Table of Contents

* Acknowledgements * A Note on Transliteration Maps * The Russian Empire in 1900 * The Soviet Union, 1924--1936 * The Soviet Union and Eastern Europe after 1945 * The Commonwealth of Independent States in 1997 * The Russian Federation in 1997 Introduction * And Russia? 1900--1914 * The Fall of the Romanovs 1914--1917 Part One * Conflicts and Crises 1917 * The October Revolution 1917--1918 * New World, Old World * Civil Wars 1918--1921 * The New Economic Policy 1921--1928 * Leninism and its Discontents Part Two * The First Five-Year Plan 1928--1932 * Fortresses under Storm: Culture, Religion, Nation * Terror upon Terror 1934--1938 * Coping with Big Brothers * The Second World War 1939--1945 Coda * Suffering and Struggle 1941--1945 Part Three * The Hammers of Peace 1945--1953 * The Despot and his Masks *'De-Stalinization' 1953--1961 * Hopes Unsettled 1961--1964 * Stabilization 1964--1970 Part Four *'Developed Socialism' 1970--1982 * Privilege and Alienation * Towards Reform 1982--1985 * Glasnost and Perestroika 1986--1988 * Imploding Imperium 1989 * Hail and Farewell 1990--1991 * Power and the Market 1992--1993 * The Lowering of Expectations 1994--1999 * And Russia? from 2000 Afterword * Notes * Bibliography * Index

About the Author

Robert Service is a Fellow of the British Academy and Emeritus Professor of Russian History at the University of Oxford.

Reviews

A fine book...It is a dizzying tale and Service tells it well; he has none of the ideological baggage that has so often bedeviled Western histories of Russia...A balanced, dispassionate and painstaking account.
*Sunday Times*

A remarkable work...It demands to be read.
*Spectator*

Always well-informed and balanced in his judgments, clear and concise in his analysis...Service is extremely good on Soviet politics.
*Sunday Telegraph*