Soviet Revolution

For more than 40 years, communism held eight European nations in its iron fist. Yet by the end of 1989, all of these nations had thrown off communism, declared independence, and embarked on the road to democracy.

The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union traces the dramatic journey of one of history’s most powerful and enigmatic states—from the revolutionary upheavals of 1917 to the collapse of the USSR in 1991, and the emergence of post-Soviet Russia under Vladimir Putin. This comprehensive history explores the rise of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, Stalin’s brutal consolidation of power, the transformative impact of industrialization and collectivization, and the global tensions of the Cold War. It examines the policies, struggles, and reforms that shaped Soviet society, the eventual unraveling of ...

It is June 1936. Leon Trotsky (1879-1940) has finally been granted a visa for asylum in Norway, having been banned first from living in Paris, and then the whole of France. With him comes the draft of The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going?, which is completed...

The Russian Revolution: The Fall of the Romanovs and the Rise of Soviet Power A History for Curious Minds How did one of the largest empires on earth collapse in a matter of months? And how did that collapse give rise to one of the most powerful ideological states of the twentieth century? The Russian Revolution: The Fall of the Romanovs and the Rise of Soviet Power offers a clear and structured guide to one of history’s most consequential turning points. Rather than overwhelming you with dates or assuming prior expertise, this book helps you see the forces that drove events—how ...

THE RED TERROR is a gripping account of the birth of Soviet state violence: the moment Lenin’s revolution began to rule through fear, coercion, imprisonment, executions, and political terror. The Bolsheviks came to power promising peace, bread, land, workers’ power, and an end to the old world of Tsarist authority. But Russia did not become peaceful after October 1917. It collapsed deeper into civil war, hunger, political fragmentation, foreign intervention, armed resistance, and the brutal struggle over who would command the future. In that crisis, Lenin’s regime built the ...

The Russian Revolution of 1917 was one of the most cataclysmic events in world history, profoundly shaping politics, international relations, social patterns, economics and science in the century that followed. It created long-lasting aftershocks which travelled far beyond its geographical...

Petersburg, 1914. The white nights are beautiful, the literary cafés are arguing about art and apocalypse, and the drawing rooms of the intelligentsia are full of people whose cultivation of sensibility has been conducted, for a generation, at the expense of any adequate preparation for what is coming. The poet Bessonov — Silver Age genius, capable of seeing the catastrophe and incapable of doing anything with the seeing except rendering it in verse — moves through this world with the ease of someone who has mistaken the most beautiful form of inadequacy for a sufficient relationship ...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An intimate and masterful biography of Zbigniew Brzezinski—President Carter’s national security advisor and one of America’s leading geopolitical thinkers—from one of the finest columnists and political writers at work today. Zbigniew Brzezinski was a key...

Bloomsbury presents… Reds: A Global History of Communism Written and read by Paul Mason Reds tells the global history of communism, going beyond the turmoil of the 20th century, and exploring communist ideas, movements, and regimes. It starts in antiquity, not in 1917. It centres not just on...

From a preeminent scholar of Eastern Europe and New York Times bestselling author, the essential history of Russian imperialism. “A singularly fascinating account of Russian nationalism through the ages.” —Financial Times In 2014, Russia annexed the Crimea and attempted to seize a portion...

The renowned fantasy and science fiction writer China Mieville has long been inspired by the ideals of the Russian Revolution, and here, on the centenary of the revolution, he provides his own distinctive take on its history. In February 1917, in the midst of bloody war, Russia was still an autocratic monarchy: nine months later it became the first socialist state in world history. How did this unimaginable transformation take place? How was a ravaged and backward country, swept up in a desperately unpopular war, rocked by not one but two revolutions?

Bloomsbury presents Red Dawn Over China by Frank Dikötter, read by Daniel York Loh. A Financial Times and Foreign Policy Most Anticipated Book of 2026 From renowned, prize-winning historian Frank Dikötter, a commanding new history of China’s path to Communism. The history of modern China has...

A bold new history of Europe, from ancient Greece to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. What do we talk about when we talk about Europe? Is it defined by geography? Or is it politics, or shared culture? In Europe, award-winning historian Roderick Beaton tells the story of Europe as never...

A cultural and political examination of a monumental year—by the author of Salt: A World History. Over the course of one year, significant events that shaped American and world history took place: The North Vietnamese launched the Tet offensive. Prague Spring began. Martin Luther King, Jr...

Born in Ukraine in 1879, Lev Davidovich Bronstein (known as Leon Trotsky) became one of the most significant figures in the crowded history of the twentieth century. Simon Webb’s biography, written after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, places particular emphasis on Trotsky as a Ukrainian, and sets his life against the background of Ukrainian, Russian and British history and culture, and the story of Russian colonialism.

The Soviet Union is gone, but its ghostly traces remain, not least in the material vestiges left behind in its turbulent wake. What was it really like to live in the USSR? What did it look, feel, smell, and sound like? In The Soviet Century, Karl Schlögel, one of the world's leading historians of the Soviet Union, presents a spellbinding epic that brings to life the everyday world of a unique lost civilization. A museum of—and travel guide to—the Soviet past, The Soviet Century explores in evocative detail both the largest and smallest aspects of life in the USSR.

Experience the dramatic collapse of an empire and the violent rise of a communist superpower in this gripping history. Perfect for your daily commute, this intense narrative thrusts you into the frozen streets of an uneasy nation pushed to the absolute breaking point. Listen as devastating...

STALIN’S GREAT PURGE is a gripping account of one of the darkest periods in Soviet history: the moment Joseph Stalin turned the revolution inward and made fear the organising principle of power. By the late 1930s, Stalin ruled the Soviet Union through party control, propaganda, secret police, forced confession, prison camps, and terror. His rivals had been defeated, but victory did not make him feel secure. Old Bolsheviks, party officials, Red Army commanders, factory managers, borderland minorities, ordinary workers, and loyal servants of the state all became vulnerable to accusation. ...

Named a Best Book of the Year by The Washington Post and NPR “We come to see in FDR the magisterial, central figure in the greatest and richest political tapestry of our nation’s entire history” —Nigel Hamilton, Boston Globe “Meticulously researched and authoritative” —Douglas...

In January 1924, Vladimir Lenin dies—and the Soviet government confronts an impossible problem. The leader of the revolution cannot be permitted to disappear. Biochemist Boris Zbarsky is summoned to Moscow and given an extraordinary order: preserve Lenin’s body not for days or months, but indefinitely. Working beside brilliant anatomist Vladimir Vorobiev, Boris must attempt what science has never accomplished. Failure could destroy their careers, endanger their families, and expose the new regime’s most carefully constructed illusion. What begins as a desperate experiment becomes a ...