The Last Empire

Title: The Last Empire – The Final Days of the Soviet Union

Author: Serhii Plokhy

Publisher: OneWorld, 2014 (First)

ISBN: 9781780746463

Pages: 488

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.

Rating: 4 Star