Vladimir N. Brovkin is a Russian-born American historian who was Associate Professor of Soviet History at Harvard University in the 1990s. His other books on Russian history include The Mensheviks After October, Behind the Frontlines of the Civil War, Dear Comrades, and Russia After Lenin.

Introduction 1. Smashing the State, Its Culture and Institutions: 1917-1918 2. Constructing a New Political Order 3. Old Cultural Practices in a New Form: NEP Russia 1921-1929 4. The Rise of the Stalinist Dictatorship and of a New Soviet Identity 5. The Great Patriotic War: The Fusion of the Russian and Soviet Identity 6. Post-War Stalinism 1945-1953 7. Stalinism with a Human Face: The Khrushchev Decade: 1953- 1964 8. The Brezhnev Era: Re-emergence of the Independent Thought 9. Back to European Values: Soviet Society Under Gorbachev 10. Disillusionment in Capitalism and Democracy: The Terrible 1990s 11. The New Beginning: The Putin Years