Richard Pipes provides a detailed account of how the Bolsheviks consolidated control over the former Russian Empire's non-Russian territories, creating the Soviet Union's multinational structure. The book traces the imperial collapse during World War I and revolution, the brief flowering of independent national movements in Ukraine, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Baltic states, and the Bolsheviks' military and political reconquest of these regions. Pipes shows how the Communists exploited nationalism tactically, promising self-determination while building a centralized party apparatus that could override nominal national autonomy. He examines the theoretical debates within Bolshevism about nationalism, tracing how Lenin and Stalin developed approaches that recognized national differences while subordinating them to class struggle and party control. The book details the specific circumstances in each region, from the Georgian Menshevik republic to the Ukrainian independence movement to the Central Asian resistance. Pipes demonstrates how early Soviet nationality policy created institutions and identities that would become important when the Soviet Union itself dissolved. First published in 1954 and revised in 1964, the book remains the standard work on its subject. Essential reading for understanding how the Soviet Union was created and why it eventually fragmented along national lines.