Introduction

Abstract

The Russian Revolution was among the most important events in twentieth-century world history. The year 1917 transformed the politics, society and the economy of the old Romanov empire. Until February, the government in Russia had been led by a monarchy which traced its dynasty back to 1613 and which, for most purposes, had retained its absolutist powers intact. From October a far-left socialist party, the Bolsheviks, held office. The intervening months had been a time of open struggles among parties. Individuals like Miliukov, Kerenskii, Tsereteli and Lenin came to the fore. There was a surge of popular enthusiasm for both universal democracy and sectional representative organisations. The privileges of the propertied social groups were under constant threat. Yet the widely-noted political optimism occurred also in the midst of the worst economic crisis experienced by Russia since the seventeenth century. The prospect of industrial and financial collapse grew steadily over the year. Nor did the Revolution happen in peaceful times. The country was engaged in the Great War on the side of Britain, France, Italy and the USA. The German and Austro-Hungarian menace to Russia’s territorial integrity increased as Russia’s internal turmoil swelled. The emergence of the world’s first socialist state in history in all these circumstances have made historians and social scientists return perennially to the Russian Revolution in quest of explanations.