ABSTRACT
In February of 1917, the Russian monarchy collapsed and the Socialist Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, together with the liberals took power. The dramatic events apparently made the French Revolution more topical than ever. The collapse of the monarchy and intensification of spontaneous terror reminded many contemporary intellectuals of the French Revolution's analogous beginning. Dramatic revolutionary events not only increased interest in the French Revolution, but also increased political events' influence on perceptions of the French Revolution. The view of the past held by each participant in the revolutionary drama was affected by political reality as well as by the particular political paradigm they endorsed at a given point in time. The Russian Revolution's disorder was not limited to drunkenness and the shocking pranks of soldiers. Spontaneous terror increased over the Revolution's course and some moderate radicals and liberals began to share the monarchists' fate.
