From 1985 to 1991, one of the great political dramas of the twentieth century unfolded in Russia. Although it began as an effort at reform from above, the process of transformation was snatched from its initiators and became a revolution. Unlike the revolution of three-quarters of a century past, the new Russian revolution featured no vanguard party and no armed insurgency, and was not made in the name of a class or a single identifiable program or principle. Unlike many other revolutions, it was not fought to craft nationhood or to recapture lost national sovereignty. It was a popular, democratic revolution, but it differed from cases of “redemocratization” experienced in many other countries in recent decades. It was a revolution of a different type, waged by unlikely revolutionaries. The rebellion of most of its heroes did not predate the onset of the revolution itself.