February/March & the Provisional Govt.

• March 1917 and The Provisional Government From the Learning Site: Basic, detailed chronological narratives of the key events
• First World War,  Revolution: February 1917,  Provisional Government,  Soviets and  April Theses from Spartacus. Concise but useful starters and well linked to documents.
• The Russian Revolution: February - October 1917 by Steven Kreis. These lectures were written over the past five years and served as the basis for European history classes at Florida Atlantic University and Meredith College.
• The March Revolution: From the Museum of Communism. Good data, reasonable balance, given the origins of the article.
• Revolution of 1917 By Professor Gerhard Rempel at Western New England College from his Lectures on Russian/Soviet history. Good for background narrative.

• The Abdication of Nicholas II 15 March 1917 (2 March in the Julian calendar) (English translation)
• Announcement of the First Provisional Government 16 March 1917 (3 March in the Julian calendar) Grand Duke Mikhail's Manifesto 16 March 1917 (3 March in the Julian calendar)
• Order Number 1 The Petrograd Soviet, the most famous and powerful of the councils, issued its Order Number 1 to Russian soldiers in March 1917, seeking to gain support from the frontline troops.  §
• Lenin's April Theses (1917) As published in Pravda, No. 26, 7 April 1917. From the History Guide.
• Foreign Witnesses from Spartacus.
• Documents Relating to the Abdication and Arrest of the Romanovs

• Orlando Figes. A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution. Lengthy and valuable review by D Pretty, Univ Of Colorado
• Reflections on the Russian Revolution brief but useful overview from Richard Pipes, (Baird Professor of History at Harvard University) "Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime" (1994)
• 'Worker activism and social polarization in 1917' by William Rosenberg and Diane Koenker Academic article from the American Historical review (1987) Unfortunately, the pdf is not as clear as it could be.
• 'The anarchists in the Russian revolution' by Paul Avrich After a brief outline of anarchist history, this essay indicates the involvement of the anarchist movement in the events of 1917. Published in Russian Review in 1967, this is still worthwhile.

Biographies

	Nicholas II link to casahistoria Russian Revolution background
	Lenin link to casahistoria Lenin's Russia
	Who is who? Brief casahistoria bios of key figures during the Revolutionary period

• Who's Who: Grand Duke Mikhail Background to the Tsar for a day... Bio from First World War.com
• Who's Who: Alexander Kerenski. Bio from First World War.com
• Aleksandr Fedorovich Kerensky Bio from the Russian international TV news channel RT Russia of the Chairing Minister of the Provisional Government, author of memoirs, historic research and a compiler and editor of documentary works on the history of the Russian Revolution.
• Alexander Kerensky Alexander Kerensky from Spartacus site with primary sources and good cross links in support. NB Remember to scroll down the page: the content is below the ad!!.
• Who's Who: Lavr Kornilov Another excellent biography from First World War.com
• Russian Revolutionaries Very Extensive listing from Spartacus.
• ‘Revolutionary Silhouettes’ Written by Anatoly Vasilievich Lunacharsky in 1923, these are a series of accounts dealing with leading figures of the revolution, including Lenin and Trotsky. Lunacharsky, who was a member of the USSR’s first government, knew these people personally, and each silhouette is a mixture of biography, reminiscence and examination.

  



   

5. Witness Accounts and evaluations

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The following are complete books, and placed on the web. All are by writers sympathetic at the time to the general need for change, although it is clear from several that their ideas were changing in the years following the revolution.

• Foreign Witnesses of the Revolution period Extracts from the Spartacus site
• Blood Stained Russia Captain Donald Thompson was sent to cover the Russian front in WWI for a US audience. He arrived in February 1917 and had rare opportunity to document a revolution in pictures and personal experiences. This links to the 1918 book & pictures taken.
• Ten Days that Shook the World, John Reed October 16-25,1917: In this classic book on the revolution, U.S. reporter John Reed describes the ten days leading up to the Russian Revolution; ten days that forever changed the path of workers' revolutions and aspirations to follow.
• Twenty Years in Underground Russia: Memoirs of a Rank-and-File Bolshevik, Cecilia Bobrovskaya 1905-15: Bobrovskaya recollects her radicalization as a young worker in Warsaw, and her years of underground work in Europe and Russia until the time of the first World War. It includes her brushes with Marxists such as Lenin, Krupskaya and Zasulich, her many arrests and imprisonments, events surrounding the 1905 struggle, and the difficulties in printing illegal papers and getting information to the workers.
• Six Red Months in Russia: An Observer's Account of Russia Before and During the Proletarian Dictatorship, Louise Bryant  1918: American journalist and historian chronicles the Soviet Revolution from the ground up, detailing events that both moved the nation, and those that changed families, the new role of women in society, and the lives of children.
• An Ambassadors Memoirs, by Maurice Paléologue (Last French Ambassador to the Russian Court). published 1920. Monumental opus online going up to May 1917. Use this (detailed) index page

See also the "Witness Accounts & Evaluations" in the casahistoria Lenin´s Russia site for similar books covering the period up to the death of Lenin

 

 

 

6. The end of the Romanovs

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• Last days at Tsarkoe Selo Beautifully produced and informative site from Alexander Palace Time Machine. Includes detailed account from Feb/March onwards from the perspective of the Royal family.
• Murder of the Romanovs in Alapayevsk and Documents Relating to the Abdication and Arrest of the Romanovs as above
• "Memories of Alexei Volkov, Personal Valet to Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, 1910-1918" from the French into English. Volkov was one of the few survivors who escaped from captivity in Ekaterinburg, and describes first hand life with the Imperial family, the exile in Tobolsk and his miraculous escape from a Bolshevik execution squad

• The executioner Yurovsky's account Given in February, 1934 by the head of the execution squad
• Murder of the Romanovs in Alapayevsk Quoted from "Elizabeth and Alexandra" (1985) by Anthony Lambton. This is the Appendix on the 1919 Sokolov Report

• Finding the Romanov Remains Excerpts from a TV interview in 1989 and published before the remains were exhumed. Writer Geli Ryabov describes that he had found what he believed are the remains of the Russian Imperial Family; Nicholas II, his wife Alexandra and their five children, along with four servants.
• Burying the Tsar and his family   A BBC TV news report on the controversy in 1997 over the supposed location of the remains of the royal family and the complications of burying an abdicated Tsar. It gives an insight into the way the past still haunts the present.  
• Royal Funeral  Background from the Canadian CBC about the tsar's DNA, remains, and burial. Excellent links to the controversy over the remains.  §
• Amateurs Unravel Russia’s Last Royal Mystery. New York Times article (Nov 2007) on how the remains of the last two Romanovs, Anastasia & Alexey were found.
• Final DNA report on the Romanov Remains For the technically minded: this is the full scientific report from 2009 based on DNA testing of two of the bodies in 2007.

• The 'Royal Martyrs of Russia A site with a pretty clear political agenda, but the kind of resource for which the Internet is so valuable. The Romanovs are presented as slaughtered innocents.
• Who is next in line? Who is the next in line today?  §

  





7. General link sites to the period

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• Soviet Union From the Library of Congress Country Studies . Uncited, but clear, concise and thorough description of the key stages, both before and after the events of 1917. Well presented.
• The Russian Revolution  This is a good place to start. It has many links to sites on the background and events of the Revolution. A useful collection of annotated links to other sites relating to the Russian Revolution. It is very suitable for IB Level. NB! The red background to the site will drive you mad if you look at it too long...
• Russian Studies on the Internet  A very thorough, and quite academic listing of sites relevant to Russian History. For serious casahistorians in particular, but difficult to navigate.  
• History of the Russian Revolution, The - complete three-volume work by Leon Trotsky in HTML and PDF form.

Links to documentary evidence

• Chronology of Russian History: Soviet Period  A well presented university site, looking at the grand sweep of Russian/Soviet history from a chronological position. Good linked access to documents such as  Tsar´s abdication letter, Order No 1, April Theses...  §
• Photographs of the Russian Empire A collection of photographs of Imperial Russia from the archives of the University of California Riverside. It gives an interesting picture of Russia in the period 1890-1920.
• History of the Soviet Union This website of translated documents by the Univ of East Anglia  is designed to give students easy access to a wide selection of sources on Russian history translated into English and available electronically.  §
• Internet Modern History Sourcebook: Russian Revolution Key Documents on the revolutionary period
• PLP translations: an enormous number of books/documents translated by Computer Based Learning Unit, University of Leeds. This links to the enormous index. Good for browsing for sample documents - but you need a general idea of what/who you are looking for as the index is author based, not thematic  §
• People's Century: Red Flag - companion website to a PBS series on the Russian Revolution. Not the easiest site to navigate but includes interviews with participants and eyewitnesses to the rise of the Soviet State.

For extensive links to the events of Lenin's Russia go to the casahistoria Lenin´s Russia site

 

  







the casahistoria Russia/USSR core sites:

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  Background to Revolution
  1917 Revolutions
  Lenin´s Russia  
  Stalin's Russia 1927-39   
  Stalin: Economics & Terror, 1927-41  






  



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