Soviet Chess 1917-1991

This large and magnificent work of art is both an interpretive history of Soviet chess from the Bolshevik Revolution to the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 and a record of the most interesting games played.

The text traces the phenomenal growth of chess from the days of the revolution to the devastation of World War II, and then from the Golden Age of Soviet-dominated chess in the 1950s to the challenge of Bobby Fischer and the quest to find his Soviet match.

Included are 249 games, each with a diagram; most are annotated and many have never before been published outside the Soviet Union. The text is augmented by photographs and includes 63 tournament and match scoretables.

Also included are a bibliography, an appendix of records achieved in Soviet national championships, two indexes of openings, and an index of players and opponents.

"How the Soviet Union became the greatest chess nation after the First World War en how it managed to continue to dominate the rest of the world during many many years.

The book contains a wealth of information about top players as well as lesser known chess players and includes many interesting (often 'new') games. Soltis has written many books before, but this is the one he always wanted to write: about the country that was distant, mysterious and very closed world which somehow had discovered methods of thinking about chess that seemed to exist nowhere elde. "

Grandmaster Andrew Soltis, eight times champion of the Marshall Chess Club, New York Post editor and Chess Life columnist, is the author of dozens of chess books. He lives in New York City.