readings in English on Russian history was included in the second edition.
Again, I have very many people to thank. In the first place, I want to thank my students and students throughout the United States who have used my History and have thus given it its true test. I have tried to utilize their experience and their opinions. I am also deeply grateful to very numerous colleagues who used History of Russia in their courses, or simply read it, and made corrections or comments. While it is not feasible to list all the appropriate names, I must mention at least Professor Gregory Grossman of the University of California at Berkeley, without whom the gross national product table would not have been possible and who, in addition, paid careful attention to the entire section on the Soviet Union, and the Soviet scholar V. B. Vilinbakhov, who has subjected my presentation of the early periods of Russian history to a thorough and searching criticism. Needless to say, as I thank these and other scholars for their help, I must state that they are not responsible for the opinions or the final form of my book. I am further indebted to my research assistants Mrs. Victoria King and Mr. Vladimir Pavloff and, most especially, to my wife.
Berkeley, California Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
December 19, 1968
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION No attempt has been made in this third edition of A History of Russia to alter the character and basic design of previous editions. The passage of time since the completion of the second edition in 1968 has brought us from the occupation of Czechoslovakia to the Twenty-fifth Party Congress in 1976 and the current Tenth Five-Year Plan. Numerous changes have therefore been made in the text as a consequence of recent events and of recent scholarship as well. The bibliography and especially the English reading list have been expanded. The section on the Soviet period has grown slightly in proportion to the whole, although the aim remains to present a single balanced volume.
Many people deserve my special gratitude. Professor Gregory Grossman of the University of California at Berkeley again brought up to date the gross national product table and, moreover, was of invaluable help in up dating the entire Soviet section. Other Berkeley colleagues generously contributed their knowledge and wisdom in regard to subjects which preoccupied me during the preparation of this third edition. Colleagues else where were equally helpful as they used A History of Russia as a textbook and informed me of their experience or simply commented on the work. I would like to thank particularly many conscientious reviewers, such as Professor Walter Leitsch of Vienna. Mr. Gerald Surh and Mr. Jacob Picheny proved to be excellent research assistants, who aided me in every way and most notably in the preparation of the English reading list and the index. The mistakes and other deficiencies that remain after all that help are, I am afraid, mine, and, taking into account the scope of the book, they may well be considerable. My most fundamental gratitude goes to my constant helper, my wife, and to the students for whom this textbook was written and who have been using it. May the group of students who recently called me across the continent from Brown University to discuss my History of Russia and whose names I do not know accept the thanks I extend to them, as the representatives of students everywhere.
Berkeley, California Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
March 12,1976
PREFACE TO THE FOURTH EDITION
The death of Leonid Ilich Brezhnev on November 10, 1982, and Iurii Vladimirovich Andropov's prompt succession to the leadership of the Soviet Union have provided a striking terminal point to this fourth edition of my History of Russia. The new material in the book covers the last seven years of the Brezhnev regime. It includes also additions and changes in all previous parts of Russian and Soviet history as well as the updating of the two bibliographies.
Acknowledging my overall fundamental and grateful indebtedness to the scholarship in the field, I must record special thanks to my colleagues, particularly Berkeley colleagues, who contributed directly to the preparation of this edition. Professor Gregory Grossman again updated the population and gross national product table and, beyond that, offered invaluable help based on his matchless knowledge of the Soviet economy and of the Soviet Union in general. Other colleagues, such as Professor George Breslauer, whose notable book Khrushchev and Brezhnev as Leaders: Building Authority in Soviet Politics came out just as Brezhnev died, were also generous with their time and expert advice. For checking, rechecking, typing, preparing the index, and much else, I was blessed with an excellent research assistant, Mr. Maciej Siekierski, who also contributed his special knowledge of Poland and Lithuania, and an excellent secretary, Ms. Dorothy Shannon. And, once more, I must emphasize my indebtedness to my students and my wife: the students have been using A History of Russia, often both enthusiastically and critically, for some twenty years; my debt to my wife is even more basic as well as of a still longer duration.
Berkeley, California Nicholas V. Riasanovsky
September 1983
PREFACE TO THE FIFTH EDITION I ended the first four editions of A History of Russia with a comment on the contemporary Soviet conundrum. I wrote that the Soviet Union was neither a stable nor a happy country, but that the problem of change, either by revolution or by evolution, was, in its case, an extremely difficult one, which I could not clearly foresee. The last sentences were,
To conclude, the Soviet system is not likely to last, not likely to change fundamentally by evolution, and not likely to be overthrown by a revolution. History, to be sure, has a way of advancing even when that means leaving historians behind.
Shortly after this assessment appeared in print, an author of a generally kind and even flattering review wrote in exasperation that Professor Riasanovsky, unfortunately, terminated 710 lucid pages with a murky sentence. In response to my critic, I have considered and reconsidered my conclusion throughout the years and with every edition, but always retained it. To be sure, it was not distinguished by perspicacity or precision, but it was the best I could offer. Now, however, I am moving it from the conclusion to the preface. Historians, and all others as well, have been left behind. The first part of my commentary, on the instability and unhappiness in the Soviet Union, needs no elaboration. The second, on the difficulty of change, is something the citizens of the former Soviet Union and even other people in the world are living through day by day.
To be sure, as many friends have advised me, it would be wiser to wait with a new edition of A History of Russia. I am not waiting for two reasons: I have always been in favor of writing contemporary history, no matter how contemporary, as well as other kinds, and Oxford University Press has provided me with an excellent determined editor with whom I have been working for many years. Let us hope that the next edition will be lucid in its final as well as its earlier pages. (And, incidentally, that it will bring reliably up to date Tables 5 and 6 of the Appendix, an impossibility at present.)
The next edition may also be richer in historiography. Glasnost has been perhaps the most striking substantive change in the Soviet Union in the past few years. It does represent the breaking out from a totalitarian straight jacket so characteristic of Soviet society and culture. It may be irreversible. But so far, because of the shortage of time and other reasons, it has not transformed Soviet historiography. Having participated in the conference,
held in Moscow in April 1990, on rewriting Soviet history, having read Soviet publications, and having talked with Soviet historians, I must conclude that the change has been slow. I do not want to minimize the work of such revisionist historians as Evgeny Viktorovich Anisimov, all the more so because to them probably belongs the future, but I have been on the whole impressed and depressed by the difficulty of change. Understandably, if often unfortunately, people who have spent many years or a lifetime at hard work try to retain at least some of their
