A History Of Twentieth-Century Russia By Robert Service

First Edition. Russia has had an extraordinary history in the twentieth century – and its involvement in the first project to construct a communist society caused especially strong reactions. The USSR was both an admired model and an object of fear and hatred to the rest of the world. But how are we to make sense of this history? A History of Twentieth-Century Russia treats the years from 1917 to 1991 as a single period and analyses the peculiar mixture of political, economic and social ingredients that made up the Soviet compound. Under a succession of leaders from Lenin to Gorbachev, various methods were used to conserve and strengthen this compound. At times the emphasis was upon shaking up the ingredients, at others upon stabilisation.
All of this occurred against a background of dictatorship, civil war, forcible industrialisation, terror, world war and the post-war arms race. Communist ideas and practices never fully pervaded the society of the USSR. Yet an impact was made and, as this book expertly documents, Russia since 1991 has encountered difficulties in completely eradicating the legacy of communism.
A History of Twentieth-Century Russia is the first general work to use the mass of material that has become available in documentary collections, memoirs and archives over the past decade. It is an extraordinarily lucid, masterful account of the most complex and turbulent period in Russia’s long history. Book has some tanning and marking to the edges due to age (see images). Hardcover. Published by Allen Lane 1997