If you're going to read anything about that history, read about Leon Trotsky. I'm re-reading the first of Isaac Deutscher's meticulously researched and written "Prophet" series (The Prophet Armed, The Prophet Unarmed, The Prophet Outcast). I consider myself something of a Trotskyist; of course we'll never know, but I believe that history--world history--may have turned out very much differently had Trotsky become the head of state instead of Stalin (as Lenin wished in his testament).

Regarding the whole thing of they (both Lenin & Trotsky) being ruthless bastards: that's a misreading of the history. Here's the thing: if you foment a revolution, as they did, AND if your responsibility is for that revolution to succeed, to bear the fruits that you desperately wish it to (and those fruits are NOT your ascension to power but the transformation of the society), then it's a given that PEOPLE MUST DIE. People will need to be killed. There's no getting around that. Remember that what happened immediately after the Bolshevik Revolution was a bloody civil war that nearly destroyed the country.

One doesn't play with revolutions--real revolutions, not pretend storming of legislatures--without being prepared to see it through to the bloody end. Otherwise there's no point in even thinking about a revolution.