The Fall of an Empire

In December of 1991, the vast Soviet Empire, the last empire on earth, crumbled before the world's astonished eyes. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or USSR, disintegrated into fifteen separate countries. The West took this as testimony for the superiority of democracy over totalitarianism, of capitalism over socialism. In 1970, a man by the name of Andrei Amalrik asked whether the Soviet Union would survive until 1984. In the West, his question was met with surprise. (d'Encausse, …

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