Abstract
The idea of the West was fundamental to the Soviet Union. The USSR inherited a long tradition of Russian debate on the nature and merits of Westernisation. The Bolsheviks developed and adapted this tradition. In the process they helped establish the West as a politically self-conscious and recognisable entity: a place defined as non-Communist and anti-Soviet.
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Further reading
The West: visions of the USSR/Russia
Engerman, D. (1999) ‘William Henry Chamberlin and Russia’s revolt against Western civilization’, Russian History/Histoire Russe, 26, 1, pp. 45–64.
Naarden, B. (1992) Socialist Europe and Revolutionary Russia: Perception and Prejudice, 1848–1923, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Neumann, I. (1999) Uses of the Other: ‘The East’ in European Identity Forma-tion, Minneapolis, University of Minnesota Press.
Wolff, L. (1994) Inventing Eastern Europe: The Map of Civilization on the Mind of the Enlightenment, Stanford, University of California Press.
USSR and Russia: visions of the West
Bassin, M. (1991) ‘Russia between Europe and Asia: the ideological construction of geographical space’, Slavic Review, 50, 1, pp. 1–17.
English, R. (2000) Russia and the Idea of the West: Gorbachev, Intellectuals and the End of the Cold War, New York, Columbia University Press.
Hart, P. (1998) ‘The West’, in N. Rzhevsky (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Neumann, I. (1996) Russia and the Idea of Europe: A Study in Identity and International Relations, London, Routledge.
Sodaro, M. (1990) Moscow, Germany, and the West: From Khrushchev to Gorbachev, Ithaca, Cornell University Press.
USSR and Russia: visions of the East
Bassin, M. (1991) ‘Russia between Europe and Asia: the ideological construction of geographical space’, Slavic Review, 50, 1, pp. 1–17.
Bassin, M. (1998) ‘Asia’, in N. Rzhevsky (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Modern Russian Culture, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Hauner, M. (1990) What is Asia to Us? Russia’s Asian Heartland Yesterday and Today, Boston, Unw in Hyman.
Hirsch, F. (2000) ‘Towards an empire of nations: border-making and the formation of Soviet national identities’, The Russian Review, 59, pp. 201–226.
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© 2004 Alastair Bonnett
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Bonnett, A. (2004). Communists Like Us: The Idea of the West in the Soviet Union. In: The Idea of the West. Palgrave, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-21233-6_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-230-21233-6_3
Publisher Name: Palgrave, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-4039-0034-0
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