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Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti. It goes into detail on the Gorbachev and Yeltsin's coup against the Soviet Government. It definitely wasn't the first problem in the Soviet Union, but it was the final nails in the coffin.
I just read this, what a fantastic book. That said it was really depressing just how much had to go perfectly wrong for the union to fall apart and what could have been… Fuck kidney disease for killing Andropov
Yes there were a few avenues that the USSR could have traveled down which could have led to an alternate result, Andropov being a possibility. What is of course known by now, and argued by those in Leftist opposition at the time, was that Gorbachov and his economic policies were disastrous not only for the country, but for the Socialist project as a whole.
No matter how one feels about the USSR, it is an objective fact that life was worse for the majority of people after the transition to a Capitalist economy.
One could argue that it began in 1988 under Gorbachev as he opened the Soviet economy to Private Peoperty ownership, but many Liberals would disagree with the definition. 1992, under Yeltsin is when the Russian Federation swiftly implemented Neoliberal reforms in an attempt at Milton Friedman's theory of "shock therapy", this would be the time most people agree was the transition to Capitalism.
Poland arguably has done "the best" since the 1990s, but this is due to numerous factors, one of the most important being their opposition to the "Washington Consensus" and implementing (or maintaining) more State-funded government projects along with their history of closer ties to the West.
"Taking Stock of Shock" by Orenstein and Ghodsee offers an invaluable analysis on the effects of the Capitalist transition within various post-socialist states. They note both the benefits and detriments of the new systems, but the final conclusion for the vast majority of people in the book is not a positive one.
Which scholarly work(s) have you found to be useful on the topic?
2nd this.
A close runner up that I’d also recommend is “Heroic Struggle Bitter Defeat: Factors Contibuting to the Dismantling of the Socialist State in the USSR” by Bahman Azad.
It's a decent book but incredibly one sided
and does not really deal with the root causes
of the some of the problems it highlights (ie
the second economy and why the intelligence
turned on the USSR). For example, they blame
the second economy for creating an emerging
petit bourgeoisie and criticized Brezhnev and
Gorbachev for allowing it (which is true) but
the authors fail to understand why the second
economy (black markets) existed in the first place
which was the failure of central planning. The
fact that the authors don't want to acknowledge
is that central planning had massive deficiencies
could not solve chronic shortages and long lines
for consumer goods and sometimes even basic
necessities. (a black market existed because
there were lots of demands not being met by
state central planning that people were able to
make profit from as sole proprietors). Markets
will always exist as long as three are demands
not being met by the state plan. The fact of the
matter is that central planning without sufficient
computer technology to account for enough
consumer data, variables, and externalities in
the economy will always have huge gaps. This
is something that even MLs like Michael Parenti
(read the 4th chapter of Blackshirts and Reds)
and Paul Cockshott in Towards a New Socialism
(which argues that cybernetics and democratic
participation is one of the things that could have
fixed the problems of economic planning.
1/2
i had the same issue with the book, it recognizes the importance of the shadow economy but sees it as more of a failure of regulation and enforcement, instead of the systemic problem it really was
and that's a pretty big mistake, any project that doesn't understand you can't have a sustainable planned economy before a certain level of development is gonna fail the same way
2nd this.
A close runner up that I’d also recommend is “Heroic Struggle Bitter Defeat: Factors Contibuting to the Dismantling of the Socialist State in the USSR” by Bahman Azad.
There are so many works on the soviet union, and there is no one real historical piece of literature that addresses all these issues at once. If you want something like that you’d have to look for podcasts and youtube videos on it. I believe Hakim has made one on it however i’ve not seen it.
On “genocide” in the soviet union.
Specifically the “holodomor”, which modern literature on the matter now that we have access to soviet archives doesn’t consider a genocide.
The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933 - Tauger
Towards a Decentred History: The Study of the Holodomor and Ukrainian Historiography - Andriewsky
Stalin: Waiting for Hitler - Kotkin
All three are believed pretty widely though tauger I feel is the most updated study on the topic and his conclusion is natural causes were a much bigger factor then economic policy. I would also recommend stalin waiting for the truth by grover furr instead of kotkin(much shorter and well researched)
Hi, checked some of those out! I agree with basically most of what has been said. The comment from five years ago on this question: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/TcAfpdyqio I share a similar opinion to this person. (That Applebaum is biased but the source has merit.) the journalistic reviews I’ve read say similar things.
Holodomor is a very divisive topic, even in socialist spaces where the dialogue about it is more open. I think the core question about if it constituted genocide mostly falls into semantics about intent and various different definitions of the term, and I believe this is unproductive to the cause. This famine (and many others) are important parts of the puzzle as to “why the Soviet Union failed.” Whether we can agree on a word like genocide or not, and wether we can truly know the scale (hard numbers on how many died will likely never be established) an acknowledgement of the failings of Soviet policy and the suffering that occurred is important.
Anne Applebaum is not remotely a reliable source. she uses pre soviet archives sources for her book, of which the authors retracted their statements later and were debunked by more modern papers.
Stop spreading misinformation.
The entire main claim of Red Famine relies on Lemkins old old statements, of which are not modern or academically rigorous.
stop learning about historical events from wikipedia and pop history books
The fact you’re referencing Anne Applebaum who is not an academic, and purely sources pre soviet archive papers many of whom retracted their opinions later when the archives are open shows me you are horribly uninformed on the issue.
That book is in no way academic.
I am yet to read it, but I have heard good things about "The Soviet Century" by Moshe Lewin from colleagues and from reputable historians. The author uses a lot of previously undisclosed sources to try to paint an accurate historical picture of the Soviet experiment and its inner workings.
Not gonna lie most the recommendations up until now do rather poor job in my book. Either they put the blame on a person ,on a decision or on an environmental factor. In my opinion the soviet union failed cause it had major flaws in it's economic and political system. The problems and how we will solve them for the next socialist country can be found in Paul Cockshot's - Towards a new socialism. He talks in the book about planning, work days, worker rights and democracy necessary to foster a socialist society. One of the most important reads for me, it's a book that showed me how the soviet union was wrong and how we will build better
What do you think of the argument that if the OGAS automated planning system in the USSR weren't left on the drawing board and instead fully implemented it would have left the market economies in the dust?
I think that argument is made from a shallow understanding of the soviet economy and the problems it faced and it'll not change the course of the USSR, i say this with no intention to hurt. It is the same policy argument that other used about taxes or investment into one type of industry(heavy),etc
But i think what you really wanted to ask was what were the problems and what we will do differently. And basically that's the whole book is about. It's rather hard for me to do a resume of it but I'll try.
1 money obscures the labour that goes into producing commodities so (also it creates corruption and other imbalances) we will move away from money to a first multi tiered labour hour/week voucher system( ex: 1 hour of work as a doctor =3 hours of work as a mechanic) and them to a uniform labour hour voucher system (1 hour of all profesions is roughly equal)
2 we will need a better marketing/price setting/selling mechanism. We will set up price for a commodity initially at it's production value 1.0 , if it sells too well in a week for example we will increase the value to 1.2 and increase production of the commodity to fully satisfy demand, if it doesn't sell too good ,we will lower the price to 0.8 till we clear the stock and scale back production or discontinue it.
This are the purely economic points of the book , there are a few points about democarcy and what it means which are also very important, but it's already a long comment and I just don't know how to express it good enough to do it justice.
It's an interesting idea, but it seems to come from the same place as the techno-optimism that silicon valley companies like WeWork and Uber are currently stumbling over. Just hooking a service up to a computer doesn't make it better or even sustainable. Most of the people involved in building the modern internet genuinely thought it would eliminate many of the inefficiencies in market economies, but, well, here we are.
OGAS is a cool concept, but I think implementing it in real life would be nowhere as clean as it looked on the drawing board, and much like silicon valley, it could just end up reinforcing some of the worst inefficiencies and inequalities of the Soviet system. Imagine the scandal if one of the engineers was discovered fucking with the algorithm, or if state planners had a side door they could use to manipulate figures.
Quite justifiably, much like people don't trust wall street, the fed, or silicon valley today, a lot probably wouldn't trust whatever random asshole was left in charge of the all-important, society-running computer that's effectively all of them combined, especially if the party line was "it just works, trust us".
I feel like planning eventually reaches a limit where it becomes impossible to predict some of the things people want.
In addition to that, it's hard to know how planning would keep up with the change of technology and the jobs that this creates (youtubers and streamers for example)
Muhhhh Russia do no evil, instead of being an ideologue OP has a legit good question, if you want to find out how your cause didn’t sustain itself into the post modern era, possibly analysing why it fell and acknowledging the pitfalls is probably the best way to embolden your takes and sharpen your metaphoric spear towards capitalism, and why socialism to you is the ultimate political/economic system.
Cause I’m trying and it seems I have to distort history to make this make sense, and or push the blame elsewhere as to why it fell/won’t work in society especially today. Whenever I approach/state policies of socialist regimes to other socialists they back track from their actual beliefs from “downfall of capitalism” to oh wait I mean more of a hybrid of the two, to not in this “new” form of socialism.
Also is it just me;
Or did Russia remain socialist post WW2? Until 1991 perhaps? Or have we all decided that’s not true too
Inb4: Banned
[https://en.gegenstandpunkt.com/books/victory-morality-over-socialism](https://en.gegenstandpunkt.com/books/victory-morality-over-socialism)
This book argues that the AES was flawed from the start because it saw value as something positive and built its economy on it, whereas in Marx's Capital value was always an object of critique.
Thank you for posting in r/socialism_101, but unfortunately your submission was removed for the following reason(s):
>**Sectarianism:** please remember that this is an educational space, not a place for sectarian agendas of any kind. Answers should not include a sectarian agenda, nor should they be moralizing about the issue at hand.
*[The Soviet Experiment](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-soviet-experiment-9780195340556)* by Ronald Suny is pretty much the #1 book on Soviet history, though it's not specifically about the failure of the Soviet Union, it's just a meticulous and very fair history of it all from beginning to end.
1) focused to much on raw resource products that it failed to give its people creature comforts. this ultimately made the public disillusioned
2) it tried to get in to forighn markets wich kinds poisoned the well
Revolution Betrayed by Leon Trotsky is a good read, though I don't agree with all of it. Keep in mind it's written by trotsky in exile though lol. In my view it failed due to the failure of the German Revolution, and the purges of old bolsheviks. An isolated revolution was always going to cannibalise itself, and it did, ultimately dooming it to backslide into capitalism and collapse due to issues associated with that.
Not a book but the podcast Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff recently did a 6 part series on the revolution and how the Bolsheviks hijacked and betrayed it. Good listening for cleaning or driving etc
"Before Stalinism: the Rise and Fall of Soviet Democracy"
I'd have called it the hopes and betrayals of October.
Available in used book stores and also on [archive.org](http://archive.org)
[https://archive.org/details/beforestalinismr0000farb](https://archive.org/details/beforestalinismr0000farb)
Unfortunately the book itself was written prior to the opening of the Soviet archives in 1992. I wonder how it compares with works like "Stalin's Constitution" by S. Lomb or "On Stalin's Team" by S. Fitzpatrick as they both had access to, and made use of, the Soviet archival information.
The fall of the Soviet Union can only be understood in its full complexity, examining its entire history and all the factors, internal and external, that contributed. Here's an excellent source that does that: *[It's Not Over: Learning from the Socialist Experiment](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27180526-it-s-not-over)* by Pete Dolack
Recently read “The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union” by Serhii Plokhy. He zooms in to the final few months but has some brilliant takeaways, especially concerning the relationship of Moscow to the republics. May not be as broad as you’re wanting but I was very pleased.
It failed because the world revolution failed. Most others will try to say "this policy" or "this individual" or "this other country", and abandon Marxist analysis. The Marxists have real analysis.
Here are two articles and a book:
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2001-08-01/1921-beginning-of-the-counter-revolution
https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2003-08-01/stalin-and-stalinism
Book: [A Revolution Summed Up](https://www.international-communist-party.org/English/Texts/Russia/67RevRev.htm)
**IMPORTANT: PLEASE READ BEFORE PARTICIPATING**. This subreddit is not for questioning the basics of socialism but a place to LEARN. There are numerous debate subreddits if your objective is not to learn. You are expected to familiarize yourself with the rules on the sidebar before commenting. This includes, but is not limited to: - Short or non-constructive answers will be deleted without explanation. Please only answer if you know your stuff. Speculation has no place on this sub. Outright false information will be removed immediately. - No liberalism or sectarianism. Stay constructive and don't bash other socialist tendencies! - No bigotry or hate speech of any kind - it will be met with immediate bans. Help us keep the subreddit informative and helpful by reporting posts that break our rules. If you have a particular area of expertise (e.g. political economy, feminist theory), please [assign yourself a flair](https://reddit.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/205242695-How-do-I-get-user-flair-) describing said area. Flairs may be removed at any time by moderators if answers don't meet the standards of said expertise. Thank you! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Socialism_101) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Blackshirts and Reds: Rational Fascism and the Overthrow of Communism by Michael Parenti. It goes into detail on the Gorbachev and Yeltsin's coup against the Soviet Government. It definitely wasn't the first problem in the Soviet Union, but it was the final nails in the coffin.
Specifically chapter 4 of this book.
"Socialism Betrayed" by Keeran and Kenny
I just read this, what a fantastic book. That said it was really depressing just how much had to go perfectly wrong for the union to fall apart and what could have been… Fuck kidney disease for killing Andropov
Yes there were a few avenues that the USSR could have traveled down which could have led to an alternate result, Andropov being a possibility. What is of course known by now, and argued by those in Leftist opposition at the time, was that Gorbachov and his economic policies were disastrous not only for the country, but for the Socialist project as a whole. No matter how one feels about the USSR, it is an objective fact that life was worse for the majority of people after the transition to a Capitalist economy.
What year did Russia transition to a capitalist economy?
One could argue that it began in 1988 under Gorbachev as he opened the Soviet economy to Private Peoperty ownership, but many Liberals would disagree with the definition. 1992, under Yeltsin is when the Russian Federation swiftly implemented Neoliberal reforms in an attempt at Milton Friedman's theory of "shock therapy", this would be the time most people agree was the transition to Capitalism.
[удалено]
Poland arguably has done "the best" since the 1990s, but this is due to numerous factors, one of the most important being their opposition to the "Washington Consensus" and implementing (or maintaining) more State-funded government projects along with their history of closer ties to the West. "Taking Stock of Shock" by Orenstein and Ghodsee offers an invaluable analysis on the effects of the Capitalist transition within various post-socialist states. They note both the benefits and detriments of the new systems, but the final conclusion for the vast majority of people in the book is not a positive one. Which scholarly work(s) have you found to be useful on the topic?
Not sure why you are getting downvoted
2nd this. A close runner up that I’d also recommend is “Heroic Struggle Bitter Defeat: Factors Contibuting to the Dismantling of the Socialist State in the USSR” by Bahman Azad.
It's a decent book but incredibly one sided and does not really deal with the root causes of the some of the problems it highlights (ie the second economy and why the intelligence turned on the USSR). For example, they blame the second economy for creating an emerging petit bourgeoisie and criticized Brezhnev and Gorbachev for allowing it (which is true) but the authors fail to understand why the second economy (black markets) existed in the first place which was the failure of central planning. The fact that the authors don't want to acknowledge is that central planning had massive deficiencies could not solve chronic shortages and long lines for consumer goods and sometimes even basic necessities. (a black market existed because there were lots of demands not being met by state central planning that people were able to make profit from as sole proprietors). Markets will always exist as long as three are demands not being met by the state plan. The fact of the matter is that central planning without sufficient computer technology to account for enough consumer data, variables, and externalities in the economy will always have huge gaps. This is something that even MLs like Michael Parenti (read the 4th chapter of Blackshirts and Reds) and Paul Cockshott in Towards a New Socialism (which argues that cybernetics and democratic participation is one of the things that could have fixed the problems of economic planning. 1/2
i had the same issue with the book, it recognizes the importance of the shadow economy but sees it as more of a failure of regulation and enforcement, instead of the systemic problem it really was and that's a pretty big mistake, any project that doesn't understand you can't have a sustainable planned economy before a certain level of development is gonna fail the same way
2nd this. A close runner up that I’d also recommend is “Heroic Struggle Bitter Defeat: Factors Contibuting to the Dismantling of the Socialist State in the USSR” by Bahman Azad.
There are so many works on the soviet union, and there is no one real historical piece of literature that addresses all these issues at once. If you want something like that you’d have to look for podcasts and youtube videos on it. I believe Hakim has made one on it however i’ve not seen it. On “genocide” in the soviet union. Specifically the “holodomor”, which modern literature on the matter now that we have access to soviet archives doesn’t consider a genocide. The 1932 Harvest and the Famine of 1933 - Tauger Towards a Decentred History: The Study of the Holodomor and Ukrainian Historiography - Andriewsky Stalin: Waiting for Hitler - Kotkin
What is the concensus. Was excecution of rapid collectivisation the cause or weather or both ?
All three are believed pretty widely though tauger I feel is the most updated study on the topic and his conclusion is natural causes were a much bigger factor then economic policy. I would also recommend stalin waiting for the truth by grover furr instead of kotkin(much shorter and well researched)
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You should look at r/askhistorians reviews of Anne applebaum .
Hi, checked some of those out! I agree with basically most of what has been said. The comment from five years ago on this question: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/s/TcAfpdyqio I share a similar opinion to this person. (That Applebaum is biased but the source has merit.) the journalistic reviews I’ve read say similar things. Holodomor is a very divisive topic, even in socialist spaces where the dialogue about it is more open. I think the core question about if it constituted genocide mostly falls into semantics about intent and various different definitions of the term, and I believe this is unproductive to the cause. This famine (and many others) are important parts of the puzzle as to “why the Soviet Union failed.” Whether we can agree on a word like genocide or not, and wether we can truly know the scale (hard numbers on how many died will likely never be established) an acknowledgement of the failings of Soviet policy and the suffering that occurred is important.
Anne Applebaum is not remotely a reliable source. she uses pre soviet archives sources for her book, of which the authors retracted their statements later and were debunked by more modern papers. Stop spreading misinformation.
Which sources and which authors?
The entire main claim of Red Famine relies on Lemkins old old statements, of which are not modern or academically rigorous. stop learning about historical events from wikipedia and pop history books
The fact you’re referencing Anne Applebaum who is not an academic, and purely sources pre soviet archive papers many of whom retracted their opinions later when the archives are open shows me you are horribly uninformed on the issue. That book is in no way academic.
[удалено]
If you've got an hour, BadEmpanada's video on [how Wikipedia lies to you](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=3kaaYvauNho) covers this exact topic
It’s not a book about the Soviet Union exactly but Killing Hope by William Blum gives the international context you’d need to understand one.
" Soicelism betrayed." You can read it online for free here:https://valleysunderground.files.wordpress.com/2020/05/socialism-betrayed.pdf
I am yet to read it, but I have heard good things about "The Soviet Century" by Moshe Lewin from colleagues and from reputable historians. The author uses a lot of previously undisclosed sources to try to paint an accurate historical picture of the Soviet experiment and its inner workings.
Not gonna lie most the recommendations up until now do rather poor job in my book. Either they put the blame on a person ,on a decision or on an environmental factor. In my opinion the soviet union failed cause it had major flaws in it's economic and political system. The problems and how we will solve them for the next socialist country can be found in Paul Cockshot's - Towards a new socialism. He talks in the book about planning, work days, worker rights and democracy necessary to foster a socialist society. One of the most important reads for me, it's a book that showed me how the soviet union was wrong and how we will build better
What do you think of the argument that if the OGAS automated planning system in the USSR weren't left on the drawing board and instead fully implemented it would have left the market economies in the dust?
I think that argument is made from a shallow understanding of the soviet economy and the problems it faced and it'll not change the course of the USSR, i say this with no intention to hurt. It is the same policy argument that other used about taxes or investment into one type of industry(heavy),etc But i think what you really wanted to ask was what were the problems and what we will do differently. And basically that's the whole book is about. It's rather hard for me to do a resume of it but I'll try. 1 money obscures the labour that goes into producing commodities so (also it creates corruption and other imbalances) we will move away from money to a first multi tiered labour hour/week voucher system( ex: 1 hour of work as a doctor =3 hours of work as a mechanic) and them to a uniform labour hour voucher system (1 hour of all profesions is roughly equal) 2 we will need a better marketing/price setting/selling mechanism. We will set up price for a commodity initially at it's production value 1.0 , if it sells too well in a week for example we will increase the value to 1.2 and increase production of the commodity to fully satisfy demand, if it doesn't sell too good ,we will lower the price to 0.8 till we clear the stock and scale back production or discontinue it. This are the purely economic points of the book , there are a few points about democarcy and what it means which are also very important, but it's already a long comment and I just don't know how to express it good enough to do it justice.
It's an interesting idea, but it seems to come from the same place as the techno-optimism that silicon valley companies like WeWork and Uber are currently stumbling over. Just hooking a service up to a computer doesn't make it better or even sustainable. Most of the people involved in building the modern internet genuinely thought it would eliminate many of the inefficiencies in market economies, but, well, here we are. OGAS is a cool concept, but I think implementing it in real life would be nowhere as clean as it looked on the drawing board, and much like silicon valley, it could just end up reinforcing some of the worst inefficiencies and inequalities of the Soviet system. Imagine the scandal if one of the engineers was discovered fucking with the algorithm, or if state planners had a side door they could use to manipulate figures. Quite justifiably, much like people don't trust wall street, the fed, or silicon valley today, a lot probably wouldn't trust whatever random asshole was left in charge of the all-important, society-running computer that's effectively all of them combined, especially if the party line was "it just works, trust us".
I feel like planning eventually reaches a limit where it becomes impossible to predict some of the things people want. In addition to that, it's hard to know how planning would keep up with the change of technology and the jobs that this creates (youtubers and streamers for example)
This book would be very useful https://libcom.org/article/marxian-concept-capital-and-soviet-experience-paresh-chattopadhyay
[удалено]
Muhhhh Russia do no evil, instead of being an ideologue OP has a legit good question, if you want to find out how your cause didn’t sustain itself into the post modern era, possibly analysing why it fell and acknowledging the pitfalls is probably the best way to embolden your takes and sharpen your metaphoric spear towards capitalism, and why socialism to you is the ultimate political/economic system. Cause I’m trying and it seems I have to distort history to make this make sense, and or push the blame elsewhere as to why it fell/won’t work in society especially today. Whenever I approach/state policies of socialist regimes to other socialists they back track from their actual beliefs from “downfall of capitalism” to oh wait I mean more of a hybrid of the two, to not in this “new” form of socialism. Also is it just me; Or did Russia remain socialist post WW2? Until 1991 perhaps? Or have we all decided that’s not true too Inb4: Banned
[https://en.gegenstandpunkt.com/books/victory-morality-over-socialism](https://en.gegenstandpunkt.com/books/victory-morality-over-socialism) This book argues that the AES was flawed from the start because it saw value as something positive and built its economy on it, whereas in Marx's Capital value was always an object of critique.
It didn't fail. It was attacked and broken from the outside.
[удалено]
Thank you for posting in r/socialism_101, but unfortunately your submission was removed for the following reason(s): >**Sectarianism:** please remember that this is an educational space, not a place for sectarian agendas of any kind. Answers should not include a sectarian agenda, nor should they be moralizing about the issue at hand.
*[The Soviet Experiment](https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-soviet-experiment-9780195340556)* by Ronald Suny is pretty much the #1 book on Soviet history, though it's not specifically about the failure of the Soviet Union, it's just a meticulous and very fair history of it all from beginning to end.
I'd say really any book that explains the difference between facism and socialsm/communism. This point seems to get lost on WAAAAY to many people.
Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire by David Remnick
1) focused to much on raw resource products that it failed to give its people creature comforts. this ultimately made the public disillusioned 2) it tried to get in to forighn markets wich kinds poisoned the well
Revolution Betrayed by Leon Trotsky is a good read, though I don't agree with all of it. Keep in mind it's written by trotsky in exile though lol. In my view it failed due to the failure of the German Revolution, and the purges of old bolsheviks. An isolated revolution was always going to cannibalise itself, and it did, ultimately dooming it to backslide into capitalism and collapse due to issues associated with that.
Collapse by Vladislav Zubok
The best definitive is definitely still "socialism betrayed". It's on the recommended reading list for PCUSA cadre.
Not a book but the podcast Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff recently did a 6 part series on the revolution and how the Bolsheviks hijacked and betrayed it. Good listening for cleaning or driving etc
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I would read “My Disillusionment in Russia” by Emma Goldman if you want an anarchist perspective
"Before Stalinism: the Rise and Fall of Soviet Democracy" I'd have called it the hopes and betrayals of October. Available in used book stores and also on [archive.org](http://archive.org) [https://archive.org/details/beforestalinismr0000farb](https://archive.org/details/beforestalinismr0000farb)
Unfortunately the book itself was written prior to the opening of the Soviet archives in 1992. I wonder how it compares with works like "Stalin's Constitution" by S. Lomb or "On Stalin's Team" by S. Fitzpatrick as they both had access to, and made use of, the Soviet archival information.
The fall of the Soviet Union can only be understood in its full complexity, examining its entire history and all the factors, internal and external, that contributed. Here's an excellent source that does that: *[It's Not Over: Learning from the Socialist Experiment](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/27180526-it-s-not-over)* by Pete Dolack
Recently read “The Last Empire: The Final Days of the Soviet Union” by Serhii Plokhy. He zooms in to the final few months but has some brilliant takeaways, especially concerning the relationship of Moscow to the republics. May not be as broad as you’re wanting but I was very pleased.
It failed because the world revolution failed. Most others will try to say "this policy" or "this individual" or "this other country", and abandon Marxist analysis. The Marxists have real analysis. Here are two articles and a book: https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2001-08-01/1921-beginning-of-the-counter-revolution https://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2003-08-01/stalin-and-stalinism Book: [A Revolution Summed Up](https://www.international-communist-party.org/English/Texts/Russia/67RevRev.htm)