Skip to content

Booksellers & Trade Customers: Sign up for online bulk buying at trade.atlanticbooks.com for wholesale discounts

Booksellers: Create Account on our B2B Portal for wholesale discounts

The Russian Quest for Peace and Democracy

by Metta Spencer
Save 17% Save 17%
Current price ₹6,382.00
Original price ₹7,659.00
Original price ₹7,659.00
Original price ₹7,659.00
(-17%)
₹6,382.00
Current price ₹6,382.00

Imported Edition - Ships in 18-21 Days

Free Shipping in India on orders above Rs. 500

Request Bulk Quantity Quote
+91
Book cover type: Paperback
  • ISBN13: 9780739144732
  • Binding: Paperback
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: Lexington Books
  • Publisher Imprint: Lexington Books
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 346
  • Original Price: GBP 49.99
  • Language: English
  • Edition: Reprint
  • Item Weight: 545 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): Political Process / General

In The Russian Quest for Peace and Democracy, Metta Spencer recounts the political and military changes that have occurred in Russia up to mid-2010. Using hundreds of interviews she conducted with officials, dissidents, and liberal intellectuals, she describes the various groups, forces, and individuals that worked to liberalize the totalitarian Soviet Union and its fellow nations behind the Iron Curtain, and which ultimately brought about the dissolution of those repressive governments.

Spencer identifies four political orientations to describe Soviet society: "Sheep," ordinary citizens who accepted the undemocratic regime they lived in without challenging it; "Dinosaurs," hard-line Communist officials; "Termites," including Mikhail Gorbachev and his advisers and government; and "Barking Dogs," a few hundred dissidents who made "a lot of noise" protesting, hoping to awaken a grass-roots demand for democracy. The strange rivalry between the Termites and Barking Dogs would ultimately doom perestroika.

Spencer's research dispels the widely-held perception that US President Ronald Reagan "won" the Cold War by standing firm until the Soviet Union "blinked first." There are vitally important lessons to be learned from the Soviet period, about how to assist citizens of totalitarian and authoritarian regimes around the world.

The irony is that transnational civil society organizations, major sources of the progress in Soviet Russia, are still needed today in authoritarian Russia, under Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, for totalitarianism remains a potential social trap. In The Russian Quest for Peace and Democracy, Metta Spencer suggests new ways of building urgently-needed social capital in today's Russia, where democracy has yet to flourish.

Metta Spencer is editor-in-chief of Peace Magazine and professor emeritus of sociology at University of Toronto. To learn more about the author and her research, please visit http: //russianpeaceanddemocracy.com/

Trusted for over 49 years

Family Owned Company

Secure Payment

All Major Credit Cards/Debit Cards/UPI & More Accepted

New & Authentic Products

India's Largest Distributor

Need Support?

Whatsapp Us