ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a brief view of Soviet history since the end of 1917. That history can be divided into five main periods, with a sixth now in progress. First, there was War Communism for about three years, from 1918 to 1920. Second, the first reform period of the New Economic Policy (NEP), for about seven years, from 1921 to 1928. A key reason for the preeminence of the NEP period is that it is irrevocably linked with the name of Lenin. Third, the Stalinist period of about twenty-five years, from 1928 or 1929 to 1953. Fourth, after a brief interregnum or struggle for the succession, the second reform period, under Nikita Khrushchev, for about eight or nine years, from 1955 or 1956 to 1964. Fifth, the reaction, headed by Leonid Brezhnev, for eighteen years, from 1964 to 1982. Sixth, after another interregnum, headed by Andropov and Chernenko, the third reform period, inaugurated by Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev in March 1985.
