This collection presents views on key aspects of Russian/Soviet history such as the non-Slavic sources of Russian statehood; tsarist penal systems; the pre-evolutionary technological level; the famine of 1931-3; patronage practices in Stalin's Russia; and the fall of the Soviet Union.

List of Abbreviations and Acronyms Notes on the Contributors Introduction PART I: THE PRE-REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD The Kaghanate of the Rus': Non-Slavic Sources of Russian Statehood; D.Christian The Crisis of the Late Tsarist Penal System; S.G.Wheatcroft The Russian Army and American Industry, 1915-17: Globalization and the Transfer of Technology; F.S.Zuckerman PART II: THE STALIN PERIOD The Soviet Famine of 1932-33 and the Crisis in Agriculture; R.W.Davies & S.G.Wheatcroft Patronage and the Intelligentsia in Stalin's Russia; S.Fitzpatrick Towards Explaining the Changing Levels of Stalinist Repression in the 1930s: Mass Killings; S.G.Wheatcroft The Great Terror: Leningrad, a Quantitative Analysis; M.Ilic PART III: THE POST-STALIN PERIOD The Dissident Roots of Glasnost; R.Horvath Rethinking Yermolov's Legacy: New Patriotic Narratives of Russia's Engagement with Chechnya; J.Elkner Stalinism and the Fall of the Soviet Union; G.Gill Index

DAVID CHRISTIAN Lecturer, San Diego State University R.W. DAVIES Professor Emeritus, Centre for Russian and East European Studies, Birmingham University JULIE ELKNER Master's Degree, University of Melbourne SHEILA FITZPATRICK Chicago University GRAEME GILL Sydney University ROBERT HORVATH Lecturer in Research Fellow, University of Melbourne MELANIE ILIC Senior Lecturer, Cheltenham and Gloucester College F.S.ZUCKERMAN University of Adelaide.