Summary of Arkady Ostrovsky's The Invention of Russia

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev delivered his last speech as president of the Soviet Union. He signed the papers that would formally dissolve the Soviet Union, and began to speak. His voice was soft and forced at first, but it became more controlled as he went on.

#2 The country that had come into existence after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 had ceased to exist minutes later, when Gorbachev passed the nuclear briefcase to Yeltsin. The role played by Alexander Yakovlev in the dismantling of the Soviet Union was second only to Gorbachev’s.

#3 The Soviet system rested on violence and ideology. The death of Stalin in 1953 put an end to mass terror and repression. Violence, administered by the security services on behalf of the Communist Party, became more sporadic and was now used mainly against dissidents.

#4 The collapse of the Soviet Union was not caused by economic problems or a revolutionary uprising in Moscow, but by the dismantling of lies. Without lies, the Soviet Union had no legitimacy.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: May 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822518766

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Insights on Arkady Ostrovsky's The Invention of Russia

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

On December 25, 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev delivered his last speech as president of the Soviet Union. He signed the papers that would formally dissolve the Soviet Union, and began to speak. His voice was soft and forced at first, but it became more controlled as he went on.

#2

The country that had come into existence after the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 had ceased to exist minutes later, when Gorbachev passed the nuclear briefcase to Yeltsin. The role played by Alexander Yakovlev in the dismantling of the Soviet Union was second only to Gorbachev’s.

#3

The Soviet system rested on violence and ideology. The death of Stalin in 1953 put an end to mass terror and repression. Violence, administered by the security services on behalf of the Communist Party, became more sporadic and was now used mainly against dissidents.

#4

The collapse of the Soviet Union was not caused by economic problems or a revolutionary uprising in Moscow, but by the dismantling of lies. Without lies, the Soviet Union had no legitimacy.

#5

The reformers of 1985 were trying to destroy the Bolshevik church, and they were willing to break the boundaries of Soviet language in order to do so. The Communist reformers believed in the ideals of justice and equality, and they hoped to make the system more humane and moral.

#6

The iron curtain was made up of words and people, and the state kept them behind it. Publishing a book in the West without the permission of the state was considered no less a crime than illegally crossing the frontier without a special exit visa.

#7

The shestidesiatniki were a group of men who had graduated from universities in 1953, the year of Stalin’s death. They were well-educated, liberal, and anti-Stalinist. They moved together as a group, seeking out and helping one another.

#8

Yegor Yakovlev was a journalist who was active in Russian political life for more than fifty years. He was one of the most colorful and active members of the generation that attempted to reform the Soviet Union, but instead contributed to its demise.

#9

Yegor’s father, who was a member of the ultranationalist, monarchist and anti-Semitic organization called the Union of Russian People, was allegedly involved in the capture of Mishka the Jap, a prototype for Babel’s Benya Krik, the King of Odessa gangsters. He was then reportedly executed according to the law of the revolution.

#10

The death of Stalin in 1953 was a watershed as great as his coming to power had been. It marked the end of one country and the beginning of another. But the realization of this did not come overnight.

#11

After Stalin’s death, Khrushchev began to loosen the suffocating collar that Stalin had imposed on the country. He opened up the Kremlin