ABSTRACT
There has been more written about the Russian Revolution than about any other revolution in history. Most of this writing has been partisan to a greater or lesser degree. This is natural enough when it is remembered that the leaders of the revolution sought the entire reconstruction of the existing social and political order. So participants, witnesses and distant observers were hopelessly divided in their assessment of the revolutionary events. While there were survivors of the revolution, these arguments were continued, for little was forgotten or forgiven. The intense political and military rivalry that has characterized relations between the United States of America and Western Europe on the one hand and the Soviet Union on the other has deepened this partisanship. Academic writing has not escaped these divisions of opinion; indeed it has often intensified them. This was particularly so with the writings of American political theorists, sociologists and political scientists in the 1950s and 1960s.
