The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union

How did imperial Russia give way to the Soviet Union in 1917 and how did the USSR manage to collapse so quickly in 1991? 

The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union examines the strengths, weaknesses, and contradictions of the first Marxist state, and reassesses the role of power, authority and legitimacy in Soviet politics.  Including first-person accounts, anecdotes, illustrations and diagrams to illustrate key concepts, McCauley provides a seminal history of this twentieth-century Superpower.