The downfall of tsarism in 1917 left the peoples of Russia facing an uncertain future. Nowhere were those anxieties felt more than among the Cossacks. The steppe horsemen had famously guarded the empire's frontiers, stampeded demonstrators in its cities, suppressed peasant revolts in the countryside and served as bodyguards to its rulers. Their way of life, intricately bound to the old order, seemed imperiled by the revolution and especially by the Bolshevik seizure of power. Many Cossacks took up arms against the Soviet regime, providing the anticommunist cause with some of its best warriors--as well as its most notorious bandits. This book chronicles their decades-long campaign against the Bolsheviks, from the tumultuous days of the Russian Civil War through the doldrums of foreign exile and finally to their fateful collaboration with the Third Reich.

The Cossacks who wore German uniforms saw their service not as treason to the motherland, but as an episode in the revolution of 1917, part of an ongoing struggle against Moscow and against Communism. Their reward was forced repatriation into Stalin's Gulag at the hands of Western powers in 1945.

The second volume of The Cambridge History of Communism explores the rise of Communist states and movements after World War II. Leading experts analyze archival sources from formerly Communist states to re-examine the limits to Moscow's control of its satellites; the de-Stalinization of 1956; Communist reform movements; the rise and fall of the Sino-Soviet alliance; the growth of Communism in Asia, Africa and Latin America; and the effects of the Sino-Soviet split on world Communism. Chapters explore the cultures of Communism in the United States, Western Europe and China, and the conflicts engendered by nationalism and the continued need for support from Moscow. With the danger of a new Cold War developing between former and current Communist states and the West, this account of the roots, development and dissolution of the socialist bloc is essential reading.

The phenomenal life of Ukrainian peasant Nestor Makhno (1888-1934) provides the framework for this breakneck account of the downfall of the tsarist empire and the civil war that convulsed and bloodied Russia between 1917 and 1921. Mahkno and his people were fighting for a society "without masters or slaves, with neither rich nor poor." They acted towards that idea by establishing "free soviets." Unlike the soviets drained of all significance by the dictatorship of a one-party State, the "free soviets" became the grassroots organs of a direct democracy - a living embodiment of the free society - until they were betrayed, and smashed, by the Red Army. Delving into a vast array of documentation to which few other historians have had access, this study illuminates a revolution that started out with the rosiest of prospects but ended up utterly confounded. More than just the incredible exploits of a guerilla revolutionary par excellence, Skirda weaves the tale of a people, and the organizations and practices of anarchism, literally fighting for their lives.

A century of Russian artistic genius, including literature, art, music and dance, within the dynamic cultural ecosystem that shaped it.

This intensely interesting—and troubling—book is the product of a lifetime of reflection and study of democracy. In it, John Lukacs addresses the questions of how our democracy has changed and why we have become vulnerable to the shallowest possible demagoguery. Lukacs contrasts the political systems, movements, and ideologies that have bedeviled the twentieth century: democracy, Liberalism, nationalism, fascism, Bolshevism, National Socialism, populism. Reflecting on American democracy, Lukacs describes its evolution from the eighteenth century to its current form—a dangerous and possibly irreversible populism. This involves, among other things, the predominance of popular sentiment over what used to be public opinion. This devolution has happened through the gigantic machinery of publicity, substituting propaganda—and entertainment—for knowledge, and ideology for a sense of history. It is a kind of populism that relies on nationalism and militarism to hold society together. Lukacs's observations are original, biting, timely, sure to inspire lively debate about the precarious state of American democracy today.

Presents a chronology of the Cold War from 1945 through 1991; and features alphabetically arranged entries that examine the major events, concepts, terms, and themes that dominated the period.