Overview

The last war of the Soviet superpower was played out against the backdrop of dramatic change within the USSR. This study is the first to adopt a broad perspective to identify the impact and implications of the Afghan war on Russian politics and society. It draws extensively upon official and unofficial sources, as well as the afganets veterans themselves, to illustrate the way the war fed into a wide range of other processes, from the retreat from globalism in foreign policy to the rise of grassroots political activism. The veterans, their experiences and fates are examined both to explode certain myths and to use them as a case study in the politics of the Brezhnev era, the distribution of power and the state's relationship with disenfranchised citizens. The same approach is used to examine the war's victims - from injured veterans to bereaved families and carers forced to pick up the pieces - and then the rise of social and political movements related to the war. Further, Afghanistan's implications for the military, notably the professional officer corps, underline how the war dramatised issues already coming to the fore and accelerated changes already taking place. The central thesis of the book is that the war must be seen in the context of the fall of the USSR and the rise of the new Russia. It did not bury Brezhnevism and then Gorbachevism, though it certainly helped. But the experience of Afghanistan played its part in the evolution of post-Soviet Russia's foreign and security policies. When Boris Yeltsin appointed his first defence minister he picked an afganets, and the 1993 Military Doctrine called on the lessons of Afghanistan in quelling unrest within and on Russia's borders.

Full Product Details

Author:   Mark Galeotti
Publisher:   Taylor & Francis Ltd
Imprint:   Routledge
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 1.90cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.476kg
ISBN:  

9780714645674

ISBN 10:   0714645672
Pages:   254
Publication Date:   01 April 1995
Audience:   College/higher education ,  General/trade ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  General
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

"Millennium- ""This book is a masterly account not only of the Soviet Union""s last war, but of the last days of the USSR itself...The book is vintage Galeotti: incisive, extraordinarily well-informed, fluently written, with a vigorous narrative drive and balanced arguments."" The International History Review- ""As Mark Galeotti shows in this very readable and instructive work, the war in Afghanistan came to symbolize the collapse of Soviet power from within...it goes far towards explaining the methods by which the party élite self-destructed in the late 1970s and 1980s. The arrogance by which the Politburo approached the war and the political situation in Kabul defeated its political purposes and became emblematic of its inability to regenerate the Soviet-experiment."" Slavic Review -"" Mark Galeotti""s probing and challenging study both complements and supersedes previous works, providing a comprehensive analysis of the war""s influence on the Soviet Union and on post-Soviet Russia. It is a skillful piece of research, lucidly presented, and it will find an appreciative audience among students both of Russian society and of conflict studies"" The Journal of Slavic Military Studies- "" This is an excellent study about the considerable influence of this conflict on contemporary Russia"

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