Here is the history of the disintegration of the Russian Empire, and the emergence of a multinational Communist state. Pipes tells how the Communists exploited the new nationalism of the peoples of the Ukraine, Belorussia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Volga-Ural area—first to seize power and then to expand into the borderlands.

Here is the history of the disintegration of the Russian Empire, and the emergence, on its ruins, of a multinational Communist state. In this revealing account, Richard Pipes tells how the Communists exploited the new nationalism of the peoples of the Ukraine, Belorussia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Volga-Ural area--first to seize power and then to expand into the borderlands. The Formation of the Soviet Union acquires special relevance in the post-Soviet era, when the ethnic groups described in the book once again reclaimed their independence, this time apparently for good. In a 1996 Preface to the Revised Edition, Pipes suggests how material recently released from the Russian archives might supplement his account.

When the Bolsheviks seized power in 1917, they set themselves the task of building socialism in the vast landscape of the former Russian Empire, a territory populated by hundreds of different peoples belonging to a multitude of linguistic, religious, and ethnic groups. Before 1917, the Bolsheviks had called for the national self-determination of all peoples and had condemned all forms of colonization as exploitative. After attaining power, however, they began to express concern that it would not be possible for Soviet Russia to survive without the cotton of Turkestan and the oil of the Caucasus. In an effort to reconcile their anti-imperialist position with their desire to hold on to as much territory as possible, the Bolsheviks integrated the national idea into the administrative-territorial structure of the new Soviet state. In Empire of Nations, Francine Hirsch examines the ways in which former imperial ethnographers and local elites provided the Bolsheviks with ethnographic knowledge that shaped the very formation of the new Soviet Union. The ethnographers—who drew inspiration from the Western European colonial context—produced all-union censuses, assisted government commissions charged with delimiting the USSR's internal borders, led expeditions to study "the human being as a productive force," and created ethnographic exhibits about the "Peoples of the USSR." In the 1930s, they would lead the Soviet campaign against Nazi race theories . Hirsch illuminates the pervasive tension between the colonial-economic and ethnographic definitions of Soviet territory; this tension informed Soviet social, economic, and administrative structures. A major contribution to the history of Russia and the Soviet Union, Empire of Nations also offers new insights into the connection between ethnography and empire.

The formation and dissolution of the Soviet Union impacted the entire world. The Soviet Union was guided by the principles of communism. Conflict emerged between the Soviet Union and capitalist countries, namely, the United States and those in Western Europe. Eventually, the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 as a result of a declaration that recognized the independence of the former Soviet republics. This book examines how the history, geography, and culture of the region impacted the formation and dissolution of the Soviet Union.

This volume provides an introduction to the history of the Soviet armed forces from 1917 to 1991. The authors highlight the many facets of the Cold War, including the rise of the Soviet Navy after the Great Patriotic War and the collapse of the Soviet Union which marks its twentieth anniversary in 2011.

CONTENTS The Development of Capitalism in Russia The Theoretical Mistakes of the Narodnik Economists The Differentiation of the Peasantry The Landowners' Transition from Corvée to Capitalist Economy The Growth of Commercial Agriculture The First Stages of Capitalism in Industry Capitalist Manufacture and Capitalist Domestic Industry The Development of Large-Scale Machine Industry The Formation of the Home Market