The Workers' Revolution in Russia, 1917 The View from Below [Paperback]

An analysis of Bolshevik relations with the Russian working population.Essays address the process of worker alienation and reveal how the Bolsheviks appealed to, rather than exploited the working population, especially in the capital cities of Petrograd and Moscow.Essays address the process of worker alienation and reveal how the Bolsheviks appealed to, rather than exploited the working population, especially in the capital cities of Petrograd and Moscow.More than seventy years after the birth of the Soviet Union, the events that brought the Bolsheviks to power are still poorly understood. Ever since the first reports of the revolution reached Western audiences, analysts have blamed or credited Lenin and his party for overthrowing the old order singlehandedly. Yet studies of the revolution in recent years have revealed the depth of the crisis through which Tsarist society passed late in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The essays in this book address the process of worker alienation and the way that the Bolsheviks appealed to, rather than exploited, the working population, especially in the capital cities of Petrograd and Moscow.Preface; Acknowledgments; Notes on dates; 1. Revising the old story: the 1917 revolution in light of new sources Ronald Grigor Suny; 2. St. Petersburg and Moscow on the eve of revolution James H. Bater; 3. Petrograd in 1917: the view from below Steve A. Smith; 4. Moscow in 1917: the view from below Diane P. Koenker; 5. Russian labor and Bolshevik power: social dimensions of protest in Petrograd after October William G. Rosenberg; 6. Conclusion: understanding the Russian Revolution William G. Rosenberg; Index.