Sometimes, to build a new world, you must first burn the old one down. Only then can you sift through the ashes and plant the seeds of change. In October 1917, a firebrand by the name of Vladimir Lenin unleashed a revolution in the seething streets of Petrograd that would change Russia and the blood-soaked lands beyond its borders forever more. However, the birth of the USSR did not herald the dawn of a communist utopia, the stated goal of Lenin and his followers. Instead, it ushered in a new age of secrecy, suspicion and widespread technological advancement. So how did this superstate controlled through suppression and terror come to create groundbreaking inventions, send the first artificial satellite into space and produce literary and cinematic icons? How was it able to survive the ravages of civil and global wars and stand toe-to-toe with America? And why did this once indestructible colossus collapse like a house of cards in 1991? The answers to these vital questions await you in the following pages. Prepare to explore the shadows of a state where the truth won’t set you free and nothing is quite what it seems.
WELCOME, COMRADE
SOVIET SPHERE OF INFLUENCE
LENIN’S BLOODY REVOLUTION • Years of civil unrest came to a head in October 1917 as Lenin rode a revolutionary wave into Saint Petersburg and turned society upside down
THE ROAD TO REVOLUTION
THE STATE DUMA • The Duma was instituted to represent the voices of working people in 1905. As Lenin launched his revolution, its seats were occupied as follows: OTHERS (NON-RUSSIAN NATIONAL GROUPS, CENTRISTS, NATIONALISTS, RIGHTISTS) - 230
KEY FIGURES
THE OCTOBER UPRISING • In October 1917, Lenin’s Red Guard stormed the streets of Petrograd, taking over several strategic points
SOVIET DECREES • In the seven years following the revolution in 1917, the new government issued dozens of legislative acts. They were known as decrees
1917 ELECTION RESULTS
THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO • A key pillar of communist and socialist parties in the 19th century, the Communist Manifesto inspired revolutionaries across the globe
THE REVOLUTION’S RIGHT-HAND MAN • Considered Lenin’s intellectual superior by some, Leon Trotsky was pivotal to the revolution’s success. Nevertheless, his fate was to be exile and death
BRONSTEIN TO TROTSKY TO SNOWBALL • Revolutionary Russia had a veritable farmyard of characters to inspire Orwell
THE RUSSIAN CIVIL WAR • Lenin won his revolution, but a civil war nearly cost him his new regime
ADMIRAL KOLCHAK • Kolchak led the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Siberia before a so-called ally cruelly betrayed him
RUSSIA’S ULTIMATE TYRANT STALIN • Despised by many but idolised by his adoring public, Stalin dyed the Soviet Union red with one of the most brutal and bloody regimes in history
THE GREAT PURGE
MOST WANTED • Three senior officials who found themselves on Stalin’s hit list
LENIN V STALIN
GULAGS • From the empty frozen plains of Siberia to the towering concrete of central cities, the brutal Gulag camps changed the face of Russia
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT • Stalin’s Russia wasn’t the place to be caught – or even accused of – committing a crime
THE WORST DICTATOR? • Find out the estimated number of deaths that history’s worst dictators are thought to have caused
POWERFUL PROPAGANDA • Russia’s ‘man of steel’ was a master at the art of propaganda, depicting and presenting himself as the hero of the nation
WORLD WAR II • In the carnage of WWII, Stalin aligned his country with the ‘decadent’ West to defeat Hitler’s Nazis
STALIN’S DIPLOMACY • How the Soviet leader tried to control and manage the only men who could rival him for power
EXPERT OPINION • What kind of...
