The Russian Revolution seized a backward, violent, peasant country and turned it into the world's first "worker's state". This book utilizes newly-opened files in Moscow and other cities to find explanations for the violence and the uncontrolled use of power to which the events led. Vast in scope, based on exhaustive original research, and written with passion, narrative skill and human sympathy, A People's Tragedy is the definitive account of the Russian Revolution for a new generation. It examines the nightmare years, including the long civil war that ended in 1923. It has won the Wolfson History Prize, the W. H. Smith Literary Award, and the Longman/History Today Book of the Year Award.