Russia in flames

"A century ago, the three-hundred-year-old Romanov dynasty was toppled, replaced first by an interim government and then by the world's first self-proclaimed socialist society. This was no narrative of ten earth-shaking days but one of months and years of compounding strife, a struggle for power by competing ideologies and regions and classes and political parties and ethnicities, all rushing to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of the tsarist regime, brought down by the First World War, that massive exercise in state-driven violence. At the center of it all is the unlikely triumph of Lenin's Bolsheviks, first in their ruthless seizure of power and then, by institutionalizing violence and terror, their eventual victory over equally brutal but less effective opponents. For seven years, through war, revolutionary upheaval, and civil strife, one Russia replaced another; old institutions and ways of life were wiped away or adapted to new purposes. Laura Engelstein's monumental new history of the Russian Revolution brings to life the events that sparked and then fueled the revolution as it spread out across the vestiges of an entire empire--from St. Petersburg and Moscow across the Steppes, the Caucuses, and Siberia, to the Pacific Rim. Russia in Flames is a vivid account of a state in crisis so profound and transformative that it not only shook the world but irrevocably altered it"--Provided by publisher. "In 1913, the Romanov dynasty celebrated its tercentenary--three centuries of autocratic rule over one of the world's mightiest and most expansive empires. Four years later, the monarchy lay in ruins and a brutal struggle had begun to fill the vacuum of power. The Russian Revolution utterly re-shaped the landscape of the twentieth century. To mark the centennial of this epochal event, distinguished scholar Laura Engelstein offers a full history of not just the February and October Revolutions but the critical period surrounding and giving rise to them, beginning with the outbreak of World War One and following through until the end of the civil strife--seven years of violence and chaos that finally left the Bolsheviks in command of the field. With fresh eyes and narrative verve, backed by a lifetime of scholarly work in the field, Engelstein's account offers new perspectives on the events that led to the fall of the old order and ultimately the creation of the Soviet state, a way of looking at the institutions and structures of power that were simultaneously crumbling and being replaced. In the process she provides a dynamic sense of the play of personalities and agendas that set Russia on a course of self-destruction and reinvention, and on a scale previously unimagined. Russia in Flames will join the ranks of works by Orlando Figes, Simon Sebag Montefiore, Timothy Snyder, and Richard Pipes: a major, defining, exhaustive, and exhilarating account of war and revolution as they were unfolding, and as one of history's greatest empires was dissolving and reforming itself before the eyes of the world"--Provided by publisher.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.