Revolutionary Russia ─ A History in Documents

Revolutionary Russia: A History in Documents provides a visually stimulating survey of revolutionary Russia, from the collapse of the autocracy in 1917 to the consolidation of the Stalinist system in the 1930s. Authors Robert Weinberg and Laurie Bernstein have collected far-flung documents--many available in English for the first time--and woven them into a narrative that focuses on the effort to build communism in Russia and its effects on the lives of ordinary people. Providing introductions to each chapter and document along with sidebars and detailed photo captions, the main text tantalizes readers with the great vision, conflict, hopes, and horrors of this much-mythologized part of modern history, while the back matter offers resources for further exploration.

Utilizing a mix of textual and visual documents-including photographs, posters, and objects-to create a textured history of revolutionary Russia, the book covers such diverse topics as the prelude to revolution, the Bolshevik rise to power, the fate of the royal family, peasant resistance to Bolshevik policies, Stalin's "revolution from above," and the Great Terror. A picture essay, featuring sixteen posters, provides a visual depiction of the impact of the revolution on women.

Robert Weinberg is Professor of History at Swarthmore College. He is the author of The Revolution of 1905 in Odessa: Blood on the Steps (1993) and Stalin's Forgotten Zion: Birobidzhan and the Making of a Soviet Jewish Homeland (1998).

Laurie Bernstein is Associate Professor of History and Director of Women's Studies at Rutgers University, Camden. She is the author of Sonia's Daughters: Prostitutes and Their Regulation in Imperial Russia (1995) and the editor of Mary Leder's My Life In Stalinist Russia: An American Woman Looks Back (2001).