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