Grand Failure: The Birth and Death of Communism in the Twentieth Century

Rating:
Summary: A Necessary Historic Read
Review: Any serious student of world affairs should read -- even study -- this book. Brzezinski was director of the National Security Council during the Carter administration so few could write with more authority on the subject of communism in the 20th Century.

First he gives detailed background information on the unraveling of the Soviet empire. Beginning with Lenin's concentration of political control and the use of terror, Brzezinski traces Stalin's total consolidation of power through elimination of rivals and the subjugation of peasantry. Although interrupted by World War II, these tactics were revived in Eastern Europe during the postwar period. Stagnation set in, however, and the systme failed to deliver the promised social and economic improvements.

After Stalin's death, his repressive regime decayed to a corrupton-dominated state under Breshnev, interrupted only by abortive reform movements during Khrushchev's tenure. By the mid-1980s most top Soviet leaders accepted the need for renewal and began to debate how these reforms were to be accomplished.

Brzezinski details emerging unrest, beginning in Poland, and discusses China's "commercial" communism. The events he describes confirm the seriousness of the now often disclaimed Cold War threat and helps the reader to understand what happened, how it happened and what it all means to us today.

Rating:
Summary: Prescient
Review: Having written in 1989 that Communism would collapse this book is about 80% correct and terribly prescient. Russian bloc communism did collapse in 1990-1991. China has liberlaized its economy. Cuba and N. Korea remain the only outliers, soon to collapse. This book gives a quick tour de force fo this.

Rating:
Summary: Prescient
Review: Having written in 1989 that Communism would collapse this book is about 80% correct and terribly prescient. Russian bloc communism did collapse in 1990-1991. China has liberlaized its economy. Cuba and N. Korea remain the only outliers, soon to collapse. This book gives a quick tour de force fo this.