A leading historian draws guides us through the inner workings of Soviet power. The USSR may no longer exist, but its history remains highly relevant—perhaps today more so than ever. Yet it is a history which for a long time proved impossible to write, not simply due to the lack of accessible documentation, but also because it lay at the heart of an ideological confrontation which obscured the reality of the Soviet regime. In The Soviet Century, Moshe Lewin traces this history in all its...