The Soviet Tragedy: A History of Socialism in Russia, 1917-1991

This shrewd analysis of the failure of the Soviet experiment dismantles the view that the Soviet regime originated in a genuinely popular revolution rather than a conspiratorial coup and that the Bolsheviks' quest for democratic socialism was derailed by pressing circumstances. Malia traces a direct link between Lenin's monolithic one-party state and Stalin's purges, pulverization of civil society and institutionalization of terror. A former professor of history at UC Berkeley, the author contends that Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Gorbachev oscillated between attempts to reform and to preserve Stalin's legacy, which aggravated Communism's systemic problems. This study closes with a look at post-Communist Russia in near-total economic chaos. (Apr.)