Search results

BOOKS are among the greatest and most wonderful achievements of human genius, they are also a powerful means of struggle for progress. The book accompanies man all his life; it is a creation of his brain and soul. It reflects the life of mankind and is the result of collective efforts of author and publisher, type‐setter and illustrator. But foremost a book is always and everywhere a social and political phenomenon. One of the most apt evaluations of the book was given by V. I. Lenin in 1917, when he was known to state to A. V. Lunacharsky, “The book is a great force indeed”.

Until very recently an immense USSR comprised fifteen republics. Now the three Baltic states are free of Moscow's direction, and an independent Ukraine has joined Belarus and the former Russian Soviet Federated Republic (RSFSR) as the hub in a commonwealth of former republics that have declared themselves independent or “sovereign,” but federated through agreements based on economics or defense considerations. Whether one concentrates on the story of Baltic freedom following the abortive 1991 coup, the subsequent dissolution of central governmental power, or the lasting enmities among some of the peoples in Central Asia and the Caucasus, the pivot around which this new interest or heightened curiosity turns is the recent great change within the late Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Gives a brief account of what has happened, what is happening and what is going to happen in the country formerly called the Soviet Union. Analyses the socio‐economic nature of the Soviet system and its evolution prior to Gorbachev′s reforms. Presents the causes for the emergence of perestroika and for the collapse of the system and the State. Discusses the reasons for the arrival of Yeltsin and his policies to the political scene. Examines the core of the current crisis and the means to resolve it. Speculates on the country′s distant future.

The fundamental idea that we seek to establish in this chapter is that the establishment of regional or local, peace calls forth global peace. In other words, our argument is that local and regional conflicts are partly driven by global factors, especially what is commonly known as international tension. In order to achieve meaningful and sustained peace, there is a reason to believe that it is mandatory to manage and contain international tensions. The main thesis of this chapter is to explain or posit, conflicts as a product of continuing international chasms, splits and differences of political and social ideologies in our modern world. Thus, we argue that conflicts are, to some extent, driven by international tension or global, ideological and geo-political factors. Notwithstanding the global influence, local factors – such as income inequality, income growth or lack of it, political institutions – can and do exacerbate conflicts and a peaceful resolution of conflicts becomes a difficult phenomenon.

Examines the process of systemic disintegration in the USSR brought about by perestroika, demokratizatsiya and glasnost. Places Soviet economic crises in a broader political and nationalities context. Concludes that liberalization and democratization led both to the break‐up of the Communist system and that of the imperial state.

The study aims to provide an insight into the inherent diversities and ambiguities of Soviet touristic landscapes during the period of late socialism by a means of Estonian biographical sources. Based on written narratives, the study focuses on the embodied ways in which Estonian travellers engaged with and experienced foreign landscapes and people during trips within the Soviet Union.

The study treats tourists’ travel landscapes as meaningful, lived experiences that highlight features and everyday life strategies that were characteristic of the Soviet period. Approaching via the lens of Estonian culture and nationality, the study analyses the meaningful experiences through which the narrators drew boundaries between the self and the other.

The Soviet tourism landscape of the 1960s–1980s was marked by sharp cultural contrasts. The landscapes that unfold in the narratives were full of contradictions, arousing feelings of both admiration and alienation. Whilst the ideological purpose of Soviet tourism was to build a “socialist nation”, the themed narratives, on the other hand, demonstrate the wide spectrum of everyday life practices, which show both the distancing of oneself from the Soviet system as well as conformation with it. Although tourism helped travellers accept the Union, this was achieved not by consenting to socialist ideology, but by becoming familiar with its heterogeneity.

Research on Soviet tourism has largely relied on archival sources and the press, which shed light mainly on the organisation and ideological basis of tourism. Drawing on oral sources, this study contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the complex nature of Soviet tourist landscapes.

The main aim of this paper is to explore the general impact of post‐Soviet transition on the experiences of women managers in Estonia. Using survey data the paper reviews women's responses to organisation change in a transition context. The paper focuses specifically on economic and social changes that are occurring in Estonia following its reassertion of independence from the Soviet Union.

A contextual background to transition is provided and the recent history of Estonia is charted in relation to the demise of the Soviet Union and events in the recent post‐Soviet era. The paper discusses the issue of whether women have, in general terms, benefited from Estonia's move away from the Soviet Union and into the independent European State of Estonia. Estonia's membership of the European Union is highlighted as a key factor that is likely to influence the experiences of women managers in the future. The results of a comparative survey (n=682) into the attitudes of Estonian women managers towards various change management issues at the organisation level are presented.

The results of the study suggest that many women face cultural barriers to advancement in the workplace, and that women are seeking out opportunities in response to economic and social change. Recent legislation changes suggest however, that Estonia's institutional framework will assist women's career development and position in the economic sphere.

There is a need for more focused gender‐based management research relating to Estonia. Such research could, in part, be based on information gathered from the further development of formal gender‐specific employment monitoring practices at both organisational and governmental levels in Estonia.

Because there is a dearth of gender‐focused research across Central and Eastern Europe, this paper provides valuable insights into the effects of independence on the experiences of women in Estonia.

The Soviet experiment on socialism provides several distinguishable politico‐economic models. Employing dialectical methodology, examines the political economy of War Communism (1917‐21) as an exemplar of the “Socialist Command Model”. Explores the economic, political and social forces that were responsible for the emergence of the model, its policies, programmes and consequences, and finally, the forces that made it obsolete for the subsequent stages of Soviet development.

Examines the sources and implications of Mikhail Gorbachev′s policies insofar as they have been policies of liberalization. It is principally argued that Marxism has been a Western phenomenon and thereby a vehicle for the export of Western Enlightenment values to Third World countries but also to the Soviet Union itself. The nature and role of Marx′s analyses are considered in that light. So also are the status of nationalism in the USSR, the historical meaning and promise of socialism, the role of the legal‐economic nexus in the social reconstruction of reality in the USSR and in Central and Eastern Europe, the relevance to those developments of the emerging new European and world systems, and the relevance of all these for social economics.