Roads To Temple

Sifting through a wide range of primary Russian sources, Leon Aron considers what sparked the profound shift in values that occurred in the Soviet Union before its fall. He pinpoints several principal questions brought to light in the glasnost-era press, marked by an unprecedented level of national self-scrutiny and dealing at the core with the question of what is a fair and just relationship between individuals and the state. Aron presents a thorough and original history of the ways in which new ideas were disseminated through the various media of the former Soviet Union, subsequently sparking a public debate that involved intellectuals as well as common folk. Aron shows how these new ideas reached every corner of the nation, thwarted the philosophical underpinnings of Soviet ideology, and led to the inevitable collapse of the USSR.