From an award-winning scholar comes this definitive, single-volume history that illuminates the tensions and transformations of the Russian Revolution. ​ In The Russian Revolution, acclaimed historian Sean McMeekin traces the events which ended Romanov rule, ushered the Bolsheviks into power, and introduced Communism to the world. Between 1917 and 1922, Russia underwent a complete and irreversible transformation. Taking advantage of the collapse of the Tsarist regime in the middle of World War I, the Bolsheviks staged a hostile takeover of the Russian Imperial Army, promoting mutinies and mass desertions of men in order to fulfill Lenin's program of turning the "imperialist war" into civil war. By the time the Bolsheviks had snuffed out the last resistance five years later, over 20 million people had died, and the Russian economy had collapsed so completely that Communism had to be temporarily abandoned. Still, Bolshevik rule was secure, owing to the new regime's monopoly on force, enabled by illicit arms deals signed with capitalist neighbors such as Germany and Sweden who sought to benefit-politically and economically-from the revolutionary chaos in Russia. Drawing on scores of previously untapped files from Russian archives and a range of other repositories in Europe, Turkey, and the United States, McMeekin delivers exciting, groundbreaking research about this turbulent era. The first comprehensive history of these momentous events in two decades, The Russian Revolution combines cutting-edge scholarship and a fast-paced narrative to shed new light on one of the most significant turning points of the twentieth century.

The Russian Revolution

Mr. Pipes writes trenchantly, and at times superbly....No single volume known to me even begins to cater so adequately to those who want to discover what really happened to Russia....Nor do I know any other book better designed to help Soviet citizens to struggle out of the darkness." -- Ronald Hingley, The New York Times Book Review Ground-breaking in its inclusiveness, enthralling in its narrative of a movement whose purpose, in the words of Leon Trotsky, was "to overthrow the world," The Russian Revolution draws conclusions that have already aroused great controversy in this country-and that are certain to be explosive when the book is published in the Soviet Union. Richard Pipes argues convincingly that the Russian Revolution was an intellectual, rather than a class, uprising; that it was steeped in terror from its very outset; and that it was not a revolution at all but a coup d'etat -- "the capture of governmental power by a small minority."

Excerpt from The History of the Russian Revolution to Brest-Litovsk Preparing a pamphlet intended for the workers of Germany, austria-hungary, and of all other countries. The bourgeois Press of the whole of Europe is unanimous in its slanders and execrations of the proletarian regime in Russia. The Socialist patriotic Press, bereft of courage and of faith in its own work, has revealed a total incapacity to understand and to interpret to the working masses the meaning of the Russian Revolution. I want to come to their help by means of the present booklet. I believe that the revolutionary workers of Europe and of other parts of the world will understand us. I believe that they will, in the near future, start on the same work as we are now engaged in, but that, aided by their greater experience and their more perfect intellectual and technical means, they will perform this work more. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

The History of the Russian Revolution to Brest-Litovsk (Classic Reprint)

"During the first two months of 1917 Russia was still a Romanov monarchy. Eight months later the Bolsheviks stood at the helm. They were little known to anybody when the year began, and their leaders were still under indictment for state treason when they came to power. You will not find another such sharp turn in history especially if you remember that it involves a nation of 150 million people. It is clear that the events of 1917, whatever you think of them, deserve study." --Leon Trotsky, from History of the Russian Revolution Regarded by many as among the most powerful works of history ever written, this book offers an unparalleled account of one of the most pivotal and hotly debated events in world history. This book reveals, from the perspective of one of its central actors, the Russian Revolution's profoundly democratic, emancipatory character. Originally published in three parts, Trotsky's masterpiece is collected here in a single volume. It serves as the most vital and inspiring record of the Russian Revolution to date. "[T]he greatest history of an event that I know." --C. L. R. James "Justly celebrated as a towering, vivid, historically vital work." --China Miéville,October "In Trotsky all passions were aroused, but his thought remained calm and his vision clear.... His involvement in the struggle, far from blurring his sight, sharpens it.... The History is his crowning work, both in scale and power and as the fullest expression of his ideas on revolution. As an account of a revolution, given by one of its chief actors, it stands unique in world literature." --Isaac Deutscher

History of the Russian Revolution

Analyses the events of the 1917 revolution in Russia, from its roots in the Russian empire of the late nineteenth century through to the revolutionary years of 1917-24 and beyond. Considers the legacy for the Soviet Union, right up to the fall of communism in 1989-91, and surveys the revolution's influence on the twentieth-century world. Suggested level: secondary.

Russians from all walks of life joyously celebrated the end of Nicholas II’s monarchy, but one year later, amid widespread civil strife and lawlessness, a fearful citizenry stayed out of sight. Tsuyoshi Hasegawa offers a new perspective on Russia’s revolutionary year through the lens of violent crime and its devastating effect on ordinary people.

Crime and Punishment in the Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution, 1905-1921 is a new history of Russia's revolutionary era as a story of experience-of people making sense of history as it unfolded in their own lives and as they took part in making history themselves. The major events, trends, and explanations, reaching from Bloody Sunday in 1905 to the final shots of the civil war in 1921, are viewed through the doubled perspective of the professional historian looking backward and the contemporary journalist reporting and interpreting history as it happened. The volume then turns toward particular places and people: city streets, peasant villages, the margins of empire (Central Asia, Ukraine, the Jewish Pale), women and men, workers and intellectuals, artists and activists, utopian visionaries, and discontents of all kinds. We spend time with the famous (Vladimir Lenin, Lev Trotsky, Alexandra Kollontai, Vladimir Mayakovsky, Isaac Babel) and with those whose names we don't even know. Key themes include difference and inequality (social, economic, gendered, ethnic), power and resistance, violence, and ideas about justice and freedom. Written especially for students and general readers, this history relies extensively on contemporary texts and voices in order to bring the past and its meanings to life. This is a history about dramatic and uncertain times and especially about the interpretations, values, emotions, desires, and disappointments that made history matter to those who lived it.

The Russian Revolution, 1905-1921

Combining reference entries and examination of primary documents from the Russian Revolution, this book gives students a better understanding of how and why political forces fought to reshape the Russian empire 100 years ago—and provides keen insights into the Soviet Union that resulted. This invaluable reference guide provides an understanding of the social, political, and economic forces and events in Russia that led to the 1905 Russian Revolution in which leftists radicals disposed of the Czar and his regime. It addresses key developments such as the formation of the provisional government, the Bolshevik Revolution in October 1917, and the Russian Civil War—connected, evolutionary historical events that fundamentally reshaped Russia into the Soviet Union. This book serves students and general readers seeking a single source that provides in-depth coverage of the Russian Revolution and the Russian Civil War. Beyond the reference entries, the book contains primary documents that cover the key events, people, and issues that emerged during Russia's revolutions and Civil War. These documents give readers a more detailed understanding of how the Bolsheviks used calls for greater "democracy" to gain support for their revolution, how the Bolsheviks used terror and control as means to maintain their power once the Bolshevik Revolution took place, and why the Bolsheviks believed such extreme measures were needed. Also included is a chronology of major events from 1890 through 1923 and a bibliography that serves as a starting point for more directed research.

Russian Revolution of 1917

Readings on the Russian Revolution brings together 15 important post-Cold War writings on the history of the Russian Revolution. It is structured in such a way as to highlight key debates in the field and contrasting methodological approaches to the Revolution in order to help readers better understand the issues and interpretative fault lines that exist in this contested area of history. The book opens with an original introduction which provides essential background and vital context for the pieces that follow. The volume is then structured around four parts – 'Actors, Language, Symbols', 'War, Revolution, and the State', 'Revolutionary Dreams and Identities' and 'Outcomes and Impacts' – that explore the beginnings, events and outcomes of the Russian Revolution, as well as examinations of central figures, critical topics and major historiographical battlegrounds. Melissa Stockdale also provides translations of two crucial Russian-language works, published here in English for the first time, and includes useful pedagogical features such as a glossary, chronology, and thematic bibliography to further aid study. Readings on the Russian Revolution is an essential collection for anyone studying the Russian Revolution.

Readings on the Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution of 1917 transformed the face of the Russian empire, politically, economically, socially, and culturally, and also profoundly affected the course of world history for the rest of the twentieth century. Now, to mark the centenary of this epochal event, historian Steve Smith presents a panoramic account of the history of the Russian empire, from the last years of the nineteenth century, through the First World War and the revolutions of 1917 and the establishment of the Bolshevik regime, to the end of the 1920s, when Stalin simultaneously unleashed violent collectivization of agriculture and crash industrialization upon Russian society. Drawing on recent archivally-based scholarship, Russia in Revolution pays particular attention to the varying impact of the Revolution on the various groups that made up society: peasants, workers, non-Russian nationalities, the army, women and the family, young people, and the Church. In doing so, it provides a fresh way into the big, perennial questions about the Revolution and its consequences: why did the attempt by the tsarist government to implement political reform after the 1905 Revolution fail?; why did the First World War bring about the collapse of the tsarist system?; why did the attempt to create a democratic system after the February Revolution of 1917 not get off the ground?; why did the Bolsheviks succeed in seizing and holding on to power?; why did they come out victorious from a punishing civil war?; why did the New Economic Policy they introduced in 1921 fail?; and why did Stalin come out on top in the power struggle inside the Bolshevik party after Lenin's death in 1924? A final chapter then reflects on the larger significance of 1917 for the history of the twentieth century - and, for all its terrible flaws, what the promise of the Revolution might mean for us today.

Russia in Revolution

This Very Short Introduction provides an analytical narrative of the main events and developments in Soviet Russia between 1917 and 1936. It examines the impact of the revolution on society as a whole—on different classes, ethnic groups, the army, men and women, youth. Its central concern is to understand how one structure of domination was replaced by another. The book registers the primacy of politics, but situates political developments firmly in the context of massive economic, social, and cultural change. Since the fall of Communism there has been much reflection on the significance of the Russian Revolution. The book rejects the currently influential, liberal interpretation of the revolution in favour of one that sees it as rooted in the contradictions of a backward society which sought modernization and enlightenment and ended in political tyranny. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The Russian Revolution: A Very Short Introduction

In the third year of the First World War, The Russian Empire experienced a year of revolutionary turmoil that saw the fall of the emperor, Tsar Nicholas II. This was followed by the creation of an interim government which in turn was overthrown by an extreme revolutionary socialist regime in October that year. By the end of 1917 a government that would rule Russia as a dictatorship for most of the rest of the 20th Century was firmly in power and its establishment would have profound implications for the rest of Russian and 20th Century history. However, the revolution was not simply the product of short term events, instead it developed from long term problems and challenges from within Russia, which the government of the tsars was incapable of controlling. The purpose of this ebook is to focus closely on the revolutionary year of 1917 and explain why not just one but two governments fell in that year. It will also examine how and why the Bolsheviks, a revolutionary socialist party came to power. Firstly, however, we must explore the long term causes of the Russian Revolution, which stretch back deep into Russian history. This e-book also features advice on source-based questions and a section on historical interpretations of the Russian Revolution.

The Russian Revolution 1917

A compendium of original essays and contemporary viewpoints on the 1917 Revolution The Russian revolution of 1917 reverberated throughout an empire that covered one-sixth of the world. It altered the geo-political landscape of not only Eurasia, but of the entire globe. The impact of this immense event is still felt in the present day. The historiography of the last two decades has challenged conceptions of the 1917 revolution as a monolithic entity— the causes and meanings of revolution are many, as is reflected in contemporary scholarship on the subject. A Companion to the Russian Revolution offers more than thirty original essays, written by a team of respected scholars and historians of 20th century Russian history. Presenting a wide range of contemporary perspectives, the Companion discusses topics including the dynamics of violence in war and revolution, Russian political parties, the transformation of the Orthodox church, Bolshevism, Liberalism, and more. Although primarily focused on 1917 itself, and the singular Revolutionary experience in that year, this book also explores time-periods such as the First Russian Revolution, early Soviet government, the Civil War period, and even into the 1920’s. Presents a wide range of original essays that discuss Brings together in-depth coverage of political history, party history, cultural history, and new social approaches Explores the long-range causes, influence on early Soviet culture, and global after-life of the Russian Revolution Offers broadly-conceived, contemporary views of the revolution largely based on the author’s original research Links Russian revolutions to Russian Civil Wars as concepts A Companion to the Russian Revolution is an important addition to modern scholarship on the subject, and a valuable resource for those interested in Russian, Late Imperial, or Soviet history as well as anyone interested in Revolution as a global phenomenon.

A Companion to the Russian Revolution

Multi-award-winning author China Miéville captures the drama of the Russian Revolution in this “engaging retelling of the events that rocked the foundations of the twentieth century” (Village Voice) In February of 1917 Russia was a backwards, autocratic monarchy, mired in an unpopular war; by October, after not one but two revolutions, it had become the world’s first workers’ state, straining to be at the vanguard of global revolution. How did this unimaginable transformation take place? In a panoramic sweep, stretching from St. Petersburg and Moscow to the remotest villages of a sprawling empire, Miéville uncovers the catastrophes, intrigues and inspirations of 1917, in all their passion, drama and strangeness. Intervening in long-standing historical debates, but told with the reader new to the topic especially in mind, here is a breathtaking story of humanity at its greatest and most desperate; of a turning point for civilization that still resonates loudly today.

October

This book explores the 1917 Russian Revolution from its February Revolution beginning to the victory of Lenin and the Bolsheviks in October.

The Russian Revolution, 1917

An eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and its aftermath, newly translated into English. Gold Winner for History, 2017 Foreword INDIES Book of the Year Awards Major General Konstantin Ivanovich Globachev was chief of the Okhrana, the Tsarist secret police, in Petrograd (now St. Petersburg) in the two years preceding the 1917 Russian Revolution. This book presents his memoirs—translated in English for the first time—interposed with those of his wife, Sofia Nikolaevna Globacheva. The general’s writings, which he titled The Truth of the Russian Revolution, provide a front-row view of Tsar Nicholas II’s final years, the revolution, and its tumultuous aftermath. Globachev describes the political intrigue and corruption in the capital and details his office’s surveillance over radical activists and the mysterious Rasputin. His wife takes a more personal approach, depicting her tenacity in the struggle to keep her family intact and the family’s flight to freedom. Her descriptions vividly portray the privileges and relationships of the noble class that collapsed with the empire. Translator Vladimir G. Marinich includes biographical information, illustrations, a glossary, and a timeline to contextualize this valuable primary source on a key period in Russian history. Vladimir G. Marinich is Professor Emeritus of History at Howard Community College in Columbia, Maryland.

The Truth of the Russian Revolution

This popular, concise and highly readable study discusses the key themes and debates about the Russian Revolution. Robert Service's lively analysis examines: - state and society under the Romanovs from 1900 - The February and October Revolutions of 1917 - The final years of the Romanov dynasty and the start of the Soviet order - Comparisons with political, social and economic trends elsewhere in the world - The extent to which the later development of the USSR was conditioned by the October Revolution Clear and incisive, the fourth edition has been thoroughly revised and updated in the light of the latest research and features a new scene-setting Introduction and maps. Service's text remains the essential starting point for anyone studying this tumultuous period in the history of Russia and the world in the twentieth century.

The Russian Revolution, 1900-1927

Renowned Pan-African and socialist theorist on the Bolshevik Revolution and its post-colonial legacy In his short life, Guyanese intellectual Walter Rodney emerged as one of the foremost thinkers and activists of the anticolonial revolution, leading movements in North America, Africa, and the Caribbean. Wherever he was, Rodney was a lightning rod for working-class Black Power organizing. His deportation sparked Jamaica’s Rodney Riots in 1968, and his scholarship trained a generation how to approach politics on an international scale. In 1980, shortly after founding the Working People’s Alliance in Guyana, the thirty-eight-year-old Rodney was assassinated. Walter Rodney’s Russian Revolution collects surviving texts from a series of lectures he delivered at the University of Dar es Salaam, an intellectual hub of the independent Third World. It had been his intention to work these into a book, a goal completed posthumously with the editorial aid of Robin D.G. Kelley and Jesse Benjamin. Moving across the historiography of the long Russian Revolution with clarity and insight, Rodney transcends the ideological fault lines of the Cold War. Surveying a broad range of subjects—the Narodniks, social democracy, the October Revolution, civil war, and the challenges of Stalinism—Rodney articulates a distinct viewpoint from the Third World, one that grounds revolutionary theory and history with the people in motion.

This book explores the global impact of the Russian Revolution, arguably the most influential revolution of the modern age. It explores how the Revolution influenced political movements on the radical Left and Right across the world and asks whether the Russian Revolution remains relevant today. In Part one, four leading historians debate whether or not the Russian Revolution’s legacy endures today. Part two presents examples of how the Revolution inspired political movements across the world, from Latin America and East Asia, to Western Europe and the Soviet Union. The Revolution inspired both sides of the political spectrum—from anarchists, and leftist radicals who fought for a new socialist reality and dreamed of world revolution, to those who on the far Right who tried to stop them. Part three, an interview with the historian S. A. Smith, gives a personal account of how the Revolution influenced a scholar and his work. This volume shows the complexity of the Russian Revolution in today’s political world. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the journal Revolutionary Russia.

The Global Impact of the Russian Revolution

This book offers a fresh analysis of the Russian Revolution from a global perspective. It stresses the historical role of Soviet Communism in the modernization of the country, the defeat of Nazism, and the rise of American power and world leadership. For students and scholars of the Russian Revolution, there are pivotal questions that merit careful, comprehensive consideration: why did the Tsarist regime unravel in revolution? Why did the Bolsheviks come to power rather than some other party? How did Stalin—rather than a more popular and respected leader—win the mantle of Lenin and gain leadership of the ruling party? How should Stalin's regime be judged by subsequent generations of Russians, and in the context of world history? In Russian Revolution, 1917-1945, author Anthony D'Agostino discusses all these questions. His suggestions for further reading range over decades of writing on Soviet subjects and cite classics, revisionist works, curiosities, and studies done during and since the Gorbachev years. The book explores topics including the modernization of the Tsarist Russian state, World War I, the revolutionary project of Soviet Communism, the nationalist transformation of Soviet Communism under international pressures, the "Big Drive" to modernize Russia by force, and the external threat of fascism.

The Russian Revolution, 1917–1945

How did a regime that promised utopian-style freedom end up delivering terror and tyranny? For some, the Bolsheviks were totalitarian and the descent was inevitable; for others, Stalin was responsible; for others still, this period in Russian history was a microcosm of the Cold War. The Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution reasons that these arguments are too simplistic. Rather, the journey from Bolshevik liberation to totalitarianism was riddled with unsuccessful experiments, compromises, confusion, panic, self-interest and over-optimism. As this book reveals, the emergence (and persistence) of the Bolshevik dictatorship was, in fact, the complicated product of a failed democratic transition. Drawing on long-ignored archival sources and original research, this fascinating volume brings together an international team of leading scholars to reconsider one of the most important and controversial questions of 20th-century history: how to explain the rise of the repressive Stalinist dictatorship.

The Fate of the Bolshevik Revolution

In this book written in exile, Aleksandr Fyodorovich Kerensky, recounts his fascinating eyewitness account of the Russian Revolution and the victory of the extreme Bolshevik faction in 1917. Aleksandr Fyodorovich Kerensky (4 May 1881 - 11 June 1970) was a Russian lawyer and politician who served as the Minister of Justice in the newly formed Russian Provisional Government, as Minister of War, and second Minister-Chairman of the between July and November 1917. A leader of the moderate-socialist Trudoviks faction of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, Kerensky was a key political figure in the Russian Revolution of 1917. On 7 November, his government was overthrown by the Vladimir Lenin-led Bolsheviks in the October Revolution.

The Catastrophe

This single volume is an authoritative and accessible guide to the background and progress of the Revolution, written by a team of over forty specialist contributors. Beginning with the radical movements of the mid-nineteenth century, the Encyclopedia covers the development of the revolutionary movement created by the intelligentsia; the condition of the peasants, that of the working class, and of the army; the role of the Tsarist secret police; the 'agents provocateurs'; the revolutionaries' own underground. A substantial section is devoted to the emergence of liberation movements among the national minorities of the borderlands. The Encyclopedia also considers the formation of Soviet institutions, and examines too the emergence of revolutionary culture well before 1917, the avant-garde in art and theatre, and the relationship to the revolution of three major Russian writers, Blok, Gorky and Mayakovsky.

The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Russian Revolution

During the Russian Revolution and the ensuing Civil War, more than twenty thousand kinds of banknotes were used throughout the vast expanse of the former Russian Empire. At that time, money was issued not only by the official authorities, such as the Imperial Government, the Provisional Government, and, later, the Bolshevik Government, but also by Generals Denikin, Wrangel, and Yudenich, Admiral Kolchak, Atamans Semyonov and Petliura, Hetman Skoropadskyi, and many other great and small rulers of Russia. Russian money was manufactured in Great Britain, Germany, Sweden, and the United States. To some degree, money served as a manifesto of the issuing government, reflected in the various symbols depicted on the banknotes. Using new archival data, this book expands and, in a number of cases, revises the well-established view of the daily life of people during the Revolution, and dispels the settled myth about how the natural economy prevailed in the years of the Russian Civil War. The book presents unique illustrations taken from the author’s private collection: the “Romanov” banknotes; postage stamps used as currency; “Duma” money; and 1917 banknotes known as “kerenkies”, “morzhovkies”, “tchaikovkies”, “Northern rubles”, “krylatkies”, “rodzyankies”, “the Don rubles”, and “kolchakovkies”. Some of these banknote designs were made by well-known Russian artists, such as Ivan Bilibin, Sergey Chekhonin, and Georgy Narbut. The book is addressed to historians, economists, and all readers interested in Russian history and economy.

Money of the Russian Revolution

Marx held that the progression of society from capitalism to communism was 'historically inevitable'. In Russia in 1917, it seemed that Marx's theory was being born out in reality. But was the Russian Revolution really inevitable? This collection of fourteen contributions from the world's leading Russian scholars attempts to answer the question by looking back at the key turning points of the revolution. From the Russo-Japanese conflict of 1904-5 through to the appropriation of church property in 1922, and focusing especially on the incredible chain of events in 1917 leading to the October Revolution itself, Historically Inevitable? is a forensic account of Russia's road to revolution. Each contribution gives not only a fast-paced, incisive narrative account of an individual aspect of Revolution but also, for the first time, an intriguing counter-factual analysis of what might have gone differently. Featuring Richard Pipes on the Kornilov affair, Orlando Figes on the October Revolution, Dominic Lieven on foreign intervention and Martin Sixsmith on the attempted assassination of Lenin in 1918, Historically Inevitable? explains how each of these moments, more through blind luck than any historical inevitability, led to the creation of the world's first communist state. Tony Brenton's afterword to the volume draws parallels between the Revolution and the ultimate collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and places the events of 1917 in the context of more recent events in Russia and the Crimea. Featuring contributions from: Donald Crawford - Sean McMeekin - Dominic Lieven - Orlando Figes - Richard Sakwa - Douglas Smith - Martin Sixsmith - Simon Dixon - Boris Kolonitsky - Richard Pipes - Edvard Radzinsky - Catriona Kelly - Erik Landis - Evan Mawdsley

Historically Inevitable?

Historical Dictionary of the Russian Revolution contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has over 200 cross-referenced entries on the revolutions, the First World War, political parties, ideologies and individuals, and the main events that defined the course of the Russian Revolution.

Historical Dictionary of the Russian Revolution

'It is my considered judgement that, had it had not been for the Russian Revolution, there would very likely have been no National Socialism; probably no Second World War and no decolonization; and certainly no Cold War, which once dominated our lives. I will attempt here to distill the essence of my books THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION and RUSSIA UNDER THE BOLSHEVIK REGIME by raising the three central questions addressed in those volumes: Why did tsarism fall? Why did the Bolsheviks gain power? Why did Stalin succeed Lenin? Richard Pipes, from THREE WHYS OF THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION. Arguably the most important event of the twentieth century, the Russian Revolution changed forever the course of modern history. Due to the Soviet clampdown on archives regarding the Revolution, many aspects of the event have been shrouded in mystery for over seventy years. However, since the collapse of Communism the archival despositories have been thrown open to interested parties. 'One of America's great histories'. WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD. 'Pipes is not a mere communicator of facts but a philosopher examining the deeper, broader trends beneath the surface of history. ' SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE.

Three "whys" of the Russian Revolution

Comrades in Arms

This is the first of two volumes covering the origins and progress of the Bolshevik Revolution. They provide a complete account of the Russian Revolution, which made a large impact on the 20th century, subjecting a large part of the Earth's population to the Communist experiment.

The Russian Revolution 1899-1919

The turbulent events that overtook Russia in 1917 are often called one of history's great turning points. In March of that year, a corrupt, outdated, careworn autocracy - the 300-year-old Romanov dynasty - was overthrown by a spontaneous uprising of Russia's long-oppressed masses. During the next few months, Alexander Kerensky and other liberals in the provisional government attempted to adopt reforms. But the continuing hardships of World War I and the pressure of Vladimir Lenin's Bolsheviks proved too much for them. In the relatively bloodless coup d'état of November 7, Lenin and his associates seized control of the state. Here, from the eminent historian E. M. Halliday, is the dramatic story of the Russian Revolution.

Reconsidering the Russian Revolution a century later Reflecting on the fate of the Russian Revolution one hundred years after the October Uprising, Ronald Grigor Suny—one of the world’s leading historians of the period—explores how scholars and political scientists have tried to understand this historic upheaval, the civil war that followed, and the extraordinary intrusion of ordinary people onto the world stage. Suny provides an assessment of the choices made in the revolutionary years by Soviet leaders—the achievements, costs, and losses that continue to weigh on us today. A quarter century after the disintegration of the USSR, the revolution is usually told as a story of failure. However, Suny reevaluates its radical democratic ambitions, its missed opportunities, victories, and the colossal agonies of trying to build a kind of “socialism” in the inhospitable, isolated environment of peasant Russia. He ponders what lessons 1917 provides for Marxists and anyone looking for alternatives to capitalism and bourgeois democracy.

Red Flag Unfurled

Vast in scope, based on exhaustive original research, and written with passion, narrative skill and human sympathy, this book offers an account of the Russian Revolution for a new generation.

A People's Tragedy

The Russian Revolution of 1917 has often been presented as a complete break with the past, with everything which had gone before swept away, and all aspects of politics, economy and society reformed and made new.? Recently, however, historians have increasingly come to question this view, discovering that Tsarist Russia was much more entangled in the processes of modernisation, and that the new regime contained much more continuity than has previously been acknowledged.? This book presents new research findings on a range of different aspects of Russian society, both showing how there was much change before 1917, and much continuity afterwards, and also going beyond this to show that the new Soviet regime established in the 1920s, with its vision of the New Soviet Person, was in fact based on a complicated mixture of new Soviet thinking and ideas developed before 1917 by a variety of non-Bolshevik movements.

Rethinking the Russian Revolution as Historical Divide

This volume aims to commemorate, criticize, scrutinize and assess the undoubted significance of the Russian Revolution both retrospectively and prospectively in three parts. Part I consists of a palimpsest of the different representations that the Russian Revolution underwent through its turbulent history, going back to its actors, agents, theorists and propagandists to consider whether it is at all possible to revisit the Russian Revolution as an event. With this problematic as a backbone, the chapters of this section scrutinize the ambivalences of revolution in four distinctive phenomena (sexual morality, religion, law and forms of life) that pertain to the revolution’s historicity. Part II concentrates on how the revolution was retold in the aftermath of its accomplishment not only by its sympathizers but also its opponents. These chapters not only bring to light the ways in which the revolution triggered critical theorists to pave new paths of radical thinking that were conceived as methods to overcome the revolution’s failures and impasses, but also how the Revolution was subverted in order to inspire reactionary politics and legitimize conservative theoretical undertakings. Even commemorating the Russian Revolution, then, still poses a threat to every well-established political order. In Part III, this volume interprets how the Russian Revolution can spur a rethinking of the idea of revolution. Acknowledging the suffocating burden that the notion of revolution as such entails, the final chapters of this book ultimately address the content and form of future revolution(s). It is therein, in such critical political thought and such radical form of action, where the Russian Revolution’s legacy ought to be sought and can still be found.

The Russian Revolution as Ideal and Practice

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The Russian Revolution: History in an Hour

1917: the year a series of rebellions toppled three centuries of autocratic rule and placed a group of political radicals in charge of a world power. Here, suddenly, was the first modern socialist state, “a kingdom more bright that any heaven had to offer”. But the dream was short-lived, bringing in its wake seventy years of conflict and instability that nearly ended in nuclear war. How could such a revolution take place and what caused it to go so very wrong? Presenting a uniquely long view of events, Abraham Ascher takes readers from the seeds of revolution in the 1880s right through to Stalin’s state terror and the power of the communist legacy in Russia today. Original and shrewd, Ascher’s analysis offers an unparalled introduction to this watershed period in world history

Russian Revolution The Russian Revolution in 1917 was a moment in time when the will of the people put an end to a system of government that had been in place for centuries. The story of Russia's transition from Imperial reign to eventual Communist dictatorship is a tale rooted in the ranks of the common people and the men who rose to lead them. Inside you will read about... - Czarist Rule- Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels- Nicholas Romanov- Rasputin- World War- Lenin- October Revolution- StalinAnd much more!Dedication to the ideals of socialism remade Russian society. Worker's Rights, human equality, world war, murder, mysticism, blood and tyranny collide in the heart of Russia to irrevocably alter the culture of this great nation and the world.

Russian Revolution

This book examines the dramatic and sometimes violent events which accompanied the fall of the Russian czars and the creation of the Soviet nation. In drawing upon the most recent research, especially on the nature of the popular movement during 1917, Beryl Williams examines how and why Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917. She considers the different interpretations of the nature of the revolution among the various revolutionary parties and among the Bolsheviks themselves, and explores how the Bolsheviks consolidated their control over the country. She concludes by asking to what extent their visions of a new society and a `new soviet man' were fulfilled by 1921.

The Russian Revolution 1917-1921

When workers and peasants rose up across Russia and smashed the centuries old Tsarist autocracy their actions reverberated across the world, and continue to inspire activists to this day. This carefully assembled and expertly translated collection of documents from the Petrograd socialist movement in 1917 provides contemporary readers with a firsthand glimpse into the revolutionary ferment as it unfolds. In Leaflets of the Russian Revolution, Barbara Allen selects and introduces the pamphlets and other agitational material that give life to the debates, disagreements and perspectives that animated the masses during the revolution.

Leaflets of the Russian Revolution

This volume provides the English-speaking reader with little-known perspectives of Central and Eastern European historians on the topic of the Russian Revolution. Whereas research into the Soviet Union’s history has flourished at Western universities, the contribution of Central and Eastern European historians, during the Cold War working in conditions of imposed censorship, to this field of academic research has often been seriously circumscribed. Bringing together perspectives from across Central and Eastern Europe alongside contributions from established scholars from the West, this significant volume casts the year 1917 in a new critical light.

Circles of the Russian Revolution

This gripping historical narrative relates the circumstances that led to the end of the Romanov Dynasty and the Russian aristocracy, the heartrending struggles of the peasants, the violence and bloodshed of the revolution, and the rise of the new social order and its far-reaching consequences that continue to be felt in Russia today. In addition to the causes of the Russian revolution and the events that led to civil war, the narrative delves into the mindset of the Bolshevik leadership and recounts the profound transformation and industrialization of the economy in the Soviet era.

Unrivalled in scope and brimming with human drama, A People’s Tragedy is the most vivid, moving and comprehensive history of the Russian Revolution available today. ‘A modern masterpiece’ Andrew Marr ‘The most moving account of the Russian Revolution since Doctor Zhivago’ Independent Opening with a panorama of Russian society, from the cloistered world of the Tsar to the brutal life of the peasants, A People’s Tragedy follows workers, soldiers, intellectuals and villagers as their world is consumed by revolution and then degenerates into violence and dictatorship. Drawing on vast original research, Figes conveys above all the shocking experience of the revolution for those who lived it, while providing the clearest and most cogent account of how and why it unfolded. Illustrated with over 100 photographs and now including a new introduction that reflects on the revolution’s centennial legacy, A People’s Tragedy is a masterful and definitive record of one of the most important events in modern history.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 has provided fresh perspectives from which to view the Russian Revolution. This book reviews the everchanging debate on the nature of the Russian Revolution.

The Russian Revolution, 1917-1921

On the brink of the 100th anniversary of the Russian Revolution, read the most vivid, moving, and comprehensive history of the events that changed the world It is history on an epic yet human scale. Vast in scope, exhaustive in original research, written with passion, narrative skill, and human sympathy, A People's Tragedy is a profound account of the Russian Revolution for a new generation. Many consider the Russian Revolution to be the most significant event of the twentieth century. Distinguished scholar Orlando Figes presents a panorama of Russian society on the eve of that revolution, and then narrates the story of how these social forces were violently erased. Within the broad stokes of war and revolution are miniature histories of individuals, in which Figes follows the main players' fortunes as they saw their hopes die and their world crash into ruins. Unlike previous accounts that trace the origins of the revolution to overreaching political forces and ideals, Figes argues that the failure of democracy in 1917 was deeply rooted in Russian culture and social history and that what had started as a people's revolution contained the seeds of its degeneration into violence and dictatorship. A People's Tragedy is a masterful and original synthesis by a mature scholar, presented in a compelling and accessibly human narrative.

Today, when Russia has regained its power on the world stage and Putin is restoring many of the old traditions and systems, it is helpful to understand what Russia was like at the time of transformation set in motion by Gorbachev and continued by Yeltsin. For a time Russia went through a period called "glasnost" and "perestroika" when all things seemed possible and a spirit of democracy was in the air. The Soviet Union was breaking up and everyday citizens were imagining a new democratic future, though this restructuring soon led to a rampant period of new capitalism and crime, before the crackdown and new economic transformation under Putin. Before the Modern Russian Revolution is a look back at this time of rapid change be a sociologist and anthropologist who traveled to the Russia and other countries that were then part of the Soviet Union. She traveled there three times between 1987 and 1990. This book describes her journey there in 1988 as part of a citizen diplomacy group that offered an opportunity to make personal connections with people in all walks of life. It is an engaging personal account of a journey to the Soviet Union done the "citizen diplomacy" way-meeting people face to face in their homes, schools, churches, courtrooms and marketplaces. It takes you to the heart of Soviet daily life, where you will meet working mothers, the new entrepreneurs, lawyers, artists, journalist, psychologists and others. While providing a marked contrast to the lifestyle of Russians today, these portraits help to provide insight into the new society Russia has become.

Before the Modern Russian Revolution

The 1917 Revolution sent shockwaves throughout the globe, setting a chain of events in motion that would change the entire course of the 20th century. With the overthrow of the Romanov Dynasty, Russia was plunged into the political unknown and, from the crucible of social unrest, ideological conflict and violent civil war, the world's first communist state was forged. In this revised edition, Geoffrey Swain provides an incisive overview of one of the most complex and turbulent periods in modern history, tracing key moments from the abdication of Tsar Nicolas II to the Bolshevik seizure of power. A leading authority on Russia and Eastern Europe, Geoffrey Swain highlights the important legacies of 1905, demonstrating how early revolutionary ambitions among the masses culminated in the events of 1917. Challenging conventions in Soviet scholarship, this revised edition shows that the Bolshevik concepts of discipline and ideology that had mobilised the revolution, set an unnecessary course towards dictatorship and terror. Covering new historiography in the field, this revised edition places a renewed emphasis on the social and cultural upheaval experienced in Russia amid the nation's political turmoil.

A Short History of the Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution `shook the world¿ in 1917. It was the first time a socialist revolution had taken hold, putting the workers in power, seizing private property and society¿s productive capacity. This was the basis for a rational, cooperative society. That revolution became the nemesis of the United States and other imperialist countries, which would not rest until its gains were undone. The Bolshevik Revolution inspired anti-colonial revolutions and national liberation movements around the world, lending solidarity and material assistance to them. As it emerged to be the second-largest economy in the world, the first to put a satellite and human into space, it became a valid counterweight to claims of capitalism¿s superiority.Storming the Gates looks inside the revolution, from the early years to the last ¿ not as a neutral observer, but a partisan for revolutionary change. Recounting the vast accomplishments, global impact, loyal followers, challenges and shortcomings, this book remembers `the Soviet Union not as the end of communism but as its first grand, real-life experiment.¿Looking to the future, Storming the Gates examines what role a Bolshevik-type party can have in the 21st Century, and how it can once again shape history.

Storming the Gates

The Russian Revolution of 1917 was an event of the greatest importance, but the social groups which were crucial to its development and outcome have been little written about. This book brings together a number of prominent British researchers whose work focusses on the connections among politics, social aspirations and economics, and offers new insights into the reasons why, only months after the last tsar fell from power in February 1917, it was the Bolsheviks who seized control and established a communist regime.

Society and Politics in the Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution of October 1917 was an event of global significance. Despite this fact, public attention and even research mostly focused on Russia and the other states that became part of USSR for many decades. The impact of these dramatic events on other parts of the world was neglected or not systematically explored until recently. And in analyzing the events, political history still dominates the field. This volume, which is largely based on papers presented at the third annual conference of the Graduate School for East and Southeast European Studies, adds to this image some valuable perspectives by exploring the culture as well as the political and cultural legacy of the Russian Revolution. Three focal points are taken here: the revolution’s rhetoric and performance, its religious semantics, and its impact on Asia.

Culture and Legacy of the Russian Revolution

Following an unprecedented economic boom fed by foreign investment, the Russian Revolution triggered the worst sovereign default in history. Bankers and Bolsheviks tells the dramatic story of this boom and bust, chronicling the forgotten experiences of leading financiers of the age. Shedding critical new light on the decision making of the powerful personalities who acted as the gatekeepers of international finance, Hassan Malik narrates how they channeled foreign capital into Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. While economists have long relied on quantitative analysis to grapple with questions relating to the drivers of cross-border capital flows, Malik adopts a historical approach, drawing on banking and government archives in four countries. The book provides rare insights into the thinking of influential figures in world finance as they sought to navigate one of the most challenging and lucrative markets of the first modern age of globalization. Bankers and Bolsheviks reveals how a complex web of factors—from government interventions to competitive dynamics and cultural influences—drove a large inflow of capital during this tumultuous period in world history. This gripping book demonstrates how the realms of finance and politics—of bankers and Bolsheviks—grew increasingly intertwined, and how investing in Russia became a political act with unforeseen repercussions.

Bankers and Bolsheviks

The Romanovs ruled Russia from 1613 to 1917, so it is no wonder that the overthrow of this long-lived dynasty and the events that followed evoked passionate debate. The Russian Revolution of 1917 was followed by the Russian Civil War, pitting "Red" against "White" and, ultimately, resulting in the establishment of the Soviet Union. How did people react? What did they think? This book presents documents written between July 1914 and mid-January 1918 that underscore the extraordinary richness of public discussion about key events and issues during the 1917 Russian Revolution. The documents present the views, not only of key political figures, but also of ordinary men and women.

Competing Voices from the Russian Revolution

Author of the only full-length eyewitness account of the 1917 Revolution, Sukhanov was a key figure in the first revolutionary Government. His seven-volume book, first published in 1922, was suppressed under Stalin. This reissue of the abridged version is, as the editor's preface points out, one of the few things written about this most dramatic and momentous event, which actually has the smell of life, and gives us a feeling for the personalities, the emotions, and the play of ideas of the whole revolutionary period." Originally published in 1984. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

The Russian Revolution took place in 1917, but its causes lay in the 19th century and its effects were to shape world history. This brief study outlines conditions in Russia prior to the revolution, discusses the revolutions of 1905 and 1917, and concludes with an account of the Soviet regime.

A controversial Marxist, Luxemburg here opposes the Bolsheviks' quest for power

The Russian Revolution, and Leninism Or Marxism?

"The Meaning of the Russian Revolution" is a novel by Nobel Prize winning and highly-acclaimed Russian author Leo Tolstoy. In describing the 1905 Russian Revolution Tolstoy traces back the history of Europe as a whole and Russia in particular. He suggests that the nation has come full circle and that the people who had earlier submitted themselves to monarchical rule now find themselves burdened with its excesses and corruption. He however advocates for non-violent revolution as the means to bring about a new Russian society.

The Meaning of the Russian Revolution

Russian RevolutionThe Russian Revolution in 1917 was a moment in time when the will of the people put an end to a system of government that had been in place for centuries. The story of Russia's transition from Imperial reign to eventual Communist dictatorship is a tale rooted in the ranks of the common people and the men who rose to lead them. Inside you will read about...- Czarist Rule - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels - Nicholas Romanov - Rasputin - World War - Lenin - October Revolution - Stalin And much more! Dedication to the ideals of socialism remade Russian society. Worker's Rights, human equality, world war, murder, mysticism, blood and tyranny collide in the heart of Russia to irrevocably alter the culture of this great nation and the world.

Historic official papers - Contains the verbatim reports of English citizens caught up in the Russian Revolution - Opening pages are an extract from a Foreign Office review of the nature of the Revolution.

Besides absolutists of the right (the tsar and his adherents) and left (Lenin and his fellow Bolsheviks), the Russian political landscape in 1917 featured moderates seeking liberal reform and a rapid evolution towards a constitutional monarchy. Vasily Maklakov, a lawyer, legislator and public intellectual, was among the most prominent of these, and the most articulate and sophisticated advocate of the rule of law, the linchpin of liberalism. This book tells the story of his efforts and his analysis of the reasons for their ultimate failure. It is thus, in part, an example for movements seeking to liberalize authoritarian countries today—both as a warning and a guide. Although never a cabinet member or the head of his political party—the Constitutional Democrats or “Kadets”—Maklakov was deeply involved in most of the political events of the period. He was defense counsel for individuals resisting the regime (or charged simply for being of the wrong ethnicity, such as Menahem Beilis, sometimes considered the Russian Dreyfus). He was continuously a member of the Kadets’ central committee and their most compelling orator. As a somewhat maverick (and moderate) Kadet, he stood not only between the country’s absolute extremes (the reactionary monarchists and the revolutionaries), but also between the two more or less liberal centrist parties, the Kadets on the center left, and the Octobrists on the center right. As a member of the Second, Third and Fourth Dumas (1907-1917), he advocated a wide range of reforms, especially in the realms of religious freedom, national minorities, judicial independence, citizens’ judicial remedies, and peasant rights.

The Reformer

Supporters of Stalin saw Trotsky as a traitor and renegade. Trotsky's own supporters saw him as the only true Leninist. In Trotsky and the Russian Revolution, Geoffrey Swain restores Trotsky to his real and central role in the Russian Revolution. In this succinct and comprehensive study, Swain contests that: That, in the years between 1903 and 1917, it was the ideas of Trotsky, rather than Lenin, which shaped the nascent Bolshevik Party and prepared it for the overthrow of the Tsar. That during the autumn of 1917 workers supported Trotsky's idea of an insurrection carried out by the soviet, rather than Lenin's demand for a party orchestrated coup d'etat. That during the Russian Civil War, Trotsky persuaded a sceptical Lenin that the only way to victory was through the employment of officers trained in the Tsar's army. Expelled from the party on the 10th anniversary of the October Revolution, and then exiled and murdered abroad, most studies of Trotsky's writings concentrate on his critique of Stalin's Russia in the 1930s. This seminar reader explores the ideas which drove Trotsky forward during his years of influence over Russia's revolutionary politics, exploring such key concepts as how to construct a revolutionary party, how to stage a successful insurrection, how to fight a revolutionary war, and how to build a socialist state.

Trotsky and the Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution and Bolshevik Victory

Alan Wood provides a concise introduction to the Russian Revolution and its origins dating back to the emancipation of the Russian peasant serfs in 1861. The third edition of this successful pamphlet brings the historiography up to date to include the multitude of research in the last ten years that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the opening up of the archives.

The Origins of the Russian Revolution, 1861–1917

Inside the Russian Revolution

Now in a new edition, this provocative, highly readable work presents a fascinating look at events that culminated in the Russian Revolution. Focusing on the Revolution in its widest sense, Sheila Fitzpatrick covers not only the events of 1917 and what preceded them, but the social transformations brought about by the Bolsheviks.

Through the Russian Revolution

<p>The <a href="https://history-maps.com/story/Russian-Revolution">Russian Revolution</a> was a pivotal event in world history that took place in 1917, leading to the overthrow of the Russian monarchy and the establishment of a communist government. Triggered by economic hardships, political discontent, and the strain of <a href="https://history-maps.com/story/World-War-I">World War I</a>, the revolution was marked by two major phases: the February Revolution, which saw the abdication of Tsar Nicholas II, and the October Revolution, during which the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, seized power. This momentous shift in power had far-reaching consequences, including the creation of the <a href="https://history-maps.com/story/History-of-the-Soviet-Union">Soviet Union</a>, the spread of communism worldwide, and a lasting impact on global geopolitics throughout the 20th century.</p>

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