Reviews for Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment

The average rating for Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2020-03-13 00:00:00 Bonnie Heller I read this book for a modern political economy course. It is a succinct study of the collapse of Communism in the Eastern Bloc in 1989 and its causes. His underlying argument is that the economic failures of the centrally planned, communist economies and their massive debts to the capitalist West along with the poor governance of the communist leadership are ultimately responsible for the fall of communism. Kotkin narrows his approach to three case studies: East Germany, Romania, and Poland. This book was an excellent introduction to the subject. It is clear that such a short book (the text is just over 140 pages long, not including notes and the index) cannot be an authoritative study of the collapse of communism. Nevertheless, the book was packed with details and evidence. The writing suffers as a result, but is quite easy to read regardless. Overall, I would recommend this book , especially to those who are unfamiliar with the details of the collapse of communism (like myself, before reading this book and taking the class). I'm rating this book four stars for its value as a resource and because Kotkin succeeds in his arguments, in my opinion. Based on the writing alone, I would give this three stars, but I think this book fulfills the role of a primer on the collapse of communism very well.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-04-15 00:00:00 Mathew Ziccarelli In the west, we are often regaled with unquestioned stories of the fall of communism, most often the one in which the triad of Margaret Thatcher, John Paul II, and Reagan collectively conjure the World-Spirit of neoliberalism and capitalism to defeat the Reds. It's an account that speaks to our need for heroism. Stephen Kotkin's account, however, is a revisionist one in that he claims the downfall of the Soviet Union (especially the bloc states in Eastern Europe) was much less exciting than we've been led to believe. It ended, he tells us, not with a bang, but with a whimper. Kotkin's approach is interesting in that it doesn't focus nearly as much on western intervention or containment strategies, but simply on the inner dynamics of the countries themselves, of their "civil" (that body of extra-governmental institutions including unions, churches, and universities) and "uncivil" societies (the bloated communist states). The core of the argument is that in each of the three states with which is he concerned - East Germany, Romania, and Poland - the leadership was so decadent, so blissfully unaware, and so inept that they didn't need much outside intervention to fall. They brought themselves down without much help. The establishment of communism promised a better life for everyone, yet it was obvious how much they economically lagged behind the capitalist countries. In an effort to jumpstart technological innovation, they borrowed money from western countries, but soon realized that there was no market for the cheap, shoddy products that they were making. In no time, they were barely even able to make the interest payments on their loans. Debt skyrocketed, and most of the time, the answer was to put austerity measures into place - for people whose lives, they would tell you, were already quite austere already. To aggravate matters, hardliners were completely unreceptive to change. To admit that reform was needed was to admit that the ideological tenets of the state religion were somehow flawed. The extreme myopia and utter denial of the party heads only further catalyzed the downfall of the eastern bloc states. The one egregious exception to the inefficacy of civil society is the case of Poland's Solidarity movement. Marx's reference to Poland as "indigestible" should have been a clue that it would be an outlier: it had an economy that had many heavily privatized parts (compared to other bloc states), which very well may have made way for union opposition and Solidarity ascendancy. John Paul I's timely death, to be followed by the election of John Paul II, was also fortuitous. Included in the section on East Germany, Kotkin's coverage of the St. Nicholas protests in Leipzig are especially good. In a little-known piece called "On the Freedom of the Press" written in 1842, Marx said that often "government hears only its own voice … It knows it hears only its own voice and yet it deceives itself that it hears the people's voice." That, in a phase, is the story of Eastern Europe in the twentieth century, and the story which Kotkin renders so well here.