Andrew Felkay - Böcker

Throughout history, strong-willed Russian autocrats have rescued their country from foreign domination, disorder, and possible chaos, often using the cruelest means to achieve their ends. Gorbachev tried to implement socialism with a human face in the Soviet Union, but failed. In the early 1990s, once again, Russia needed a strong hand to pull it out of chaos. In August 1991 Boris Yeltin emerged as such a leader, but unlike earlier strong leaders, he was determined to pull Russia out of the Communist morass and affect his country's integration with Western democracies through democratic means.Felkay carefully analyzes the impact of Yeltsin on the newly evolving relationship between Russia and the Western democracies. But separating the process of formulating foreign and domestic policies would be impossible. From the onset, Yeltsin kept both reins of decision-making firmly in hand. Accordingly, Felkay assesses Yeltsin's effectiveness in moving his country toward democracy and a market economy, and he shows the ups and downs of his pro-Western foreign policies. This book provides an important analysis for scholars, students, and other researchers involved with Russian studies, international relations, and comparative politics.

In this comprehensive analysis of Hungarian political and economic developments over the past 30 years, Felkay focuses particularly on the role played by the country's long-tenured Communist leader, Janos Kadar. Basing his study on a comprehensive critical analysis of the official Hungarian press, ideological journals, relevant documents, and other statistical reports from 1956 to the present, Felkay argues that Hungary's rapid recovery from the cataclysmic events of 1956 was the direct result of Kadar's ability to overcome the alienation of his compatriots without incurring the displeasure of the Soviet Union. Felkay's reliance on primarily Hungarian Communist sources offers the reader a unique window on Kadar's political emergence as a pragmatic and unusally successful Communist leader.Felkay begins with a brief history of Hungary and Soviet-Hungarian relations to the end of World War II, setting the context for the detailed political case study which follows. Subsequent chapters detail Kadar's youth, his early involvement with the Communist party, and his installatiton by the Soviets as Hungary's leader in the wake of the 1956 uprising. Felkay demonstrates that despite the circumstances of his selection and his lack of domestic support, Kadar emerged as an effective political leader in his own right. His introduction of innovative non-Marxist structural economic reforms, Felkay shows, enabled Kadar to create one of the most efficient economic systems within the Soviet bloc. Felkay continues with chapters covering the Czechoslovak crisis of 1968, the slowing of reforms and the effects of worldwide price explosions in the early 1970s, and the mounting economic problems that have confronted Kadar and Hungary in the 1980s. The concluding chapters address the most recent developments, including Kadar's removal from office and the impact of Gorbachev's glasnost and perestroika, and predicts likely future trends. Invaluable supplemental reading for courses in comparative politics, Central European politics, and the political economy of Eastern Europe, this volume provides a more comprehensive view of Hungary's contemporary development than has yet been available.