Helmut Altrichter presents the original social revolutionary concepts, the range of political fractionalisation and power struggles, civil war and World War and then in the end – after de-Stalinisation - the farewell to the global revolution and the onward march from reform of the system to its dissolution. Any reader wishing to understand a determining factor in the history of the twentieth century and of the specific phases in the history of the Soviet Union, will find in Altrichter’s book a brilliantly written and superbly documented piece of work.