1917: Lenin, Wilson, and the Birth of the New World Disorder

This is the story of two men, and the two decisions, that transformed world history in a single tumultuous year, 1917: Wilson`s entry into World War One and Lenin`s Bolshevik Revolution. In April 1917 Woodrow Wilson, champion of American democracy but also segregation; advocate for free trade and a new world order based on freedom and justice; thrust the United States into World War One in order to make the "world safe for democracy"-only to see his dreams for a liberal international system dissolve into chaos, bloodshed, and betrayal. That October Vladimir Lenin, communist revolutionary and advocate for class war and "dictatorship of the proletariat," would overthrow Russia`s earlier democratic revolution that had toppled the all-power Czar, all in the name of liberating humanity-and instead would set up the most repressive totalitarian regime in history, the Soviet Union.