These volumes cover the period from the beginning of 1917 to the end of 1970 during which the political landscape of Russia changed beyond recognition. Beginning with the dying days of Imperial Russia under Nicholas II, the last of the Romanov Tsars, Russia then saw revolution, civil war, the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the rule of Lenin followed by the dictatorship and purges of Stalin, the invasion of Russia by Nazi Germany, the period of the Cold War when the Soviet Union ruled much of Eastern Europe and threatened the rest, the era of de-Stalinisation under the rule of Khrushchev and ending with the collective leadership of Brezhnev and Kosygin.