Sources on Soviet Russia:
Kate asked for some books on Soviet Russia, and here would be my recommendations:
For understanding Stalin's plans for Europe, read Viktor Suvorov, Icebreaker: Who Started the Second World War?
Anthony Sutton wrote a trilogy on Soviet history ranging from 1917 to 1965, entitled Western Technology and Soviet Economic Development. He also wrote National Suicide: Military Aid to the Soviet Union, and Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution.
For the gulag system, read The Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn.
For a broader overview of Russian history, read Oswald Spengler’s The Decline of the West.
For the history of the Soviet collapse, I would recommend googling the term “Semibankirschina.”
I haven’t read any of these books. I haven’t read a single book on Soviet Russia, with one exception: He Leadeth Me by Walter Ciszek. Ciszek is a Catholic priest who writes about the gulag system, similar to Solzhenitsyn. Other than that one book, I recommend the others based on secondary reviews.
Suvorov and Sutton “break through” American-Soviet propaganda (Stalin wanted peace, America was always opposed to communism). Whether they are correct in all their values (they are generally favored by paleoconservatives) is irrelevant. The Suvorov and Sutton theses are necessary to see Soviet Russia as an aggressive, expansive project, funded and supported by America.
This provides context for the Putinist era, where Russia is no longer funded or supported by America (especially since 1945), but rather, is becoming a proxy of China. In other words, Soviet Russia was a Frankenstein’s monster or golem, which began as an American-funded experiment to counter European colonialism, but later “turned against its master” for a brief period before collapsing.
Russian history is a series of “foreign dominations.” Russia enters world history as a colony of Byzantine culture and religion (866-1467), is the conquered by the Mongols (1240-1480), invaded by the Poles and Lithuanians (1598-1651), ruled by the Germans (1762-1887), funded and supported by the Americans (1914-1945), and now made into a proxy of the Chinese (2009-?).
If you prefer to watch a film rather than read a book, I can recommend the film The Lives of Others (2006), which focuses on East Germany as part of the Soviet system. I can also recommend Children of Glory (2006) which focuses on Hungary.
Dialogue with Kryptogal on Gen-X Politics