A well-written journalist account of the last days/weeks/months of the Soviet-union. Written dynamically, with wit and considerable elegance, this is the book to read about the epic struggle between Boris Yeltsin and Michael Gorbachev during the dying throws of the USSR. ( )

An amazing book, better than I was expecting, and well worth a read.

The Soviet Union went down by decree, with the stroke of a pen, and nobody would have seen that coming, even earlier in 1991, much less any year during the Cold War.

This book is structured from morning to mid-morning to noon to afternoon to evening of Dec. 25, 1991, with an epilogue the next day.

Woven into the book is an account of the rivalry between Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, the first (and last) president of the USSR and the minor party figure from Siberia who became president of independent Russia.

It’s really enlightening, revealing some flaws in the armor of Gorbachev, who had become admired in the West, and some good sides to Yeltsin, who was reviled.
Along the way, jealousies, pettiness, revenge and more fueled the interaction between the two and drove the political fortune of the Soviet Union – and the United States, to some extent.

The politics are hard to dig out, and the names, for a non-Russian-speaking American – forget it. But it’s worth hanging in there for a good hard look at the last day of the Cold War.

If we only knew then what we’d be up against next …

For more of my book reviews, go to Ralphsbooks. ( )

Moscow, December 25, 1991 is a history of the USSR from 1985 to 1992 as seen through the fortunes of the two most important leaders, Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin. Prior to reading this book I knew little about Russian political history during this period, other than the standard Western view that Gorbachev was responsible for the end of the Soviet Union. But it turns out this is only partly correct. Gorbachev was a reformer of the Soviet system who never intended for it to fail (although his reforms unwittingly made it inevitable) - it was Boris Yeltsin who was the destroyer of the USSR, who held a secret meeting in a forest cabin with break away states to dissolve the USSR, unknown to Gorbachev. Yeltsin was the true wildman radical (including infamous drunken episodes). And so the book is mainly about how these two nemesis battled one another, personally and professionally, for the fate of the Union. In the end Yeltsin won, but today there are still conservative elements (including Gorbachev) who thought it was a mistake and we are seeing them claw back the old empire piece by piece (Chechnya, Georgia, Ukraine..). In a way nothing has changed in Russia except the name on the money.

The book is structured as the last day of the USSR with an hour by hour account leading up to Gorbachev's televised announcement that he was stepping down as leader and Yeltsin (who won in election) would be the new leader of Russia. There's lot of interesting detail, including how American news companies (CNN and ABC) were given exclusive access to the Kremlin to televise the event. There's information about the President's families and day to day life and the nuclear suitcase etc.. There's really too much detail in political machinations for my taste as so many Russian names are dropped who I never heard of, but there is enough here to be of interest to anyone interested in one of the great events of the later 20th century. ( )

Gedetailleerd, bijna filmisch en bijwijlen spannend verslag van het einde van de Sovjetunie. We lezen hoe Gorbatsjov de grip verloor op het proces dat hij zelf in gang had gestoken, over zijn trots en egocentrisme, maar ook over zijn wijze besef dat hardhandige pogingen om het uiteenvallen van de USSR tegen te houden wellicht zouden leiden tot een bloedige burgeroorlog. Treffend is de opmerking van de auteur dat als niet Gorbatsjov maar Jeltsin in 1985 tot Secretaris-Generaal zou benoemd zijn, er nog steeds niets veranderd zou zijn en de Sovjetunie nog steeds zou bestaan ... ( )