Blood on the Snow: Eyewitness Accounts of the Russian Revolution

Heresch (The Empire of the Tsars) proffers an exciting but raw, and at times confusing, account of the 1917 October Revolution, one that compiles the testimonies of eyewitnesses ranging from dignitaries and journalists to bystanders. Heresch hardly challenges or even really contextualizes their observations as voice after voice registers reactions to events that preceded and followed the Revolution—Russia’s entry into WWI, the 1916 murder of the royal family’s confidant Rasputin, Czar Nicholas II’s abdication in February 1917, Lenin’s departure to Petrograd from Zurich, the storming of the Winter Palace, and the post-October period. Black-and-white photographs, handwritten letters, and newspaper reprints interspersed throughout give additional flavor. Heresch intervenes now and then to remind readers that the Russian “masses” did not organize or even desire revolution; as one remembrance of the declaration of war puts it, “There was not a single thought of revolution, strikes, or anarchy.” This book, one of many having appeared in the wake of the 100th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, offers myriad, kaleidoscopic fragments for the diligent, interested reader to sort through, but does not make a cohesive narrative or argument. [em](Mar.) [/em]