Russia and the Idea of the West

"This book is in one respect the odd one out of the five. It is more of a specialist work. It is well-written, but very detailed in its account of the gradual emergence of new ideas in Soviet small-circulation books and journals long before the perestroika years (1985-1991). These ideas were empowered and radicalized following Gorbachev’s arrival in the Kremlin. The other books in my list have much to offer specialists, but are consciously aimed at a broader readership. Robert English’s account of how radically new ideas were being developed by a minority of intellectuals within the Communist Party may have too many unfamiliar names and concepts to appeal to many general readers. But what he persuasively contends is little understood by a lot of authors who write on the Cold War, particularly those who think that it was ended by a combination of Ronald Reagan’s military build-up and his belligerent rhetoric, such as describing the Soviet Union as an ‘evil empire’, or who imagine that there was cause and effect between his speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin (‘Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall!’) and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Support Five Books Five Books interviews are expensive to produce. If you're enjoying this interview, please support us by donating a small amount . We need to understand that there were different strands of thinking within the Soviet Communist Party and fresh ideas emerging long before Reagan entered the White House, but—as English makes clear—it was only with Gorbachev’s succession to the party leadership that (to quote the title of his penultimate chapter), ‘The New Thinking Comes to Power’. There was influence from the West over the post-Stalin decades, but within the Communist Party it came from Western culture, contacts between Soviet and Western intellectuals, and the attraction for an increasing number of Soviet citizens of democracy combined with greater prosperity. What influenced them least of all was strident anti-Soviet rhetoric."