Introduction

Abstract

Soviet historians have naturally displayed a keen interest in the revolutionary process in Russia. The year 1917 with its epochal double revolutions—the February overthrow of tsarism and the October Revolution that brought the Bolsheviks to power—has attracted the attention of an especially large number of scholars. As a result, there exists a huge and ever waxing body of articles, books, historiographical studies, and bibliographies subjecting the events of 1917 to minute scrutiny. As the growing number of Western historians exploring various aspects of the 1917 revolutions quickly discover, they must consult published Soviet works in order to enrich and complete their own research. Memoirs and histories written by participants in the revolutionary events, which appeared in profusion during the 1920s and early 1930s, remain an indispensable source. After two subsequent decades of relative inactivity during Stalin's heyday, the period from the mid-1950s to the present has been characterized by an equally enormous outpouring of studies of revolutionary topics which, while lacking the candor and immediacy of the earlier works, are nonetheless invaluable in that they are based on a wide range of primary sources, especially archives, access to which is difficult or impossible to attain by non-Soviet scholars. For these reasons, a familiarity with and willingness to utilize Soviet studies is virtually a sine qua non for successful work in the area of the Russian revolutionary movement, particularly as regards the still sensitive events of 1917. Such practical concerns aside, many Soviet histories of the revolution have been produced by able scholar-historians and are profound and innovative—in other words, eminently worth consulting in their own right.