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语言风格和Armageddon Averted如出一辙。虽然不完全赞同Kotkin这种强调共产主义灭亡必然性的论点，但是他对共产主义利益集团的incisive洞察深得我心。
Adam Michnik likes to compare communism to a pair of old underpants: you put them in the washing machine, they come out clean but in pieces.
还是Kotkin式 让我很不舒服的cynism和assertiveness 打破关于东欧剧变的浪漫主义印象是不错 但说来说去不就是印证一下authoritarianism理论
A good introductory reading on the collapse of Communism and Communist states of Eastern Europe. Kotkin is good at making sweeping arguments as well as setting up specific national and geopolitical contexts. There's no "peaceful evolution" nor "color revolution" that caused the system to unravel. It was broken by the very people who meant to help.
强烈的命定论：改革的冲动，意识形态的束缚，物质生活的落差，石油价格、国际债务的变化，左派执政者最大的敌人是他过去的宣传。对比来看，南巡一呼更显意义深远，贫穷不是社会主义。
“Uncivil”, what an incisive concept.