What was the real impact and significance of the October Revolution of 1917? This avowedly revisionist interpretation by a major Russian dissident seeks to place Lenin and those around him in the proper perspective. Since the takeover of Russia was the result of a coup d’état by a tiny minority of criminals that Yuri Felshtinsky doesn’t hesitate to call gangsters, the Communist regime was doomed from the start.

Yuri Felshtinsky received a PhD in history from Rutgers University. His books include The Failure of the World Revolution (1991), Blowing up Russia (with Alexander Litvinenko, 2007), and The Corporation: Russia and the KGB in the Age of President Putin (with Vladimir Pribylovsky, 2008). He lives near Boston, Massachusetts.