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Notes:

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 215-217) and index.
• 1. What Marx and Engels Bequeathed — 2. Revolutionary Continuity: Lenin’s Politics Prior to 1905 — 3. ‘The Dress Rehearsal’ and the First Duma — 4. From Revolution to ‘Coup d’état’: The Second Duma — Appendix A. Excerpt from Address of the Central Committee to the Communist League — Appendix B. Sketch of a Provisional Revolutionary Government — Appensix C. Whom to Elect to the State Duma .
• Can the electoral and parliamentary arenas be used toward revolutionary ends? This is precisely the question – possibly more than any other – that held Lenin’s attention for a decade, 1905 to 1915, and to which he gave an affirmative reply. This is the first book length study of this sorely neglected side of his politics that was intimately linked to his better known party building project and writings on the peasant question. It looks in detail at his Can electoral and parliamentary arenas be used toward revolutionary ends? This is precisely the question that held Lenin’s attention from 1905 to 1917, leading him to conclude that they could – and would. This book explores the time in which Lenin initiated his use of the electorate, beginning with the Marxist roots of Lenin’s politics, and then details his efforts to lead the deputies of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in the First and Second State Dumas, concluding with Russia’s first experiment in representative democracy from 1906 to 1907. During this time, Lenin had to address such issues such as whether to boycott or participate in undemocratic elections, how to conduct election campaigns, whether to enter into electoral blocs and the related ‘lesser of two evils’ dilemma, how to keep deputies accountable to the party, and how to balance electoral politics with armed struggle. Lenin later said that the lessons of that work was ‘indispensable’ for Bolshevik success in 1917, which shows that this thorough analysis of the time period is crucial to any understanding of Leninism — Provided by publisher.
• Can the electoral and parliamentary arenas be used toward revolutionary ends? This is precisely the question that held Lenin’s attention from 1905 to 1917, and to which he said, yes. This is the first book length study of this sorely neglected side of his politics which was intimately linked to his better known party building project and writings on the peasantry. This volume, the second of two, details his efforts to lead the deputies of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in the Third and Fourth State Dumas, Russia’s first experiment in representative democracy, from 1907 to 19017–from counterrevolution to the Revolution of October of 1917. Issues such as whether to take part in the Dumas, how to combine legal and illegal work, how to ensure party leadership of its Duma deputies, how to employ the Duma to forge the worker-peasant alliance and, most importantly, to do anti-war work when the First World War began–all had to be addressed. The answers Lenin provided increasingly put him at odds with Western European Social Democrats, foreshadowing the historic split in the international Marxist movement in 1914. Bolshevik success in 1917, the book argues, can be traced to what was learned in that more than decade-long experience–lessons for today’s protester — Provided by publisher.

Subjects:

• Lenin, Vladimir Ilʹich, 1870-1924.
• Russia — Politics and government — 1894-1917.
• Russia — History — Revolution, 1905-1907.
• Politics, Practical — Russia — History.
• Marx, Karl, 1818-1883.

Requested by Kurpiers, R.

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Notes:

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 291-292) and index.
• I: The story of the interviews — The quest for the lost oral histories of the February Revolution — M.A. Polievktov and the first oral histories of the February Revolution — II. The interviews — Boris Aleksandrovich Engel’gardt — Aleksandr Aleksandrovich Chikolini — Petr Vasil’evich Gerasimov — Mikhail Vladimirovich Rodzianko — Lev Stepanovich Tugan-Baranovskii — Nikolai Vissarionovich Nekrasov — Nikolai Semenovich Chkheidze — Matvei Ivanovich Skobelev — Aleksandr Fedorovich Kerenskii — Mikhail Ivanovich Tereshchenko — The interviews: an interpretation.
• The Fall of Tsarism reveals to the world for the first time a unique selection of interviews with leading participants in the February Revolution in Petrograd, sources that have been hidden for most of a century. Focusing on the pivotal period between the outbreak of the popular uprising on 27 February 1917 and the fall of the Russian monarchy five days later, these gripping, plain-spoken testimonies take the reader directly to the revolutionary headquarters inside the Tauride Palace. The interviews present wide-ranging perspectives on the events, politics, and personalities of the February Days from a diverse group of key political figures as well as lesser-known activists, including: M.V. Rodzianko, the conservative president of the last Imperial Duma P.V. Gerasimov, the liberal Duma deputy N.S. Chkheidze, leading Menshevik and the first chairman of the Petrograd Soviet A.F. Kerenskii, the future revolutionary premier and M.I. Tereshchenko, the ‘repentant capitalist’ and Provisional Government minister. Recorded between 1 May and 7 June 1917, months before the Bolshevik takeover–at a time when the outcome of the revolution was far from obvious–the interviews are free of any post-1917 hindsight and represent the most significant contemporary testimony on the overthrow of Europe’s last old regime. –Publisher’s description.

Subjects:

• Russia — History — February Revolution, 1917.
• Soviet Union — History — Revolution, 1917-1921 — Personal narratives.
• Revolution (Soviet Union : 1917-1921) fast (OCoLC)fst01907572
• 1917 – 1921 fast
• History. fast (OCoLC)fst01411628
• Personal narratives. fast (OCoLC)fst01423843

Requested by Kurpiers, R.

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Notes:

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 435-452) and index.
• Introduction: city panorama — Moscow Station and Palace Bridge — Making a home on the Neva — The Hermitage and my own front door : city spaces — Initiation into the working class — Eliseev and Aprashka — Theatre Street — From Nord to Saigon — The twenty-seventh kilometre — The last journey.
• Fragile, gritty, and vital to an extraordinary degree, St Petersburg is one of the world’s most alluring cities – a place in which the past is at once ubiquitous and inescapably controversial. This book shows how creative engagement with the past has always been fundamental to St Petersburg’s residents.

Subjects:

• Saint Petersburg (Russia) — Description and travel.
• Saint Petersburg (Russia) — History.

Requested by deVries, J

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Notes:

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 413-460) and index.
• The last summit. Meeting in Moscow — The party crasher — Chicken Kiev — The tanks of August. The prisoner of the Crimea — The Russian rebel — Freedom’s victory — A countercoup. The resurgence of Russia — Independent Ukraine — Saving the empire — Soviet disunion. Washington’s dilemma — The Russian ark — The survivor — Vox populi. Anticipation — The Ukrainian referendum — The Slavic trinity — Farewell to the empire. Out of the woods — The birth of Eurasia — Christmas in Moscow.
• Describes the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, dispelling the myth that the event was spurred on in part by the close relationship between George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev.
• On Christmas Day, 1991, President George H. W. Bush addressed the nation to declare an American victory in the Cold War: earlier that day Mikhail Gorbachev had resigned as the first and last Soviet president. The enshrining of that narrative, one in which the end of the Cold War was linked to the disintegration of the Soviet Union and the triumph of democratic values over communism, took center stage in American public discourse immediately after Bush’s speech and has persisted for decades – with disastrous consequences for American standing in the world. As prize-winning historian Serhii Plokhy reveals in The Last Empire, the collapse of the Soviet Union was anything but the handiwork of the United States. On the contrary, American leaders dreaded the possibility that the Soviet Union – weakened by infighting and economic turmoil – might suddenly crumble, throwing all of Eurasia into chaos. Bush was firmly committed to supporting his ally and personal friend Gorbachev, and remained wary of nationalist or radical leaders such as recently elected Russian President Boris Yeltsin. Fearing what might happen to the large Soviet nuclear arsenal in the event of the union’s collapse, Bush stood by Gorbachev as he resisted the growing independence movements in Ukraine, Moldova, and the Caucasus. Plokhy’s detailed, authoritative account shows that it was only after the movement for independence of the republics had gained undeniable momentum on the eve of the Ukrainian vote for independence that fall that Bush finally abandoned Gorbachev to his fate. Drawing on recently declassified documents and original interviews with key participants, Plokhy presents a bold new interpretation of the Soviet Union’s final months and argues that the key to the Soviet collapse was the inability of the two largest Soviet republics, Russia and Ukraine, to agree on the continuing existence of a unified state. By attributing the Soviet collapse to the impact of American actions, US policy makers overrated their own capacities in toppling and

Subjects:

• Soviet Union — History — 1985-1991.
• United States — Foreign relations — Soviet Union.
• Soviet Union — Foreign relations — United States.
• Nationalism — Russia (Federation)
• Nationalism — Ukraine.
• Cold War.

Requested by Doonan, T

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Notes:

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 461-514) and index.
• Introduction: reconsidering Anglo-Russian relations in Asia — The prologue of the Great Game — Russia’s challenge and Britain’s response, 1856-1864 — The road to the Oxus, 1864-1873 — The climax of the Great Game, 1874-1885 — Strategic stalemate, 1886-1903 — The end of the game — Epilogue: reverberations of the Great Game.

Subjects:

• Russia — Relations — Great Britain.
• Great Britain — Relations — Russia.
• Asia, Central — Foreign relations.
• Asia, Central — History.
• East Asia — Foreign relations.
• East Asia — History.

Requested by deVries, J

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Notes:

• Originally published in hardcover in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, LLC, New York, in 2013.
• Includes bibliographical references (pages 397-456) and index.
• pt. I. The Stalinist revolution : Making the Stalinist revolution Exterminating internal threats to socialist unity War and illusions Soviet aims and Western concessions Taking Eastern Europe The Red Army in Berlin — Restoring the Stalinist dictatorship in a broken society — pt. II. Shadows of the Cold War : Stalin and Truman: false starts Potsdam, the bomb and Asia Soviet retribution and post-war trials Soviet retribution and ethnic groups Reaffirming communist ideology — pt. III. Stalin’s Cold War : New communist regimes in Poland and Czechoslovakia The pattern of dictatorships: Bulgaria, Romania, and Hungary Communism in Yugoslavia, Albania, and Greece The passing of the communist moment in Western Europe Stalin’s choices and the future of Europe Stalinist failures: Yugoslavia and Germany Looking at Asia from the Kremlin New waves of Stalinization Stalin’s last will and testament.
• This book is a chilling, riveting account based on newly released Russian documentation that reveals Joseph Stalin’s true motives — and the extent of his enduring commitment to expanding the Soviet empire — during the years in which he seemingly collaborated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and the capitalist West. At the Big Three conferences of World War II, Stalin persuasively played the role of a great world leader. Even astute observers like George F. Kennan concluded that the United States and Great Britain should view Stalin as a modern-day tsarist-like figure whose primary concerns lay in international strategy and power politics, not in ideology. Now Robert Gellately uses recently uncovered documents to make clear that, in fact, the dictator was an unwavering revolutionary merely biding his time, determined as ever to establish Communist regimes across Europe and beyond, and that his actions during these years (and the poorly calculated Western responses) set in motion what would eventually become the Cold War. Gellately takes us behind the scenes. We see the dictator disguising his political ambitions and prioritizing the future of Communism, even as he pursued the war against Hitler. Along the way, the ascetic dictator’s Machiavellian moves and bouts of irrationality kept the Western leaders on their toes, in a world that became more dangerous and divided year by year. Exciting, deeply engaging, and shrewdly perceptive, Stalin’s Curse is an unprecedented revelation of the sinister machinations of the Soviet dictator. – Publisher.

Subjects:

• Stalin, Joseph, 1879-1953.
• Soviet Union — Politics and government — 1936-1953.
• Communism — Europe — History — 20th century.

Requested by deVries, J.

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Part of the series European history in perspective;European history in perspective (Palgrave Macmillan (Firm))
Notes:

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-240) and index.
• Into the storm : Russia enters the twentieth century — An empire collapses : August 1914-February 1917 — The deepening revolution : February-July 1917 — The counter-revolution organises : July-August 1917 — Bolshevism triumphant : September-October 1917 — The first civil war : October 1917-March/April 1918 — Experiencing civil war : April 1918-March 1921 — The emergence of Bolshevik order : spring 1918-March 1921 — The end of the revolution? : January 1921-December 1922 — Conclusion.
• This introduction synthesises the wealth of new material available on the Russian Revolution into a clear overview which is ideal for beginners. Leading expert Christopher Read treats the period 1914-1922 as a whole in order to contextualise and better understand the events of 1917 and their impact.

Subjects:

• Soviet Union — History — Revolution, 1917-1921.
• Russia — History — Nicholas II, 1894-1917.
• World War, 1914-1918 — Russia.
• World War, 1914-1918 — Soviet Union.

Requested by deVries, J

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Notes:

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 384) and index.
• From the moment the fourteen-year-old Princess Sophia of Anhalt-Zerbst agreed to marry the heir to the Russian throne, she was mired in a quicksand of intrigue. Precociously intelligent, self-confident, and attractive but with a stubborn, wayward streak, Sophia withstood a degree of emotional battering that would have broken a weaker spirit until at last she emerged, triumphant over her many enemies, as Empress Catherine II of Russia.
• Her achievements as empress were prodigious. She brought vast new lands under Russian rule. She raised the prestige of Russia in Europe. She began the process of imposing legal and political order on the chaos she inherited from her predecessors. Yet few historical figures have been so enthusiastically vilified as Catherine the Great. Whispers that she had ordered her husband’s murder grew to murmurs that she was an immoral woman and finally to shouts that she was a depraved, lust-crazed nymphomaniac.
• With deft mastery of historical narrative and an unsurpassed ability to make the past live again, Carolly Erickson uncovers the real woman behind the tarnished image – an indomitable, feisty, often visionary ruler who, in an age of caveats and constraints, blithely went her own way.
• Great Catherine reveals the complexities of this great ruler’s nature, her craving for love, her insecurities, the inevitable sorrows and disappointments of a strong empress who dared not share her power with any man yet longed to be led and guided by a loving consort. Great Catherine is a fresh portrait of an infamous historical figure, one that reveals how Catherine’s flawed triumph guaranteed her posthumous fame and enhanced the might and renown of Russia for generations to come.

Subjects:

• Catherine II, Empress of Russia, 1729-1796.
• Empresses — Russia — Biography.
• Russia — History — Catherine II, 1762-1796.

Requested by Bibus, K

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Notes:

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 512-552) and index.
• Originally published: London : Hutchinson, 2006.
• From Feudal Anthill to the Court of Russia — Engagement and wedding — Early married life — Catherine grows up — Sir Charles Hanbury-Williams and Stanislas Poniatowski — Empress of all the Russias — Murder, coronation and conspiracy — Catherine sets to work — Laws, smallpox and war — The heroic Orlov — Confusion and unrest — Passion and pretenders — New lovers and a new daughter-in-law — Grandsons and other acquisitions — The empress and the emperor — The failures of physicians — Convalescence and recovery — The great Crimean Voyage, and ‘proverbs’ in Petersburg — The beginning of the end — Last years — Death and burial.
• A portrait of the late-eighteenth-century Russian ruler discusses how she seized and kept the throne in spite of her illegitimate claim and a series of wars, rebellions, and plagues, tracing how she rendered Russia a major European power.

Subjects:

• Catherine II, Empress of Russia, 1729-1796.
• Empresses — Russia — Biography.
• Russia — Kings and rulers — Biography.
• Russia — History — Catherine II, 1762-1796.

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Part of the series Eisenstein, the sound years;The Criterion collection 87;The Classic collection;Criterion collection (DVD videodiscs) 87.;Classic collection (Chicago, Ill.)
Notes:

• DVD.
• Russian language soundtrack (mono) with optional English subtitles.
• Nikolai Cherkassov, N.P. Okhlopkov, A.L. Abrikossov, D.N. Orlov, V.K. Novikov.
• Director, Sergei Eisenstein musical score, Sergei Prokofiev.
• 1.33:1 aspect ratio.
• Originally released as motion picture in 1938.
• Special features include: new digital transfer, with extensive image and sound restoration audio essay by film scholar David Bordwell Russell Merritt’s multimedia essay on the Eisenstein-Prokofiev collaboration reconstruction of Eisenstein’s unfinished film Bezhin Meadow by the Eisenstein Museum’s Naum Kleiman, plus scholar Jay Leyda’s photos and documents from the set drawings and production stills restoration demonstration new English subtitle translation.
• Biographical story of Prince Alexander Nevsky and his successful resistance against an attempt by the Teutonic Knights to invade Russia in 1242.

Subjects:

• Alexander, Grand Duke of Vladimir, 1220-1263 — Drama.
• Lake Peipus, Battle of, 1242 — Drama.
• Russia — History — 1237-1480 — Drama.
• Feature films — Soviet Union.
• Motion pictures — Soviet Union.
• Historical films. lcgft
• War films. lcgft
• Feature films. lcgft
• Russian videos.

Requested by Wittenbreer, B.