In the days after September 11, doomsday scenarios like a terrorist nuclear attack suddenly seemed plausible. Even the use of a crude nuclear device would have a devastating effect, both physically and psychologically. In response to these threats, governments and agencies have sought to upgrade worldwide protection against acts of terrorism involving nuclear and other radioactive materials.
Ideological...

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The outbreak of war in August 1914 came as a seismic shock to a European Left that was well on its way to making terms in practice with the capitalist society it continued to challenge in principle. Anarchism and Anarcho- Syndicalism, influential for decades in Spain, Italy, and France, was in retreat before states whose intelligence and security services were proving all too capable of coping with "propaganda of the deed." Marxism had been more successful, both in organizing workers and securing representation in the parliamentary systems of the Continent...

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The Russian Revolution fundamentally transformed the political, economic, and sociological landscape of one of the world's largest and most populous countries. The episode dramatically altered the shape and character of international relations across the globe during the twentieth century as well, and would serve as an inspiration for future revolutionary groups...

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Counterrevolutionary activity aimed at restoring representative government...

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The Bolsheviks under Vladimir Ilich Lenin seized power in Russia and proceeded to eliminate opposition by ruthless repression and violation of fundamental human rights...

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Russian tsar who attempted the modernization and expansion of Russia but fell victim to famine and the ghost of a dead child...

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On 3 March 1918, the Bolshevik government of Russia signed one of the most punitive peace treaties in history. Having come to power the previous November with a promise to extricate the country from the destruction of World War I, revolutionary leader Vladimir Lenin was prepared to accept even the most Draconian peace conditions to quell popular discontent, an objective crucial to the survival of his regime. In the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Soviet Russia pledged to give up vast Russian territories inhabited by nearly 60 million people and containing much of the Russian Empire's industry, farmland, and resources. These territories included modern Finland, Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Georgia--borderlands once (and later) thought vital to Russian security.
Germany was obliged to remove its troops from the East after the general World War I armistice, signed in November 1918, and the terms of Brest-Litovsk became irrelevant. This chapter debates what this massive renunciation of territory would have meant for the future of Eastern Europe if Germany had won the war. A common interpretation has held that the Germans would have established permanent hegemony over what had once been the periphery of the Russian Empire, with puppet governments facilitating German strategic and economic exploitation of the region. Another body of thought maintains that the Germans' purpose was to create a buffer zone, a belt of border states to isolate the Soviets from the heart of Europe. Scholars who hold this view argue that, instead of operating as German puppets, many of the new regimes in these states pursued ambitious national policies designed to institutionalize ethnic identities and assert their independence from outside control...

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With the end of the Russian Civil War, the Bolsheviks found themselves masters of their land. How the first communist government would relate to the rest of the world remained a mystery, however. Prerevolutionary theorists and ideologues--including the new state's leader Vladimir Lenin--believed that a successful revolution in Russia would galvanize the proletarians of the world to emulate the Bolsheviks and spread communism worldwide. Western leaders feared a Red victory in the Civil War for precisely that reason. As internal stability returned to Russia, its intentions remained a mystery to the rest of the world, and they are still a subject of debate among historians...

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This chapter evaluates the validity of the claim made by the Soviet regime and its sympathizers that the Bolshevik Revolution enjoyed the nearly unanimous support of Russia's workers. On the one hand, worker support for Bolshevism seems self-evident. Workers wanted an end to World War I, the defense of the more democratic revolution of February 1917, control of their factories, higher standards of living, and opportunities for social and education advancement. Honestly or not, the Bolsheviks made many promises and offered the greatest degree of credibility in these areas. Their opponents did not, or talked about postponing their resolution to a future time. Workers, guided by their interests, supported the Bolsheviks in a manner demonstrated by Bolshevik majorities in soviets, by mass voluntarism for the Red Guards, Red Army, and new bureaucracy, and by other actions taken in defense of the revolution...

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Since 11 September 2001 the specter of terrorism has pushed study of the phenomenon into the forefront of modern life. This chapter assesses its Russian roots. For many scholars the methods, strategies, and objectives of twenty-first-century terrorists descend in a direct line from the violent revolutionary movements that plagued Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The expectation that the unpredictable use of lethal force would create major political change; organization into clandestine cells and other underground formations; and reliance on simple technologies all had Russian precedents and more or less direct linkages...

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