The rise and fall of Soviet communism is one of the most amazing stories in human history. As historian Walter Laqueur has noted, "to dismiss [Soviet] communism as if it were never of consequence shows neither good sense nor historical understanding." Under leaders such as Vladimir Lenin, Nikita Khrushchev, and Mikhail Gorbachev, Soviet communism demonstrated the capability of making life significantly better for the average Soviet citizen. Under the notorious Josef Stalin, it created a society that was long on fear and repression and short on personal initiative and material goods. Under Leonid Brezhnev, Yuri Andropov, and Konstantin Chernenko, it established a system that seemed not to care about its citizens at all.

Soviet communism was born in 1917 when the Bolsheviks, a group of Russian socialists, seized control of the Russian government. Earlier that same year, Tsar Nicholas II had abdicated the throne, thus...