Kevin O'Connor (Ph. D. 2000) has published Intellectuals and Apparatchiks: Russian Nationalism and the Gorbachev Revolution (New York: Lexington Books, 2006). In this original and ground breaking study, Kevin traces the origins of an influential alliance of conservative Communist Party authorities and Russian nationalists during the late Soviet era as the USSR faced its terminal crisis. By focusing on the period of Perestroika, the book explains in detail how Marxism-Leninism faded into irrelevance, forcing many orthodox Communists to shed their Marxist principles in favor of Russian nationalist positions. The book is based on a wealth of archival documents from the late Soviet era. Kevin has already authored The History of the Baltic States (Greenwood, 2003). He currently teaches at Gonzaga University in Spokane.
