A review of Russia in Search of Itself, by James H. Billington For Russia, the last century was one bitter cruelty after another—the Tsar, war, revolution, famine, Stalin, war, Communism. Her people lived under totalitarianism for seven decades, longer than any one else. Something happens to a society under the total state. In time, fear, lies, denunciation, and arrest fray the bonds that hold a healthy society together. In Russia's case, these strains have left it much like an ocean: cold, vast, and swarming with strange creatures. James Billington's Russia in Search of Itself is a wise reflection on Russia's...