This collection presents views on key aspects of Russian/Soviet history such as the non-Slavic sources of Russian statehood; tsarist penal systems; the pre-evolutionary technological level; the famine of 1931-3; patronage practices in Stalin's Russia; and the fall of the Soviet Union.

DAVID CHRISTIAN Lecturer, San Diego State University R.W. DAVIES Professor Emeritus, Centre for Russian and East European Studies, Birmingham University JULIE ELKNER Master's Degree, University of Melbourne SHEILA FITZPATRICK Chicago University GRAEME GILL Sydney University ROBERT HORVATH Lecturer in Research Fellow, University of Melbourne MELANIE ILIC Senior Lecturer, Cheltenham and Gloucester College F.S.ZUCKERMAN University of Adelaide.