The standard history of February 1917 is T. Hasegawa’s The February Revolution: Petrograd, 1917 (Seattle-London, 1981). Very informative is E. I. Martynov’s Tsarskaia armiia v fevral’skom perevorote [The Tsarist Army in the February Revolution] (Leningrad, 1927), which deals with much besides the armed forces and provides solid documentation. S. P. Melgunov’s Martovskie dni [The March Days] (Paris, 1961), as everything by this author, is well informed but contentious and disorganized. Of the memoir literature on 1917, pride of place belongs to the recollections of Nicholas Sukhanov, Zapiski o revoliutsii [Notes on the Revolution], 7 vols. (Berlin-Petersburg-Moscow, 1922–23), a Menshevik who was directly involved in the events and who had, in addition, uncommon literary gifts. A good part of this work has been translated and edited by Joel Carmichael: N. N. Sukhanov, The Russian Revolution: A Personal Record (Oxford, 1955). Paul Miliukov’s Istoriia Vtoroi Russkoi Revoliutsii [The History of the Second Russian Revolution], 2 pts. (Sofia, 1921), is part history, part memoirs. In English: Paul Miliukov, The Russian Revolution, 3 vols. (Gulf Breeze, Fla., 1978). A. Shliapnikov’s Semnadtsatyi god [The Year 1917], 3 vols. (Moscow-Leningrad, various dates in the 1920s), are the memoirs of an important Bolshevik. I. G. Tsereteli’s Vospominaniia 0 Fevral’skoi Revoliutsii, [Memoirs of the February Revolution], 2 vols. (Paris-The Hague, 1963), are an overly long but important account by the Menshevik leader of the Petrograd Soviet. Maxim Gorky’s Untimely Thoughts (New York, 1968), translated by H. Ermolaev, is a collection of his forceful comments in 1917–18 on the pages of the daily Novaia zhizn’.
The basic texts on the abdication of Nicholas II are in P. E. Shchegolev, ed., Otrechenie Nikolaia II [The Abdication of Nicholas II] (Leningrad, 1927).
Part II
A very good account of Russia in 1917–18 is Volume I of William Henry Chamberlin’s Russian Revolution (London and New York, 1935). Leon Trotsky’s The Russian Revolution, 3 vols. (New York, 1937), is partly political tract, partly literature. Peter Scheibert’s Lenin an der Macht [Lenin in Power] (Weinheim, 1984) is a storehouse of little-known information about Russia under Lenin’s rule.
On Lenin, several biographies can be recommended. David Shub, a Menshevik with a keen sense for the milieu in which Lenin worked, is the author of Lenin (New York, 1948; London, 1966). Adam Ulam’s The Bolsheviks (New York, 1965; London, 1966) also focuses on the Communist leader. There are insights into his personality in Leon Trotsky’s O Lénine [About Lenin] (Moscow, 1924) and Maxim Gorky’s Vladimir Il’ich Lenin (Leningrad, 1924). N. Valentinov’s The Early Years of Lenin (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1969) is based on personal conversations.
Lenin’s return to Russia by way of Germany is discussed and documented in W. Hahlweg’s Lenins Rückkehr nach Russland, 1917 [Lenin’s Return to Russia, 1917] (Leiden, 1957). Essential documents on Lenin’s relations with the Germans from the archives of the German Foreign Office have been published by Z. A. B. Zeman, Germany and the Revolution in Russia, 1915–1918 (London, 1958).
Kerensky edited in collaboration with Robert Browder a three-volume collection of documents under the title The Russian Provisional Government, 1917 (Stanford, Calif., 1961). His recollections of 1917 are available in several versions, of which the best are The Catastrophe (New York-London, 1927) and Crucifixion of Liberty (London and New York, 1934). There is an admiring biography by Richard Abraham, Alexander Kerensky: The First Love of the Revolution (New York, 1987).
The Provisional Government is viewed from the inside in V. D. Nabokov and the Russian Provisional Government, 1917 (New Haven-London, 1976), which contains his memoirs as State Secretary. The best account of the rival organization is by Oskar Anweiler, The Soviets (New York, 1974).
