Explaining and Interpreting the End of Soviet Rule.

This historiographical article examines the development of the study of the collapse of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The analysis is sociological in nature, with the author emphasizing cultural reasons for the dissolution of Soviet power and the end of a specifically Soviet way of life. The author goes on to describe how scholars studying the Soviet Union after 1991 formulated an understanding of Soviet power. She is fairly critical of the work of Sovietologists, who largely focused on economic and structural reasons for collapse. Other topics discussed include perestroika reforms, the leadership of Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and the symbolic power of the Communist Party.