The First Socialist Society: A History of the Soviet Union from Within, Enlarged Edition

The author focuses mainly on Russia with few references to other countries in the Soviet Bloc. Tracing the rise of the USSR from the 1917 Revolution to about 1990, the book outlines the experiences of ordinary Russian citizens. Forced deportations, disasters of collective farming, deliberate starving of peasants, purges within the Communist Party, World War II, and finally the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is an honest look at life in Communist Russia.

This book is dense and incredibly well written. Anyone wanting to truly get insight into why the USSR came to being needs to read this. The First Socialist Society does not get mired in political pandering or revisionist history that all too often clouds the discussion of communism. The sheer complexity of the revolution and the very real toll it took on the founders of the revolutionist state during a time of war shed light on why the Soviet Union came to be such a brutal society. It also begins to expose why through human nature, greed, and incompetence, true socialism and communism will likely never thrive or be given another chance to even exist in the foreseeable future (and for good reason). A must read for anyone serious about understanding what lies to the East of most travelers destinations.

This was the first book I read about Russian history, at all. I would recommend that anyone else looking into the history of the Soviet Union first read other materials regarding the 19th century before reading this for extra background information. Otherwise, this book is great, easy to read from any standpoint; and pretty objective (which is hard considering the nature of the topic).