As the Russian Presidency is increasingly pressurized by a Communist resurgence, David Pryce-JOnes tells the inside story of shifting allegiances and alliances within Gorbachev and Yeltsin's Kremlin. The collapse of the Soviet Union caught everyone by surprise. Why did the Communist Party not seek to defend its hold on power through the use of force? Pryce-Jones asked those responsible in the Soviet Union and its satellites to explain how they had come to take a course leading to their own surrender of power.