In 1917 the working class and peasantry of Russia carried out one of the most deep-going revolutions in history. Yet within ten years a political counterrevolution was under way. Workers and peasants were driven from power by a privileged bureaucratic social layer whose chief spokeperson was Joseph Stalin. This classic study of the Soviet workers state and its degeneration illuminates the roots of the social and political crisis shaking the countries of the Soviet Union today.