A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia

WARNING

You are viewing an older version of the Yalebooks website. Please visit out new website with more updated information and a better user experience: https://www.yalebooks.com

Alexander N. Yakovlev; Translated from the Russian by Anthony Austin; Foreword by Paul Hollander

View Inside Format: Paper
Price: $29.00

YUP

Our shopping cart only supports Mozilla Firefox. Please ensure you're using that browser before attempting to purchase.

Also Available at

Also Available in:

Cloth

Description Reviews

The main architect of the concept of perestroika under Gorbachev, Alexander N. Yakovlev played a unique role in the transformation of the Soviet Union. Now, drawing on his own experiences and on his privileged access to state and Party archives, he reflects on the evils of the system that shaped the country he loves.
“A searing book.”—Bill Keller, New York Times
“Well documented. . . . [Yakovlev] provides a systematic and keenly insightful analysis of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet system up to its collapse. . . . This is a book that deserves to be widely read.”—Aurel Braun, Globe and Mail (Toronto)
“Among the best 250 pages you will ever read on Stalin.”—Simon Sebag Montefiore, Sunday Times
“A fierce, raging indictment of the Soviet system.”—Virginia Quarterly Review
“The quest for truth and justice erupts with explosive force in [this].”—David Pryce-Jones, National Review

Alexander N. Yakovlev is president of the International Democracy Foundation in Moscow and chair of Russia’s Presidential Commission for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression. He was Soviet ambassador to Canada from 1973 to 1983, then returned to the Soviet Union to become the main architect of perestroika under Gorbachev.

"Magisterial"—Daniel J. Mahoney, First Things

“A profoundly moving and powerfully documented indictment of Lenin’s and Stalin’s crimes, written by a man of conscience who served on the Politburo in the waning days of the Soviet Union. Perhaps after reading it, Putin will wonder whether it is still appropriate to be honoring near the Kremlin Lenin’s embalmed corpse!”—Zbigniew Brzezinski

"The quest for truth and justice erupts with explosive force in [Yakovlev’s] book A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia."—David Pryce-Jones, National Review

"A searing book. . . . Yakovlev . . . is something of a newfound hero to Western conservatives."—Bill Keller, New York Times

"If anyone wants to understand Stalin’s murder of more than 20m innocents and of the truth, this book tells it plainly and fascinatingly: in its moving and unpretentious way, it stands alongside the work of titans such as Osip and Nadezhda Mandelstam, Yevgenia Ginzburg, Roy Medvedev, Dmitri Vokogonov, Milovan Djilas and Robert Conquest as among the best 250 pages you will ever read on Stalin."—Simon Sebag Montefiore, Sunday Times

"Well documented. . . . [Yakovlev] provides a systematic and keenly insightful analysis of the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet system up to its collapse. . . . This is a book that deserves to be widely read."—Aurel Braun, The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

"No single individual played a greater role than Yakovlev, the father of glasnost and perestroika, in prying open formerly inaccessible Soviet files and publicizing their contents. . . . A Century of Violence, knowledgeably translated by Anthony Austin, is exceptional not only for its wealth of evidence but for its concise, forceful presentation. . . . [A] masterful book."—Anatole Shub, The New Leader

“Yakovlev has not written a calm, scholarly analysis, but a fierce, raging indictment of the Soviet system beginning with Lenin and encompassing Stalin as well as Khrushchev. Yakovlev’s book reveals the terrible price in suffering paid by the Russian people—60 million lives.”—Virginia Quarterly Review

ISBN: 9780300103229
Publication Date: April 10, 2004

274 pages, 6 1/8 x 9

Also of Interest More from this Author