The Russian Revolution of 1917 transformed the face of the Russian empire, politically, economically, socially, and culturally, and also profoundly affected the course of world history for the rest of the twentieth century. Now, to mark the centenary of this epochal event, historian Steve Smith presents a panoramic account of the history of the Russian empire, from the last years of the nineteenth century, through the First World War, the revolutions of 1917, and the establishment of the Bolshevik regime, to the end of the 1920s when Stalin unleashed violent collectivization of agriculture...

The impact of Communism on the twentieth century was massive, equal to that of the two world wars. Until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, historians knew relatively little about the secretive world of communist states and parties. Since then, the opening of state, party, and diplomatic archives of the former Eastern Bloc has released a flood of new documentation. The thirty-five essays in this Handbook, written by an international team of scholars, draw on this new material to offer a global history of communism in the twentieth century.

In contrast to many histories that...

A panoramic account of the Russian empire from the last years of the nineteenth century, through revolution and civil war, to the brutal collectivization and crash industrialization under Stalin in the late 1920s.