This book, an account of the collapse of the Soviet Union published in 1993, humbled me in many ways. First and foremost, it's hard to come to terms with how uniformed I was during the time of periostrika. I had no idea of how Gorbachev lost his way during the transition, and Boris Yeltsin's leading role in it. From watching them on the U.S. news I thought Yeltsin was just kind of a drunk and a boob, and Gorbachev, a noble man. Regardless of his behavior while Russia's elected leader, Yeltson wa...

"Lenin's Tomb" was a superb read. It was also chilling. Why? Some of the passages and the descriptions of the Communists and their various tricks could be applied to the US and the so-called "progressives" (Socialist/Marxists). One of the major failings of Western Society was in not having War Crimes Trails, such as Nuremberg, for the mass murdering war criminals known as Communists. The reason is simple- while Communism is as despicable and foul as Nazism, the "Left" (not to be confused with "l...

Journalist David Remnick went to live and work in Moscow in 1988 and stayed there during the breakdown of the Soviet Empire. In Lenin's Tomb he documents the developments of these years - the rise of Gorbachev, the new policies of glasnost and perestroika, the uprisings in the Baltics and Georgia, the democratization of society and the reactionary responses.Throughout this long book, you'll view and feel a mighty empire unravel before your eyes. Remnick uses interviews with individual Russians t...

This is one huge journalistic effort, chockfull of interviews with everyone from a miner who is waking up to the idea of being able to go on strike, to Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. In fact, Remnick probably interviewed everyone except Stalin (and Stalin's elusive right-hand man, who avoided being interviewed during the late 1980's for obvious reasons). You get to know and understand Russian society at a critical juncture in its history, which unavoidably leads to digging in the past for

Some years ago, I traveled to Tallinn with a then-colleague. While there, we paid a visit to the Occupation Museum. Aghast at the level of Soviet atrocities against the - in this case - Estonian population, I turned to my American colleague for his thoughts. "I'd like to hear the Soviet side of it," he said, unmoved. His claim was that museums such as Tallinn's were, along with Western histories of the Soviet era and its personalities, slanted and reflected an unfairly western, anti-Soviet bias....

Having to put this one on hold for awhile, as while I was loving the book wasn't I wasn't happy with the audio version as this is one that needs to be read in order to underline and get the best from the book and my Library trying to source a copy for me as they don't have one in stock. Terrific read so far and really hoping I get my hands on a hard copy soon.

"Society is sick of history. It is too much with us."- Arseny Roginsky, quoted in David Remnick, Lenin's TombWhile Remnick was writing for the Washington Post in Moscow, my family was living in Izmir, Turkey and then in Bitburg, Germany. We got the opportunity to travel to Moscow shortly after the August, 1991 (the beginning of my Senior year) Coup. It was a strange period. So much changed so fast. I was trading my Levi jeans in St. Petersburg and Moscow for Communist flags, Army medals, busts o...

My one small gripe with this otherwise fantastic book: not so much that it’s opinionated, but I thought there were too many times Remnick allowed his personal opinions to bleed over into people and/or situations he was describing in ways that seemed to be trying to validate his beliefs. For example, in the chapter on the 1991 coup attempt, Remnick describes one of the Party leaders on the side of the putschists (whom Remnick pretty clearly doesn’t like) who’s yelled at by the liberal mayor of Le...

“In the years after Stalin’s death, the state was an old tyrant slouched in a corner with cataracts and gallstones, muscles gone slack. He wore plastic shoes and a shiny suit that stank of sweat. He hogged all the food and fouled his pants. In the mornings his tongue was coated with the ash taste of age. He mumbled and didn’t care. His thoughts drifted like storm clouds and came clear only a few times a year to recite the old legends of Great October and the Patriotic War. The state was nearly s...

Lenin's Tomb by David Remnick is one of those books that makes you want to tell — no, command —your friends, "Stop whatever you're reading and pick up this book!" The story: Remnick's report about the fall of the Soviet Empire begins with the nightmare of the Stalinist Era. I had heard horror stories about Stalin. But I had no idea just how bad it was. Compared to Stalinist Russia, the Third Reich sounds as harmless as a knitting party. Estimates range from 40 to 60 million. Lenin's Tomb is powe...

A stupendous chronicling of history in the making! We are presented with several differing viewpoints on the collapse of the Soviet regime and its splintering, in these truly tumultuous years. As the author points out, whereas other empires, like England, took decades to recede and change – this took place within a few years. Within days sometimes, overwhelming transitions took place.The efficacy of this book is the internal focus on the people in the country itself; there is none of this hyperb...

just incredible - this is, without a doubt, one of the best books I've ever read. I don't have any deep interest in Soviet/Russian history, but Remnick's writing is mesmerizing. And clever - plus it contains one of the best lines I've ever read: "I'm not sure it is possible to describe just how hard it is to acquire a reputation as a drunk in Russia."

My and I were driving to Columbus, OH in 2007 for a work seminar for her new job. We heard about Boris Yeltsin's death on NPR. The palace coup, Yeltsin's dancing on TV and the two Chechnyean wars occupied the next stretch of our drive. I found this book in a shop in Columbus a few days later and snatched it on the spot.Remnick approaches his subject with an even hand. There is no Western arrogance about matters. When he discovers fault, he reports it.I remember when Yeltsin resigned. I was going...

This is history told with verve. We see how the corruption and repression of the Communist Party led to its downfall. We witness the Soviet Union disintegrate. We are there as it happens with interviews of participants from striking coal miners and political prisoners to top officials and leading dissidents. Particularly fascinating is the portrayal of Gorbachev as the tragic transitional figure with one foot in the future and one foot that could never leave the past. He starts down the road to

The author of the books spent years living as a reporter in USSR. The book is a collection of his observations, interviews, and historical accounts of the latter part of the communist regime. You find how people live under that regime; how Gorbachev set out to transform the union through perestroika and glasnost but did so with decidedly ambivalent attitudes; how the end of the soviet unit came rather swiftly; and how things go after the fall of the iron curtain. I grew up in communist China and...

If you are a hard line communist apparatchik about to launch a coup d’état against those who libel World Socialism and defame the noble memory of Stalin then here is some advice: plan your coup well and don’t confuse planning with plotting.This is plotting:the traitor Yeltsin will be arrested and held accountable for his crimes; Yanev will replace him as President of a new USSR, its historic glory restored.This is planning:Yeltsin will be arrested at his Dacha in Vnukovo at 04:00 hours on 19 Aug...

A harrowing look at the nightmare of ordinary life in the Soviet Union, told from the perspective of its last days. Remnick has remarkable access to the most important figures of the last regime, but the best parts of the book in my opinion were the interviews with ordinary Soviet citizens. These vignettes were often quite moving and the descriptions of those who tried to survive the sheer drudgery and oppression of life in the USSR are powerful. From the perspective of those who live in relativ...

Good shit.

I was about 100 pages into LENIN'S TOMB before I realized what this book was. I had it in my head that it would be a traditional top-down story about perestroika, glasnost and the fall of the Soviet Union, a fly-on-the-wall story in the corridors of power. What Remnick is after is arguably more ambitious and interesting: he's trying to chart the changing of attitudes that precipitated the collapse of the Soviet state in 1991. (Perhaps I should have taken a clue from Remnick's THE BRIDGE, which a...

I suppose it’s hard to digest post-1917 Russian history from an entirely objective point of view as a Mongolian, their histories have been entangled too much. Indeed one thought kept creeping from the back of my mind while reading this book: Mongolia became an independent country for the first time in its history just 25 years ago. 1921 doesn’t count: how can it when its leaders were routinely brought to Moscow for bullet-wounds or forced exile. Before that was the Qing. And before that – an era...