ABSTRACT
The Russian Revolution of 1917 is arguably the most important event in the political history of the twentieth century. A contemporary observer of the Revolution, the American journalist John Reed, entitled his famous account of those events Ten Days That Shook the World, and the tremors and reverberations of the upheaval still continue to be registered today. Seventy-six years after the event (at the time of writing) the shock-waves emanating from Russia in 1917 still have a direct or indirect impact on a whole range of political, economic, ideological, diplomatic, and military problems throughout the world. An appreciation of the causes, course and consequences of the Russian Revolution is not, therefore, merely a matter of historical interest, but something which is crucial to a proper and informed understanding of the political world in which we live, and in which the former Soviet Union – a state and society born of that Revolution – has played such a crucial role.
