Get us out of red darkness! The impassioned plea was scrawled on a protester's placard. The Soviet empire forged by Lenin and Stalin was disintegrating. The communist ruling class fought to hang on to power, priviledge and lucrative links with crime - and to hide the atrocities of the past. The huge Soviet army was riven by discontent while rumours of a coup fuelled the sense of collapse. As a foreign correspondent Trevor Fishlock lived and travelled widely in the Soviet Union, in Siberia and Samarkand, in the Caucasus and Baltic lands. He saw how Gorbachev's attempts at reform unleashed one of the great dramas of the 20th century, the fall of communism and its empire. Here is a dramatic picture of astonishing events - when history seemed to be written on lava. It is also the story of ordinary people in extraordinary times, making a life as best they can as old certainties vanish and queues for food and clothing lengthen. The narrative chronicles the first flowers springing up through Soviet concrete, cracking it apart. It describes the horror as troops try to smash rebellion and reimpose the rule of fear. The author finally journeys to free countries blinking in the post-communism dawn as tryants' statues fall.