Abraham Brumberg's Chronicle of a Revolution: A Western-Soviet Inquiry into Perestroika
Geltman, Emanuel
CHRONICLE OF A REVOLUTION: A WESTERN-SOVIET INQUIRY INTO PERESTROIKA, edited by Abraham Brumberg. Pantheon Books, 1990. 266 + vi pp. $24.95. We have been fortunate that Abraham Brumberg has...
...Earlier, Brumberg asks, "How far can this revolution be allowed to go on...
...Vera S. Dunham, "Lyrics: The Pain of Discovery...
...However, there are disagreements...
...Our readers know him as an exceptionally well-informed and lucid analyst of Soviet affairs...
...Ronald G. Suny, "Nationalities and Nationalism...
...But, taken as a whole, the book points us from mythology to reality...
...In this volume he brings off an incredibly useful collection of essays—from both "shores," Western and Soviet...
...David Holloway, "Learning to Live and Let Live" (on foreign policy...
...William E. Butler, "Towards the Rule of Law...
...Completed in 1989 (the introduction is dated October–December 1989), the book provides a solid basis for understanding what has happened since...
...Dare we say there is some reason for hope...
...q WINTER • 1991 • 137...
...Although the press may have inflated his importance, he is also someone to be reckoned with...
...For the most part, they don't so much challenge the "original" presentation, as amplify it...
...And Alec Nove adds: "Should Gorbachev fail— and failure is by no means to be ruled out—the outcome would be a misfortune, perhaps even a calamity...
...In the second part, "From the Other Shore," the Soviet commentators discuss the views presented in the first part...
...Archie Brown, "Reconstructing the Political System...
...No one has an answer...
...History may well forgive him for his blunders and misjudgments, too, despite the dismay and even anger they have generated even among his once loyal supporters, [to which he adds a parenthesis] (see the commentaries of Gavriil Popov and Leonid Batkin...
...Divided into two parts, the book first presents "The Lay of the Land," with essays by S. Frederick Starr, "The Road to Reform...
...What remains important is that both essays—the presentation and the critique—are interesting and informative, complementing each other despite differences...
...However, even with Archie Brown's cautious observation that "while that movement comprised only a few thousand people," he adds that "today's nonconformist voters number millions...
...but it is difficult to think of any other Soviet leader equal to the task...
...In his essay, David Holloway offers an adage, "The new thinking did not spring into existence fully armed like Athena from the head of Zeus...
...Thus, we all are aware of dissident activities, however repressed, in the years preceding the Gorbachev era (and continuing into it...
...Alec Nove, "An Economy in Transition...
...We can take pleasure in the understanding among the Soviet scholars of what democratic socialism would mean...
...The book presents eight Western contributors, with commentary on what they have written by ten scholars and journalists from the USSR...
...We have been fortunate that Abraham Brumberg has been a frequent contributor to our pages...
...Generally, it can fairly be said that the contributors have a favorable view of Gorbachev—with qualifications...
...There is no more than passing reference to Yeltsin...
...S. Frederick Starr locates the appearance of the dissident movement in the Brezhnev period and takes it back to earlier times...
...Jutta Scheirer, "History Reclaimed...
...So, Brumberg, in his introduction, writes: Without the active participation and support of thousands of people, of course, Gorbachev would not have been able to preside over perestroika and glasnost...
Vol. 38 • January 1991 • No. 1
