Vladislav Zubok: “The Soviet Collapse“ (Princeton RWO)

On March 29, 2023, the Reimagining World Order (RWO) research community at Princeton University (PIIRS) hosted Professor Vladislav Zubok (LSE) for this year’s sixth meeting of its World Order Colloquium. Vladislav Zubok in his book “Collapse: The Fall of the Soviet Union“ (2022) offers a major reinterpretation of the final years of the USSR. In his talk, the author focuses on hard dilemmas faced by reformers of the authoritarian empire, and dwells on the causality of the economic crisis, political destabilization, and surprisingly quick collapse of the old statehood. The speaker also reflects on unintended consequences of what happened in 1991, including a conflict between the new Russia and the independent Ukraine. Collapse revisits the debates inside Russian democratic movement on how Moscow should deal with its national autonomies and ex-Soviet republics. Vladislav M. Zubok is Professor of International History at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His books