The Soviet story - revolution, Lenin, Stalinism, the Great Patriotic War, the era of Khrushchev, Brezhnev and Cold War, the dramatic collapse under Gorbachev - looms large in history syllabuses from A-Level to Masters, and across the world. This book and its companion volume will be a valuable resource for students at all levels. Combining lucid narrative commentary with over 270 contemporary documents, it provides a lively entree to current debate over humanity's most momentous and tragic experiment. Volume Two has been organised into four chronologically distinct parts, subdivided thematically; it runs from the fraught diplomatic and military preamble of the Great Patriotic War to the final fracturing of the USSR along the national fault-lines of its 15 Union Republics. Slight overlap of chronological coverage with Volume One allows increased attention in Volume Two to foreign affairs. Areas in this volume that attract greatest student interest are the epic dramas at the beginning and end of the period - the Great Patriotic War and Perestroika. Volume One, covering the period 1917 - 1940, was published in November 2005. In each volume, key terms and references to individuals, places, events and institutions are explained and guidance provided on significant features of the primary sources. A Biographical Index provides key details on most of the hundreds of individuals mentioned. The book assumes no prior knowledge of the subject.