
Moscow, December 25,1991
The Last Day of the Soviet Union
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Narrated by:
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Don Hagen
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By:
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Conor O'Clery
The implosion of the Soviet Union was the culmination of a gripping game played out between two men who intensely disliked each other and had different concepts for the future. Mikhail Gorbachev, a sophisticated and urbane reformer, sought to modernize and preserve the USSR; Boris Yeltsin, a coarse and a hard drinking “bulldozer,” wished to destroy the union and create a capitalist Russia. The defeat of the August 1991 coup attempt, carried out by hardline communists, shook Gorbachev’s authority and was a triumph for Yeltsin. But it took four months of intrigue and double-dealing before the Soviet Union collapsed and the day arrived when Yeltsin could hustle Gorbachev out of the Kremlin, and move in as ruler of Russia.
Conor O’Clery has written a unique and truly suspenseful thriller of the day the Soviet Union died. The internal power plays, the shifting alliances, the betrayals, the mysterious three colonels carrying the briefcase with the nuclear codes, and the jockeying to exploit the future are worthy of John Le Carré or Alan Furst. The Cold War’s last act was a magnificent dark drama played out in the shadows of the Kremlin.
©2011 Conor O'Clery (P)2011 Gildan Media CorpListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
For history nerds, not the casual reader
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Best at 1.5x
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As for the book itself it's not bad - but it's really not what the subject matter says it is. While it does go over the final day of the USSR, most of the book are stories setting up the events, and the last couple of hours are what happened afterwards. This isn't really a negative, but it doesn't match the title and description. The book moves along at a fair pace, I never found it boring, but it's really only the story from one side - and with a book like this, meant to focus on a single day, I thought you'd get some sweeping narrative of what each camp was doing, etc - and that is not the case here at all. Still, again, the issue I really have is just how unbalanced the book is, it's clearly only half the story written by someone who worships Gorbachev.
The reader did a fine job, nothing special, but nothing bad.
Overall 3 stars for the book - which means it's OK. It's not bad, it's not good, it's just OK. Had the author attempted to balance the content and been more than a Gorbachev fanboy I think the book could have some real value, but that's beyond the scope of this book.
Gorbachev is GOD!
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Excellent
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If you like biography with lots of personal (and gossipy) details, you will love this. The events, of course, were of monumental historical importance, not just for the Soviet Union but for the world.
In the perpetual debate between the importance of broad historical forces and personality in the determination of historical events, this book makes a strong case for personality. That is not surprising, because in a totalitarian regime the personality of the dictator cannot help but have an excessive effect on current events. On the other hand, the other lesson is that rule by personality that runs against irresistible historical forces cannot last long: seventy years is not the long run
A Political Thriller.
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