The author has "tried to understand the realities of Soviet society, drawing both upon a superb critical judgment and a warmly sympathetic human insight." He “has given the American public material for thought and a prod in the right direction.” Originally published in 1960. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Recently, scholars have begun to examine American and Soviet relations in the 1950s. These studies, however, do not concentrate upon the Soviet leadership’s use of cultural exchange, nor do these studies explore the Soviets’ reliance on the arts as a foreign policy tool. Similarly, though studies analyze evidence for a possible thaw in American-Soviet diplomatic relations and investigate this potential thaw’s ramifications within the Soviet Union, no major studies concentrate on the thaw with regard to cultural exchange. This dissertation explores whether the Bolshoi Ballet’s 1959 American tour provided evidence of a genuine thaw in American-Soviet relations, and simultaneously seeks to understand the arts’ prominent role within Soviet foreign policy and examine the role of tsarist culture within Soviet society. Specifically, this study investigates the rationale behind the creation of the Bolshoi’s repertoire and the Soviet leadership’s objectives and interpretation of the tour’s effectiveness as well as Americans’ responses to the tour. The dissertation’s main focus concerns the four ballets, Romeo and Juliet, Swan Lake, Giselle, and The Stone Flower, and the Soviets’ attempt to use these ballets to alter Americans’ anti-Soviet opinions. Soviet officials’ public and private statements demonstrate their reliance on the arts as a political weapon. The Soviets conceived of the ballet as an effective political tool that disseminated Communist messages. Conversely, the American public and critics understood the ballet as an art form divorced from political overtones. These contrasting viewpoints weakened the Soviets’ cultural offensive. At the official level, members of the American government deliberately tried to minimize the Bolshoi’s effect as Cold War propaganda. This study concludes that the Bolshoi’s 1959 tour indicated the Soviets’ determination to employ the ballet as a weapon designed to achieve a Soviet Cold War victory. Even though the Bolshoi’s tour did not represent a thaw in American-Soviet relations and did not sway American impressions of the Soviet Union, the tour played an integral role in the Soviets’ grand strategy for a worldwide Soviet Communist victory.

This study reveals the hidden story of the secret book distribution program to Eastern Europe financed by the CIA during the Cold War. At its height between 1957 and 1970, the book program was one of the least known but most effective methods of penetrating the Iron Curtain, reaching thousands of intellectuals and professionals in the Soviet Bloc. Reisch conducted thorough research on the key personalities involved in the book program, especially the two key figures: S. S. Walker, who initiated the idea of a ?mailing project,? and G. C. Minden, who developed it into one of the most effective political and psychological tools of the Cold War. The book includes excellent chapters on the vagaries of censorship and interception of books by communist authorities based on personal letters and accounts from recipients of Western material. It will stand as a testimony in honor of the handful of imaginative, determined, and hard-working individuals who helped to free half of Europe from mental bondage and planted many of the seeds that germinated when communism collapsed and the Soviet bloc disintegrated.

How both the Soviet Union and the United States manipulated and weakened the drafting of the United Nations Genocide Convention treaty in the midst of the Cold War.

A veteran writer on Russia and the Soviet Union explains why Russia refuses to draw from the lessons of its past and what this portends for the future Russia today is haunted by deeds that have not been examined and words that have been left unsaid. A serious attempt to understand the meaning of the Communist experience has not been undertaken, and millions of victims of Soviet Communism are all but forgotten. In this book David Satter, a former Moscow correspondent and longtime writer on Russia and the Soviet Union, presents a striking new interpretation of Russia's great historical tragedy, locating its source in Russia's failure fully to appreciate the value of the individual in comparison with the objectives of the state. Satter explores the moral and spiritual crisis of Russian society. He shows how it is possible for a government to deny the inherent value of its citizens and for the population to agree, and why so many Russians actually mourn the passing of the Soviet regime that denied them fundamental rights. Through a wide-ranging consideration of attitudes toward the living and the dead, the past and the present, the state and the individual, Satter arrives at a distinctive and important new way of understanding the Russian experience.

An authoritative history of Russia from early Rus' to the reign of Peter the Great.