The rise and fall of the Soviet Empire / Raymond Pearson.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 200-204) and index.

Machine generated contents note: 1 Yalta 1945: Liberation or Occupation? 1 -- The First World War and the Partition of Eastern Europe 2 -- Interwar Soviet Europe 6 -- Interwar Versailles Europe 9 -- The Second World War and the Repartition of Eastern Europe 16 -- Operation Barbarossa 19 -- The End of the Nazi 'New Order' 22 -- 2 Belgrade 1948: Cold War Empire 25 -- Military Occupation 25 -- Economic Exploitation 28 -- Strategic Insulation 32 -- Political Subordination 37 -- Ideological Conversion 42 -- The Newest Empire 45 -- 3 Budapest 1956: Thaw and Refreeze 50 -- From Stalin to Khrushchev 52 -- Polish October, Hungarian November 58 -- Reaction and Readjustment 63 -- Hollow Victory 69 -- 4 Prague 1968: Spring and Fall 71 -- Return to De-Stalinisation 71 -- From Khrushchev to Kosygin 75 -- 'Socialism with a Human Face' 79 -- Brezhnev and 'Normalisation' 86 -- Steady State 91 -- 5 Gdansk 1980: Stagnation to Solidarity 96 -- Empire on the Slide 99 -- Poland's 'Self-Limiting Revolution' 101 -- 1980,1968 and 1956 105 -- Empire in the Red 109 -- Grey Eminences 113 -- 6 Berlin 1989: Decolonisation of the -- Outer Empire 116 -- Gorbachev and Glasnost 116 -- The Impotence of the Powerful 121 -- The Power of the Powerless 128 -- People-Power 131 -- Beating Retreat 134 -- Landslide and Timeslip 139 -- 7 Moscow 1991: Disintegration of the Inner Empire 143 -- Soviet Disunion 144 -- Imperial Implosion 152 -- Conspiracy and Climax 160 -- Capitulation and Closure 164 -- 8 The Last Empire? 166 -- Designations and Definitions 167 -- Rising and Falling 174 -- Weaknesses and Strengths 178 -- Vices and Virtues 185 -- Retrospective and Perspective 192.

Raymond Pearson describes and explains the creation, maintenance and eventual demise of the Soviet regime across post-1945 Eastern Europe, setting the so-called "Soviet Empire" within the broader context of global imperialism and decolonization.