The ebb and flow of debate about Stalin's Russia is brilliantly captured in Chris Ward's account, which not only conceptualises the field in a clear and helpful way, offering a synthesis of the vast secondary
literature in the area, but also provides the author's own evaluation of the key issues at stake. The first edition of the book was deservedly popular with readers wanting a succinct introduction to the subject or needing to 'get up to speed' in areas of the subject unfamiliar to them.

This new edition takes into account the new opportunities afforded to historians - both Russian and Western - by the collapse of Communism and the greater availability to researchers of archival sources. This is a valuable revision of a now standard work, acknowledging the various problems and perspectives in interpretation that have emerged since the end of the Soviet Union and including for the first time a chapter on Stalin's foreign policy.