Simon Pirani is author of The Russian Revolution in Retreat, 1920-24: Soviet Workers and the New Communist Elite (2008), and of books and articles on post-Soviet Russia and Ukraine. He is a journalist with a lifelong commitment to the labour movement, and a former editor of the British miners' union journal. He is currently senior research fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies and co-author of Russian and CIS Gas Markets and Their Impact on Europe (2009).