ABSTRACT
The rapidity with which the Imperial regime collapsed in 1917 surprised even observers who saw the future dark with inevitable perturbations and considered that the monarchy would be held largely responsible for them. At the beginning of 1917 popular discontent had reached boiling point throughout the whole country, and threatened to turn into street manifestations. In a confidential report of the St. Petersburg section of the Government secret police (the Okhrana), dated January 31, 1917, a true though incomplete description is given of the revolutionary excitement at that period both in the capital and in Moscow. Since before the Revolution of 1917, Bolshevik propaganda succeeded in winning over the masses of Russian workers, and even to produce tangible effects. The Russian peasants and workmen profoundly believed that the Revolution would enable them to realize, wholly and without delay, their hereditary aspirations.
