Russian scholar Service tells the dramatic story of the power struggle between the Bolsheviks and the West as the Russian Revolution erupted--and the characters from both sides who sought to affect the outcome and shaped foreign policy for decades to come.

Robert Service is a British historian, academic, and author who has written extensively on the history of Soviet Russia, particularly the era from the October Revolution to Stalin's death. Service is the author of twelve books, including Spies and Commissars; the acclaimed Lenin: A Biography; Stalin: A Biography; and Comrades: A History of World Communism. He is currently a professor of Russian history at the University of Oxford, a Fellow of St. Antony's College, Oxford, and a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.