ABSTRACT
The Revolution promised, even if in the medium term it did not achieve, a resolution of the social, economic and political contradictions described in the opening chapter. It also marked the culmination of the earlier revolutionary traditions that combined the forces of popular insurrection, intellectual opposition and military defection, and in which elements of Westernism, Slavophilism, Populism, Marxism and anarchism could be identified. Not surprisingly, the highly charged political nature of the events of 1917 has given rise to a wide variety of interpretations and historiographical approaches that span the entire ideological and intellectual spectrum.
