The Russian Revolution: A New History

A "powerful revisionist history" (Times UK) of the Russian Revolution, by an award-winning scholar Between 1917 and 1922, Russia underwent a complete and irreversible transformation. Taking advantage of the collapse of the czarist regime, the Bolsheviks staged a hostile takeover of the Imperial Russian Army, promoting mutinies and mass desertions in order to fulfill Lenin's program of turning the "imperialist war" into a civil war. Five years later, over twenty million people had died and the Russian economy had collapsed. In The Russian Revolution, acclaimed historian Sean McMeekin traces the events that ended Romanov rule, ushered the Bolsheviks into power, and introduced Communism to the world. Drawing on scores of previously untapped archival materials, McMeekin 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.