Dean BowmanMrs. JohnstonAP European History2 April 2014Safonov, Mikhail. "'You say you want a revolution'" History Today August 1, 2003: 46-51. Print.In the mid-1900s, communism was in full force throughout Russia. Under Leonid Brezhnev, the Communist Party had reached new heights and become a defining power within the Russian state. With this government force dominating the lives of every single citizen, the country's population was left with little to no freedom. Until the 1960s the Communist Party had maintained strong control over the Russian people, suppressing any threat to the establishment. In the early 1960s, a new threat arose in Russia: the arrival of the sensational rock group known as The Beatles. In “'You Say You Want a Revolution'” Mikhail Safonov, himself a Beatles fan, describes his profound claim that the popular group did more than provide music to the Russian people. The Beatles became an emblem, demonstrating the world outside Russia. The group inspired ideas that opposed the ideology of the communist party and, in turn, played...