What is the central idea? “Revolution” is a term that’s often misused to lend the appearance of popular support to the simple overthrow of a government—an episode that can be very short and have the support of no one except a would-be strongman and a line of tanks outside the presidential palace.
This was emphatically not the case with the
nation-wide Russian revolution that in 1917
swept away the country’s 304 year-old Romanov
12 monarchy, and ushered in a Communist regime
with shattering consequences for the whole world.
The path to the triumphant “Red October”3 was
more than a quarter century long and so complex that it’s easy to lose track of before reaching the climax.
45 What follows is an attempt to make the story more lucid by putting together the revolt’s anatomy.
Here are the main events that a century ago preceded one of the most dramatic and consequential upheaval in European history