Inquests on the break-up of Soviet Russia have become almost an industry, but Michael Dobbs, as a leading journalist, witnessed much of it at first hand between 1981 and 1991. Dobbs has the good newsman's knack of being in the right place at the crucial time; he was in Gdansk when the Polish shipyard workers went on strike and Solidarity was born, he saw the Wall fall in Berlin, and in Moscow he watched Gorbachev come to power. Gorbachev, he thinks, was a believing Communist technocrat who had the wit to realise that the system badly needed reforms if it was to continue, but was himself swept aside by the forces released (he also made the mistake of antagonising the Army). The book is strongest in immediate reportage, less convincing when it occasionally attempts long-term socio-political analysis. B.F.