Moscow, December 25, 1991 the last day of the Soviet Union
The implosion of the Soviet Union was the culmination of a gripping game played out between two men who intensely disliked each other and had different concepts for the future. Mikhail Gorbachev, a sophisticated and urbane reformer, sought to modernize and preserve the USSR; Boris Yeltsin, a coarse...
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| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Books Print Book |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
New York :
PublicAffairs,
c2011.
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| Edition: | 1st ed. |
| Subjects: | |
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| Summary: | The implosion of the Soviet Union was the culmination of a gripping game played out between two men who intensely disliked each other and had different concepts for the future. Mikhail Gorbachev, a sophisticated and urbane reformer, sought to modernize and preserve the USSR; Boris Yeltsin, a coarse and a hard drinking "bulldozer," wished to destroy the union and create a capitalist Russia. The defeat of the August 1991 coup attempt by hardline communists shook Gorbachev's authority and was a triumph for Yeltsin. But it took four months of intrigue and double-dealing before Yeltsin could hustle Gorbachev out of the Kremlin. Conor O'Clery has written a truly suspenseful thriller of the Cold War's final act: the internal power plays, the shifting alliances, the betrayals, the mysterious three colonels carrying the briefcase with the nuclear codes, and the jockeying to exploit the future.--From publisher description. |
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| Physical Description: | xxi, 316 p., [12] p. of plates : ill. ; 25 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781586487966 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1586487965 (hardcover : alk. paper) 9781610390125 (e-book) 1610390121 (e-book) |
| Author Notes: | (Bowker Author Biography) |
