The Bolsheviks in Poer The First Year of Soviet Rule in Petrograd [Paperback]

A major contribution to the historiography of the world in the 20th century, The Bolsheviks in Power focuses on the fateful first year of Soviet rule in Petrograd. It examines events that profoundly shaped the Soviet political system that endured through most of the 20th century. Drawing largely from previously inaccessible Soviet archives, it demolishes standard interpretations of the origins of Soviet authoritarianism by demonstrating that the Soviet system evolved ad hoc as the Bolsheviks struggled to retain political power amid spiraling political, social, economic, and military crises. The book covers issues such as the rapid fall of influential moderate Bolsheviks, the formation of the dreaded Cheka, the dissolution of the Constituent Assembly, the Red Terror, the national government's flight to Moscow, and the subsequent rivalry between Russia's new and old capitals.

This briskly written, often riveting study of the evolution of Bolshevik authoritarianism . . . provides a salutary corrective to the school of historiography that views Soviet communism as totalitarian by nature. December 2008Thirty-one years have passed since the author's The Bolsheviks Come to Power . . . , the second volume in a projected trilogy on the Russian Revolution. The first two volumes documented Bolshevik success in the destruction of the Provisional Government in 1917. This third volume tells about the first year of Bolshevik power after the insurrection in October and the dispersal of the Constituent Assembly. . . . Rabinowitch display[s] broad control of sources . . . Recommended.Alexander Rabinowitchs account of the first year of Bolshevik politics is a work of outstanding merit that sets a standard rarely achieved in the genre of political history. . . . It is a history full of heroes, fools, and fanatics, yet recounted in a sober and nonjudgmental manner, a labor of love, over two decades in the making, the work of a skilled and devoted craftsman.Spring 2010RabinowitclCs