★★★★★ 2
A masterfully falsified history of the late Soviet developments
Format: Paperback
This book represents academic propaganda, providing some interesting insights into important events. Some details are true, but some crucial details are omitted. It represents a sanitized version of Russia's modern history. It provides misleading information about Gorbachev's constitutional reforms, aimed at partitioning of 15 republics into 53 confederation entities. Originally, the targeted republics were Kazakhstan, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, etc. Those conflicts were manufactured by the Soviet center to discredit "nationalists," facilitate the partition of national republics, and grant Moscow right to protect ethnic minorities. According to Starovoitova, Bakatin, Yakovlev, and a few other primary sources, the Soviet security services led special operations in the Caucasus and Central Asia to provoke those conflicts. Zubok avoids citing those parts. Using the imperial approach of "divide and rule," Moscow attempted to become a peacekeeper in the conflicts it created between different ethnicity.
In addition to fragmenting the republics with well-developed national identities, Gorbachev's new constitution would revoke their right to leave the USSR, written in Lenin's 1922 Constitution (Shakhnazarov, 1992). Zubok does not explain any of it. His book is an effort to protect the truth and conceal facts with Russian myths and lies about nationalism (also referred to as Nazism). Notably, Zubok does not recognize non-Russian republics and describes them as "territories." He mentions Pitsunda as a resort on the Black Sea, not as Georgia. For lying about the genocidal ethnic cleansing conducted by the Russian military against the Georgian population of Abkhazia, Zubok owes apology to the victims of conflicts and wars initiated by Gorbachev and carried on by Yeltsin.
The story about "the hardliners coup against Gorbachev" is also a big fat lie. American scholars, Amy Knight, John Dunlop, and William Odom provide more accurate insights. For Russian sources, read Marshal Shaposhnikov or Aleksandr Lebed's memoirs (1995) and listen to Gennady Yanaev's interview (2009). According to Mitrokhin archives (original), the August 1991 coup was an active measure the KGB developed per Gorbachev's request. The so-called coup was part of Gorbachev's constitutional reform, which would lead to the removal of unfriendly leaders (including Yeltsin) from the republics. It failed because the Soviet military brass, foremost Pavel Grachev, had defected to Yeltsin earlier in 1991. When you read a book by a seasoned Russian propagandist, like Zubok or Trenin, take it with a grain of salt, because it will always contain a mix of lies and truth.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2023
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