Our Man in Moscow : : A Diplomat's Reflections on the Soviet Union / / Robert Ford.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter University of Toronto Press eBook-Package Archive 1933-1999
• VerfasserIn: Ford, Robert,
• Place / Publishing House: Toronto : : University of Toronto Press, , [2019]; ©1989
• Year of Publication: 2019
• Language: English
• Series: Heritage
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (400 p.)

"The world is large; Russia is great; death is inevitable." Almost forty years ago Robert A.D. Ford came across this sentence in a Russian school primer. It stays with him today as an example of the Russian psyche, a psyche that Ford is better equipped to explain than most. He is the only Western diplomat to have known and dealt with all the Soviet leaders from the end of the Second World War to the present: Stalin, Krushchev, Brezhnev, Gorbachev. As a poet and translator of Russian poetry, he also had a special entrée into the Soviet literary world. In this memoir he offers a unique perspective on post-war Soviet politics and Russian life.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Preface -- Part One: In Stalin's Shadow and After -- 1. Life under Stalin -- 2. The Post-Stalin Era and the Yugoslav Experience -- 3. The Impact of Khrushchev -- 4. Brezhnev Takes Control -- Part Two: The Russian Face to the West -- 5. Canada and Russia: An Uneasy Relationship -- 6. Groping toward Détente -- 7. Living with the KGB -- 8. The Struggle for Human Rights -- Part Three: Russia's Problems -- 9. Internal Problems: The Flawed Giant -- 10. The Dilemma of Eastern Europe -- 11. Russia and Asia: The Preoccupation with China -- 12. The Afghan Blunder and the Southern Approaches -- Part Four: The Rise and Fall of Détente -- 13. The Superpower Relationship: Vietnam and the Nixon Initiative -- 14. Peaceful Coexistence -- 15. The Fading of Détente -- 16. The End of the Brezhnev Era -- Postscript: The Gorbachev Generation -- Index