Peter Reddaway

This book provides an account of contemporary historical assessment of the response to psychiatric abuse in the Soviet Union. It discusses all the major activities against Soviet psychiatry that took place in the West between the Honolulu and Vienna world psychiatric congress.

The nearly forgotten story of Soviet dissidents. It has been nearly three decades since the collapse of the Soviet Union?enough time for the role that the courageous dissidents ultimately contributed to the communist system’s collapse to have been largely forgotten, especially in the West. This book brings to life, for contemporary readers, the often underground work of the men and women who opposed the regime and authored dissident texts, known as samizdat, that exposed the tyrannies and weaknesses of the Soviet state both inside and outside the country. Peter Reddaway spent decades studying the Soviet Union and got to know these dissidents and their work, publicizing their writings in the West and helping some of them to escape the Soviet Union and settle abroad. In this memoir he captures the human costs of the repression that marked the Soviet state, focusing in particular on Pavel Litvinov, Larisa Bogoraz, General Petro Grigorenko, Anatoly Marchenko, Alexander Podrabinek, Vyacheslav Bakhmin, and Andrei Sinyavsky. His book describes their courage but also puts their work in the context of the power struggles in the Kremlin, where politicians competed with and even succeeded in ousting one another. Reddaway’s book takes readers beyond Moscow, describing politics and dissident work in other major Russian cities as well as in the outlying republics.

Elite-level Soviet politics, privileged access to state secrets, knowledge about machinations inside the Kremlin-such is the environment in which Andrei A. Kovalev lived and worked. In this memoir of his time as a diplomat in key capacities and as a member of Mikhail Gorbachev’s staff, Kovalev reveals hard truths about his country as only a perceptive witness can. In Russia’s Dead End, Kovalev shares his intimate knowledge of political activities behind the scenes at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Kremlin before the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991 and afterward, including during the administration of Vladimir Putin. Kovalev analyzes Soviet efforts to comply with international human-rights obligations, the machinations of the KGB, and the link between corrupt oligarchs and state officials. He documents the fall of the USSR and the post-Soviet explosion of state terrorism and propaganda, and offers a nuanced historical explanation of the roots of Russia’s contemporary crisis under Vladimir Putin. This insider’s memoir provides a penetrating analysis of late-Soviet and post-Soviet Russian politics that is pungent, pointed, witty, and accessible. It assesses the current dangerous status of Russian politics and society while illuminating the path to a more just and democratic future.

This book provides an account of contemporary historical assessment of the response to psychiatric abuse in the Soviet Union. It discusses all the major activities against Soviet psychiatry that took place in the West between the Honolulu and Vienna world psychiatric congress.

The book is a case study of Putin’s use of the tactics of divide and rule in relation to, particularly, the hard-line elements among his supporters. It illustrates Putin's methods of staying in power vis-à-vis groups that might put too much pressure on him, or who might even try to oust him. The project also suggests that Putin’s survival tactics have brought Russia to a deeply corrupt, state-dominated form of authoritarianism, which lacks deep institutional roots and will probably lead in due course to some form of state collapse. This work will appeal to a wide audience including political scientists, academics, graduate students, and everyone who is interested in contemporary Russian politics.

Elite-level Soviet politics, privileged access to state secrets, knowledge about machinations inside the Kremlin-such is the environment in which Andrei A. Kovalev lived and worked. In this memoir of his time as a diplomat in key capacities and as a member of Mikhail Gorbachev’s staff, Kovalev reveals hard truths about his country as only a perceptive witness can. In Russia’s Dead End, Kovalev shares his intimate knowledge of political activities behind the scenes at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Kremlin before the dissolution of the USSR in December 1991 and afterward, including during the administration of Vladimir Putin. Kovalev analyzes Soviet efforts to comply with international human-rights obligations, the machinations of the KGB, and the link between corrupt oligarchs and state officials. He documents the fall of the USSR and the post-Soviet explosion of state terrorism and propaganda, and offers a nuanced historical explanation of the roots of Russia’s contemporary crisis under Vladimir Putin. This insider’s memoir provides a penetrating analysis of late-Soviet and post-Soviet Russian politics that is pungent, pointed, witty, and accessible. It assesses the current dangerous status of Russian politics and society while illuminating the path to a more just and democratic future.

A Witness Report from Behind the Scenes of Russian Politics I Is It Possible to Create Good Out of Evil? (Memories and Deliberations on the Last Soviet and First Post-Soviet Years)