Shlapentokh undertakes a dispassionate analysis of the ordinary functioning of the Soviet system from Stalin's death through the Soviet collapse and Russia's first post-communist decade. Without overlooking its repressive character, he treats the USSR as a "normal" system that employed both socialist and nationalist ideologies for the purposes of technological and military modernization, preservation of empire, and expansion of its geopolitical power. Foregoing the projection of Western norms and assumptions, he seeks to achieve a clearer understanding of a civilization that has perplexed its critics and its champions alike.
- ISBN10 0765613980
- ISBN13 9780765613981
- Publish Date December 2001 (first published 31 January 1997)
- Publish Status Active
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Taylor & Francis Inc
- Imprint M.E. Sharpe
- Format eBook
- Language English