A brilliantly written history of Soviet Russia - from the roots of Bolshevism to the coup against Gorbachev in 1991. According to Orlando Figes, the impact of the Russian Revolution of 1917 extends through the decades of dictatorship to the present day. The Soviet leaders remained convinced until the end that they were continuing the revolution initiated by Lenin and working towards its goals: a communist society of material abundance for the proletariat and a new collective type of human being. In a historical moment when the authoritarian state tradition is reviving in Russia under Putin, Figes provides a compelling interpretation of 20th-century Russia.