![]() ![]() Although there were disagreements over the size and depth of the Soviet system's problems, no one thought them to be life-threatening, at least not anytime soon. When Mikhail Gorbachev became general secretary of the Communist Party in March 1985, none of his contemporaries anticipated a revolutionary crisis. ![]() Neither, with one exception, did Soviet dissidents nor, judging by their memoirs, future revolutionaries themselves. ![]() In the years leading up to 1991, virtually no Western expert, scholar, official, or politician foresaw the impending collapse of the Soviet Union, and with it one-party dictatorship, the state-owned economy, and the Kremlin's control over its domestic and Eastern European empires. Still, the latest Russian Revolution must be counted among the greatest of surprises. *And why it matters today in a new age of revolution. JULY/AUGUST 2011 Foreign Policy -©2011 The Slate Group, LLC. ![]()
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