In the Russian revolution of 1917, workers took control of a major country for the first time in history. To millions throughout the world, the Russian workers' state offered new hope. People everywhere turned from the grim alternatives of a declining capitalism - unemployment, poverty, the threat of new wars - to place their hopes in the government that the soviets, councils of working people, put into power in Russia. And for a short time, their hopes were realized. Never before had such sweeping changes in society been carried out in so short a time.