The Rise and Fall of Soviet Communism: A History of 20th-Century Russia

By: Gary Hamburg, The Great Courses

Narrated by: Gary Hamburg

Length: 12 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

From the Oval Office to the streets of Moscow, world leaders and ordinary citizens alike share interest and concerns about Russia. Can democracy survive there? What does the future hold for the once expansive and still powerful Russian nation? Is Soviet Communism truly dead?

These are the kinds of questions diplomats struggle with every day. And now, through this series of 16 incisive lectures by an acclaimed scholar of Russian history, you can begin investigating them for yourself as you take a probing historical journey through the recent history and near future of a key world power. Whether your chief interest is Russian or world history, political theory, or international relations, you'll take away fresh knowledge and insight as Professor Hamburg examines the improbable origins of Communist rule in Russia, the ascent of the Red Star to its zenith, and its decline and apparent end in the wake of 1989's events.

Using new material from previously sealed Soviet archives and covering recent controversial findings by both Russian and Western scholars, he begins with the failures of the czarist regime and the horrors of the First World War, then takes you through the bloody era of Josef Stalin's purges and beyond to Mikhail Gorbachev's perestroika to offer you a thoroughgoing analysis of the Soviet experiment.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying reference material will be available in your Library section along with the audio.

©1996 The Teaching Company, LLC (P)1996 The Great Courses

evaluation of The Rise and Fall of Soviet Communis

I find the book very complete in genral,lthough the details of poststalism are not very complete.

What happened to Brezhnev!?!?!

The 20 or so years that Brezhnev was in power accounts for about 27% of soviet history and almost half the Cold War but he scarcely got 15 minutes of the total lecture! If you blinked you would have missed him!

Informative overview, if a bit dated

Overall, this is a great overview of the events and people that made up the Soviet Union's history. The professor is extremely knowledgeable-- he comes off as a true "Russologist"-- and clearly delineates the whole story.

If anything, it's worth noting that this audiobook appears to have been recorded in the late 90s, so about the last 25% of the course feels oddly abbreviated. This is no doubt due to the historical proximity which still existed to the Soviet Union's collapse when this was recorded. The professor does make some prescient observations about the "rebirth" of Russia and what the country might shape up to be in the subsequent years, which some listeners might find interesting.

Overall great, wish it could have been a bit longe

I've seen three main complaints amongst the reviews of this course, one of which I think is valid.

the valid complaint.

it really should have been a longer lecture series. There is just so much more to the story, what he did cover he did a great job of and I get he was making tradeoffs and trying to keep this more survey level and can understand the content choices made. But some of the things that got skipped over or get barely touched on really deserve some more explanation on their own right. Especially within the breshnev years.

the complaints I think are overblown

1. it's an old course
I didn't think this really affected it much and his predictions about Russian nationalism being the most likely future that he made in the intro are all the more impressive now that I know he was making them 25 years ago.

2. it's biased
I thought he mostly played it straight but yea he did make it clear he didn't think society communism was a good thing, occasionally he would say something like, "Tragically Lenin succeeded in x"
Which I suppose is biased but.....it was a tragedy he succeeded! sorry but the soviet Union was really really bad. you don't have to be a die hard capitalist to look at the mountain of bodies Soviet communism produced and think, "well that wasn't great"

Bad day?

This is a fascinating story and appears to be fair and balanced but the reader seems terribly bored. Not that I need excitement but his voice rises and falls then sighs as though this is the 10,000th take.

should be updated

course is finished at around 1995. lots has happened in Russ
simce then... Historical presentation is very interesting, however not enough is said about the ussr economic

Interbal politics of the Soviet Union...

A bit dated, probably recorded early to mid 90s. Also, a bit apologetic in my mind to the horrors of the Holodomor. Possibly just a bit used to more graphic portrayals from listening to Dan Carlin. Very light coverage of the Cold War and foreign interactions - this was an internal politics course.

Very solid outline of Russian history

It is a very nice outline for listeners with basic and intermideate knowledge of the communism regimes. The voice of the professor and his intonation is quite specific, but you will get used to it. Every lecture is very well built and it fits to the overall frame of the semminar. There were two things that disappointed me a bit-last lecture and a mistake concerning the Czechoslovakian president Beneš.

Great Review

As the title states, great review but there could have been so much more to these lectures. Something on the working class, the KGB, even the cold war information was scant. easily could have been a 24 hour lecture.

Wonderful overview

Definitely a wonderful overview of Russian history. Worth a listen for those unfamiliar with Russian history.