSR) from becoming enmeshed in a long, remember that Russia is entitled to a Europe drawn-out, and ultimately debilitating confict which is not hostile to her.... What they really with the United States and its allies? Or did the So‐ want is a durable peace so they can build up their viet leadership compound initial mistakes by own country. If we insist on decent compromises, throwing more good money after bad? These are setting up governments, not Communist but some of the questions addressed in Vladislav M. friendly to Russia, they will take it."[2] This under‐ Zubok's A Failed Empire. standing formed the basis of the compromises As World War II was drawing to a close, it reached at Yalta. Whether the United States would was not preordained that the Western Allies and have lived up to such promises falls beyond the the Soviet Union would clash. Some in the Soviet subject of Zubok's book. His focus is to examine leadership, continuing the theme of "socialism in why Stalin and his cohorts were unwilling to ac‐ one country," wanted a postwar order that would cept this grand bargain. guarantee the security of the USSR. Ivan Maisky, For starters, Stalin's defnition of what consti‐ the deputy commissar of foreign afairs, argued in tuted security for the Soviet Union in Eastern Eu‐ a memorandum to Stalin and Vyacheslav Molotov rope was not a set of neutral states along his bor‐ that the Soviet state had to create the appropriate ders. Instead, "Stalin defned Soviet security in geo-strategic conditions that would make it "un‐ ideological terms," Zubok notes. "He also assumed thinkable" for any combination of European and that the Soviet sphere of infuence must and H-Net Reviews would be secured in the countries of Eastern Eu‐ munist ideology in what Zubok calls the "revolu‐ rope by imposing on them new political and social tionary-imperial paradigm"--variants of which orders, modeled after the Soviet Union" (p. 21). drove Soviet foreign policy from 1945 until the This approach also carried over to how Stalin latter part of Mikhail Gorbachev's tenure as gen‐ viewed Germany. Zubok argues that, contrary to eral secretary (p. 19). the conventional wisdom that said that the Sovi‐ The paradigm could be fexible, guided by re‐ ets would be satisfed with a "neutral" unifed alism; but it often imposed an ideological straight‐ Germany, Stalin had always intended to construct jacket on the conduct of foreign policy. Foreign a Soviet-style regime in his part of Germany while policy "success"--usually defned as adding more simultaneously trying to extend his infuence over states and territories to the Soviet bloc--was used the rest of the country (p. 62). to legitimate the Soviet system at home. After Stal‐ The second has to do with the Stalinist world in's death, in a pattern that was to repeat itself un‐ view. It has been popular in Western circles to til the late 1980s, "the issues of foreign policy once adopt the paradigm of Stalin as the "betrayer" of again became ... linked to the broader issues of the revolution, rejecting the internationalism of ideological legitimacy" (p. 104). "Peaceful coexis‐ Vladimir Lenin and Leon Trotsky in favor of tence" with the West or competition with the Peo‐ restoring the Russian Empire under a Soviet ple's Republic of China over leadership of the in‐ guise. But while Stalin was strongly infuenced by ternational revolutionary movement caused Sovi‐ the geopolitical strategies employed by tsarist et leaders--notably Nikita Khrushchev--to follow statesmen, Zubok stresses that Stalin's approach policies that complicated the Soviet global posi‐ "was an evolving amalgam, drawing on diferent tion (p. 139). Ironically, the heirs of Khrushchev's sources" (p. 18). The Russian great-power tradi‐ bête noir Mao were much more successful at de- tion was one; another was utilizing the national‐ ideologizing Beijing's foreign policy, to the point ism of other Soviet republics--such as Georgia and where a formerly revolutionary Communist pow‐ Azerbaijan--to press territorial claims on Turkey er today is one of the staunchest defenders of and Iran. It bears noting also that Stalin, the insti‐ state sovereignty in the international system. gator of the great famines of the 1930s, is ironical‐ The revolutionary-imperial paradigm forged ly the great gatherer of Ukrainian lands--bringing alliances between Leninist ideologues, the mili‐ into the USSR territory that even the tsars had tary, and the managers of the defense industrial never controlled, and bequeathing to an indepen‐ complex, but it also made it difcult for Soviet dent Ukraine today a much larger state than could leaders who relied on this paradigm to maintain have been envisioned a century ago. their authority to walk away from it even when But Stalin never ceased to be a Marxist-Lenin‐ the USSR committed itself to adventures abroad ist. He anticipated further wars as the contradic‐ and defense spending at home which eroded its tions of capitalism and imperialism worked them‐ economy and exacerbated the tensions that would selves out. His approach gave the Soviet state ultimately lead to its implosion. Even Gorbachev more length and breadth, positioning it to be able was unable to free himself from its constraints for to exploit divisions in the capitalist world (or pit‐ the frst several years of his leadership--and was ting, as in Korea, a possible rival in Mao Zedong unable to replace it with something durable. One against the United States)--but with an eye to the point Zubok stresses--and which has continued eventual spread of the Soviet system and the importance for U.S.-Russia relations today--is that preservation of Moscow's leading role. And so "Gorbachev did not have nor did he even seek to Stalin fused his great-power Realpolitik with Com‐ obtain in writing any agreement with the West to
2 H-Net Reviews preserve Soviet 'interests' in the region, such as Notes preventing NATO expansion to the East" (p. 327). [1]. The views expressed are those of the re‐ Could there have been an alternative? Zubok viewer and do not refect those of the United alludes to the "Slavophile Leninists" (quoting a let‐ States Navy or the U.S. government. ter of the wartime minister for the tank industry, [2]. W. L. White, Report on the Russians (New Vyacheslav Malyshev) (p. 8). Support for the Sovi‐ York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1945), 308, et construction at home and for the USSR to take 36. the role of a Russian great power was one of the [3]. Andrei Sakharov, "On Aleksandr Solzhen‐ initial strands of Stalin's paradigm, but itsyn's Letter to the Soviet Leaders," in The Politi‐ Khrushchev's eforts to revive proletarian inter‐ cal, Social, and Religious Thought of Russian nationalism by greater involvement in Asia, "Samizdat"--An Anthology, ed. Michael Meerson- Africa, and Latin America, where the USSR, if de‐ Aksenov and Boris Schragin, trans. Nickolas fned as a Russian state, had few strategic inter‐ Lupinin (Belmont: Nordland Publishing Company, ests, caused a divergence in views. Those calling 1977), 291-301. for Moscow to pull back and consolidate its core never succeeded in dominating Soviet policy. Yet necessary the ideas resonated beyond the party establish‐ ment. Indeed, based on Andrei Sakharov's analy‐ Fallen sis of Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn's Letter to the Soviet : The Soviet Union in the Cold War From Stal‐ Leaders, we might categorize its proposals as a in to Gorbachev form of "Slavophile Leninism" based on its sup‐ port for some features of the Soviet system and its , calls for focusing on the development of the USSR e at the expense of maintaining the Soviet bloc.[3] R This brings us to the present. Zubok updated Giving his book by taking the narrative of the Cold War all beyond its end in 1991 to cover the post-Soviet Russian administrations of Boris Yeltsin and -- Vladimir Putin. If Gorbachev and Yeltsin rejected Stalin's paradigm, Putin in turn has rejected Gor‐ Which bachev's and Yeltsin's vague hopes of integration 's within a Western-led order. Is Putin a latter-day "Slavophile Leninist"? He is a proponent of a strong state capable of reshaping Russia from the top down and for Russia to have a clear sphere of infuence in its region. His domestic and foreign policies have led to increased tensions with the United States. Can the mistakes that followed Yal‐ ta be avoided? Zubok is optimistic that "prudent, patient and visionary American leadership should ensure that Russia's rise ... will not threaten peace and stability in Europe" (p. xix). But that is what they said about FDR, too.
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Citation: Nikolas K. Gvosdev. Review of Zubok, Vladislav M. A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev. H-Diplo, H-Net Reviews. October, 2009.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=24591
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