The Russian Revolution [antikvár]

PREFACE A. L.N ATTEMPT has been made here to give a brief, simple and straightforvi'ard account of the Russian revolution in 1917, and the events that led up to it. Quite clearly it cannot hope to please everybody; there is no more controversial subject on earth, and the passage of nearly half a century has not succeeded in quieting the strong feelings, the dissensions and the disagreements of those who lived in Russia at the time. Often commonplace facts are disputed by rival eyewitnesses and historians, and even the most devoted of scholars fall out over points of interpretation. In the nature of things, then, this book cannot in any way pretend to be a definitive or exhaustive work. Its sole purpose is to provide for the general reader, as dispassionately and as objectively as possible, a description of a great political upheaval which is still too recent for liistory and yet, perhaps, too far off for him to remember with clarity from his own experience. It may be of interest to mention here the unusual circumstances ia which the book came to be written. Some ten years ago Dr. Stephan T. Possony, professor of international relations at Georgetown University, began with a small group of students to make a study of revolutionary techniques, in particular the technique of the Bolshevist conspiracy. Here was a theme which obviously overrode all others. It was the Russian revolution, probably as much as any other single event, that propelled the United States into world poHtics after the First World War; indeed, the revolution had its impact upon every country during the 1920's, and its influence is clearly visible in the depression and in the politics that led up to the outbreak of the Second World War. The Nazis' rise to power in Germany