The history of the Soviet Union (1917-1991) became precipitously in recent decades. Historians until recently limited to using the scarce official information, now have the valuable assistance of the files, admirably preserved, that every day is open for research. At the same time, the collapse of the Soviet regime invited to look at the past with a less oriented to look into it a foreshadowing of the future world track view, in that short a century, the rapid development of characteristic processes throughout Western history : industrialization, urbanization, agricultural transformation, educational development and, above all, the construction of a national state. Sheila Fitzpatrick, one of the greatest authorities on Soviet history, author of innovative studies of the Stalinist period, has developed into a comprehensive RUSSIAN REVOLUTION short, solidly supported by recent historiographical developments, which combines old and new questions. One gives the title to his book ended when the Soviet revolution? The historian chooses the ambiguous time before the Second World War, when the Stalinist regime proclaimed the victory of the revolution and the beginning of normal, at times initiating the deepest "purge", which led to the killing of the first litter of revolutionary leaders.