Communism was more than a new philosophy to Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels when they wrote the Communist Manifesto in 1848. They saw it as a brand-new way of life, a new civilization for the modern man and woman. The communist way of life was to represent a total liberation from all of history, which they saw as nothing more than struggle, exploitation, and suffering. Instead of building upon the past, they proposed that communism would focus only on the future, promising total social equality for all and sharing in a new stage of human societal evolution.

When measured against other social theories throughout world history, communism is more than just another a philosophical thought experiment. The beliefs and practices of communism were institutionalized in Lenin’s Bolshevik state, as experienced within the experimental and unprecedented development of the Soviet Union. For 74 years, the experiment held together. Communist regimes, at their peak, ruled more than one-third of the world’s population.

What happened? What really caused this giant experiment to decline and fall apart?

In Communism in Decline: From Sputnik to Gorbachev, Professor Vejas Gabriel Liulevicius reveals the internal and external forces that ripped apart the grand communist experiment. What were the mistakes made by the Soviet leaders who believed too deeply in their own propaganda? And why were they not able to see the many ironies in their own poor decisions? In 12 fascinating lectures, you will learn how the Soviet Union went from winning the space race against the United States in 1957 to Gorbachev’s resignation and the dissolution of the great experiment in 1991.

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