Orlando Figes has written a very readable history of Russia, beginning with the slow decay of the Empire which brought upon the famine of 1891 and the first kindling of fire which would spark the Russian Revolution in the late 19th century, and ending with the revolutions of 1989 and the final dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. This isn't a definitive work on this fascinating and tumultuous period of Russian history - it has just 336 pages to cover a whole century, while Figes's own book o

Orlando Figes has written a very readable history of Russia, beginning with the slow decay of the Empire which brought upon the famine of 1891 and the first kindling of fire which would spark the Russian Revolution in the late 19th century, and ending with the revolutions of 1989 and the final dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. This isn't a definitive work on this fascinating and tumultuous period of Russian history - it has just 336 pages to cover a whole century, while Figes's own book on the Revolution alone is over 800 pages - but is a good, concise overview of the period and can be a great starting point for those who wish to begin their studies of Russia, and events which changed the world.Russia is, like Winston Churchill famously said,. The largest country on earth, it covers one eight of the planet's surface, spans 12 time zones and completely dominates the world map - nothing even comes close to its enormous physical size. Russia begins in Europe on the Baltic beaches of Kaliningrad, a small exclave lodged between Poland and Lithuania, stretching onto Asia towards the Pacific shores of Primorsky Krai, bordered by China and North Korea, across which lies Japan. Chukotka, the most northeasterly part of Russia, is located partially in the Western Hempisphere and borders the U.S. state of Alaska (which the Americans purchased from the Russians in 1867) across the Bering Strait. The total landmass of Russia is larger than Pluto.Churchill's quote echoes in our minds when we try to understand Russia, a strange country which is both familiarly European and Slavic at one side, but distant and Asiatic on the other. Russia achieved its gargantuan size through conquest and expansionism, which turned the medieval Kievan Rus - already one of the largest and most prosperous states in Europe at the time - into one of the largest empires in history, rivaled only by the British and Mongol empires. At the height of its power the Russian Empire stretched over three continents, from Poland in Europe to Alaska in North America. This imperial expansion gave Russia it multi-national character; although ethnic Russians continue to dominate population statistics, Russia is home to more than 185 ethnic groups with unique history, culture and language, who live in the country's many republics - such as the Tatars in Tatarstan, the Chechens in Chechnya or the Bashkirs in Bashkortostan.This enormous and complex country was also the site of the defining event of the 20th century - a revolution which would bring down the Tsar and his autocracy and through a bloody civil war give power to the Bolsheviks. Unlike the French, who in their own revolution deposed the monarch and established a republic under the slogan of freedom, equality and brotherhood, the Bolsheviks were not satisfied with simply removing the Tsar and abolishing hierarchy - their revolution was to give the power to people's councils, establishing the world's first communist state and worker's utopia.Figes's book is interesting in that it poses a new thesis -that the Revolution was not limited to 1917, but instead had its origin in the famine of 1891 which reawakened Russian populism and interest in Marxism, and continued throughout almost to the end of the next century, long after February and October. This is certainly a very interesting perspective - The Bolsheviks rose to power during a genuine social revolution, and the people's councils (the soviets) were not their invention. Figes covers the political chaos of the civil war and the establishment and consolidation of Soviet power and early Soviet terror under Lenin - creation of the Cheka, the first Soviet state security apparatus led by the infamous Felix Dzerzhinsky, a Polish aristocrat turned communist. The Cheka became instrumental in carrying out the Red Terror, a time of mass killings, imprisonment and brutal torture of "counter-revolutionaries" and "enemies of the people".The next stage of the Revolution is the rise of Joseph Stalin, an the change he brought to the Soviet system - most importantly the denunciation of Lenin' New Economic Policy - which allowed for private individuals to own small enterprises, while the state controlled banks, foreign trade and larger industries. Stalin abolished Lenin'sin 1928 and introduced massive collectivization - most notably the collectivization of agriculture, which abolished private farms and introduced collective ones, the. Stalin's policy was the final nail in the coffin of traditional Russian way of life - he saw Russia as a backward, peasant country which needed rapid industrialization to be able to survive in an eventual confrontation against the West. His reforms resulted in famines which took millions of lives - most notably in what is now Ukraine - but did increase the country's industrial output several times. Were they truly necessary, as many Soviet historians claimed? Figest argues that they were not, and that if Lenin's NEP remained implemented it might have been very successful and modernized Russia at a far lesser cost in human life.Historians continue to debate the question whether Stalin was a natural heir to Lenin and the system he put in place, or an aberration to his views and policies. Stalin wanted no national delimitation of the Soviet state and argued for a single Soviet Russian Republic; Lenin accused Stalin of the "Great Russian Chauvinism" (even though Stalin was Georgian) which was characteristic of the Tsars, and enforced his vision of republicanism - the right of each nation to self-determinate and pursue their own paths to communism in a multinational Soviet state composed of separate national republics. Lenin believed that a world revolution was necessary for the victory of communism; after the failure of numerous revolutions in Western countries Stalin adopted the policy of "Socialism in One Country", effectively isolating Soviet socialism and putting an end to Lenin's revolutionary goals. While it's certainly true that Lenin saw terror as a necessary tool of removing the "bandits" and preserving the revolution's ideals and goals, he would not murder his colleagues for different political opinions - the Congress of Soviets was probably the only place in Soviet history where a debate could be had at government level. After Lenin's death Stalin introduced the personality cult - first of Lenin, then of himself - and purged the Old Bolsheviks and those who opposed him. Stalin allowed no room for any dissent, beginning an era of Great Purges of the members of the Communist Party, leadership of the Red Army and repression of the peasants who refused to handle over their livestock and submit to collectivization - the. He famously uttered:The last stage of the Revolution comes after Stalin' death, with Nikita Khrushchev's secret speech which he delivered at the the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956. Khrushchev denounced Stalin's purges and cult of personality, seeking to bring the Soviet Union closer to its Leninist principles - and to consolidate control over the party and government in struggle for power with Stalin loyalists. This period became known as the Khrushchev Thaw - and the start of a deliberate policy of de-Stalinization, which lessened censorship and reversed mass repressions, with millions of Soviet political prisoners released from labor camps, along with liberalization of society and opening it to the West. Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalinism loosened the iron grip established by him on the country, which was the first step in Soviet Union's own undoing - with massive demonstrations and revolutions happening in the Soviet sphere of influence almost immediately. Demonstrations for independence in Georgian SSR have been squashed, as was the Hungarian Revolution - but the grip on the population was loosened, and not even the stone-cold Leonid Brezhnev could restore it. Brezhnev ousted Khrushchev from power and introduced a doctrine allowed the Soviet Union to enter and use military force in any country in the former Eastern Bloc, if its socialist system was threatened by capitalist insurgency - which almost happened in Poland during Martial Law, which was imposed precisely because of it.Still, even Brezhnev couldn't undo what Khrushchev had started. Although revolutionary slogans and propaganda was still plastered all over the USSR, the population has long lost its revolutionary spirit and the belief in revolutionary slogans and even began to joke about them - giving rise to many jokes about the Soviet system ("What is the difference between capitalism and socialism? In capitalism man exploits man, and in socialism it's the opposite"). Khrushchev's era gave rise to the generation of "Sixtiers" - Soviet inteligentsia which believed in communist principles, but shared anti-totalitarian and liberal views. Among them was young Mikhail Gorbachev, who later became the last General Secretary of the USSR - and who wanted to continue Khrushchev's vision of the Soviet Union and bring it closer to its Leninist ideals through a series of reforms which became known as(restructuring) and(openness). Gorbachev's era saw the drastic liberalization of the Soviet Union, eased censorship and allowed for much more freedom of information. These reforms provoked reaction far beyond what Gorbachev had intended - by exposing many Soviet atrocities and drastically undermining the public faith in the leadership, they provoked a sharp rise of nationalism and demands for independence from the union republics. The dissolution of the Soviet Union was not unavoidable - even through long years of stagnation, to the population the state was as solid and unbreakable as ever. It is highly probable that the Soviet Union would continue to exist to this day, albeit in a different form. Gorbachev envisioned a Union of Sovereign States, which would be the answer to the question for greater autonomy for the Soviet republics - but with a single army, president and foreign policy remaining in place. Gorbachev even carried out a referendum across the USSR - the only one in the history of the country - which showed that the majority of the population supported this project (some republics, such as the Baltic states, refused to participate and demanded outright independence - which was granted). Gorbachev's vision was shattered by a coup carried by communist hardliners, who saw his proposal as treacherous, and wanted to preserve the old system; the coup did nothing more but accelerate its collapse. It is why Gorbachev was the last revolutionary - his period finally broke the once iron grip of power over people, and the Soviet state ceased to exist in 1991.But what happened afterwards? This is another interesting question which is not asked often enough. After World War 2, Germany and Austria underwent a long process of denazification - removing any remnants of Nazi ideology from culture, politics and economy. There was no desovietization in the former Soviet Union - Soviet state symbols are still largely present in modern Russia; one has to just take a short ride on the Moscow Metro, or take a look at the hammer and sickle on the Moscow City Duma. Many Russians remain conflicted on their past, with large percentage of the surveyed expressed positive views on Stalin's leadership and even said that they would welcome his return - can we imagine most modern Germans or Austrians sharing the same view on Adolf Hitler, or admiring swastikas on the Brandenburg Gate and the Bundestag?Whilehas to paint many of these issues with broad strokes, it is nonetheless very readable account of contemporary Russian history and a good introduction to more detailed and throughout reading on the subject. Hopefully it'll provoke a deeper interest on the period and issues that it discusses. Recommended!Also worth reading: Down with Big Brother: The Fall of the Soviet Empire by Michael Dobbs - a personal account of the Revolutions of 1989 as seen by the author, who was a journalist reporting from the Eastern Bloc at the time, accompanied with appropriate historical perspective. Great and engaging reading.