Includes bibliographical references (p. 247-249) and index.

Foreword -- Introduction -- Revolution and its aftermath -- Course of the Russian Revolution / J.N. Westwood ; Lenin's betrayal of Russia / Dmitri Volkogonov ; Bolsheviks take power / John Reed ; Bolshevik victory in the civil war / Moshe Lewin -- Building the new state -- Creation of the USSR / M.K. Dziewanowski ; Formation of a new ruling bureaucracy / Leon Trotsky ; Joseph Stalin completes the transition to dictatorship / Theodore H. Von Laue ; Stalin launches the great terror / Ronald Hingley ; Purge of 1937 / Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn -- Building socialism -- Early attempts to manage the economy / Peter Kenez ; Lenin institutes the new economic policy / Warren Bartlett Walsh ; Centrally planned economy was inefficient / Peter Rutland ; Soviet government's control of culture / Richard Pipes ; Improving the status of women / Walter Duranty -- Soviet Union and the world -- Soviet and U.S. mnisperceptions led to the Cold War / Ronald Grigor Suny ; Cuban Missile Crisis was a victory for socialism / Nikita Khrushchev ; Foreign adventures and domestic turmoil prompted Gorbachev's reforms / Geoffrey Hosking ; Russian Revolution had a positive impact on the world / Mikhail Gorbachev.