The Imagery of Soviet Foreign Policy and the Collapse of the Russian Empire

by Christo. Smart

Overview

This study explores how Soviet leaders shaped the image their state cast since the death of Stalin. The fact that the leadership's legitimacy rested upon values and aims that were fundamentally at odds with the international system imposed a cumbersome task of image management. Each leader approached this task with a different strategy, and each strategy had direct consequences for Soviet behavior abroad and for the coherence of the Soviet state at home. The dynamics of foreign policy and image management, from Khrushchev and Brezhnev through Gorbachev and Yeltsin, are analyzed here in a revealing look at a superpower on the world stage.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275948573
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	04/25/1995
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.56(d)

About the Author

CHRISTOPHER SMART holds degrees from Yale University and Columbia University./e He has worked as a newspaper reporter in Florida and France, a research fellow at the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., and an adviser to the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation. He is currently Senior Project Manager at the Russian Privatization Center in Moscow.

Table of Contents

Preface
The Imagery of Soviet Foreign Policy
Imagery in International Relations
Russian Images, Soviet Images
Imagery of Khrushchev's Foreign Policy
The Imagery of Brezhnev's Foreign Policy
The Imagery of Gorbachev's Policy
The Imagery of Post-Soviet Russia
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

Scholar, journalist, and advisor to the new Russian government, Smart explores how the fundamental contradiction in the image of the Soviet Union's international role--both destroyer and leader of the established order--was managed in the early years after the revolution, and by Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev. A final chapter examines the imagery around post-Soviet Russia. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

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