The Fall of the Pedestal

17 hrs. 31 min.

Audio Plays, Radio Productions & Literary Readings

Language Russian

Author Valery Boldin

Narrator Vyacheslav Gerasimov

Description

The author of the book, in the past the head of the USSR Presidential Staff, an assistant to the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, worked with M.S. Gorbachev for more than ten years—until August 1991. He witnessed many dramatic events unfolding in our country, the struggle for power, and the replacement of four party leaders in a short period of time. Reflecting on the reasons for the collapse of the Soviet Union and the downfall of the CPSU, V.I. Boldin presents many little-known facts about the activities of party leaders, and the work of the Politburo and the Secretariat of the Central Committee. He offers the reader his own vision and assessment of what happened, with particular attention to M.S. Gorbachev’s rise to the heights of power. The author’s viewpoint may be accepted or disputed, but it has a right to become known to the reader.

Contents

Preface
The Crimean special flight
The mourning stage of developed socialism
Meeting with Gorbachev
Economy on the brink of collapse
How perestroika ripened
The ascent
Troubled times
The eve of great changes
Rising to the heights of power
Searching for reformist ideas
Origins
Trips around the country, along the path of perestroika
CPSU XXVII Congress
Foreign visits
Democratic reforms
Who and how led the party and the country
What the Central Committee Secretariat was doing
The main political kitchen
Struggle under the Kremlin carpets
Plenums of the Central Committee of the CPSU
Party documents
Something about privileges
Life in a bright future
Struggle against excesses
Party leaders: a regime of work and rest
The sunset of perestroika
The beginning of a split in the party
Democratization in a Gorbachev way
The last CPSU congress
Walking into the presidency
The Novo-Ogaryovo deadlock
There is no such party, there is no such state
Perestroika’s results: success or defeat?
Three years later (instead of an epilogue)