Prelude to Revolution: The Petrograd Bolsheviks and the July 1917 Uprising

Alexander Rabinowitch's pioneering study of revolutionary events in Petrograd in the summer of 1917 challenges and revises the established view of the Bolshevik Party in 1917 as a disciplined, monolithic organization subservient to V.I. Lenin. Rabinowitch demonstrates that the abortive July uprising was organized by militant factions within the party against the wishes of Lenin. He concludes that the divided nature of the Bolshevik Party in 1917, in part the result of a rapid growth in grass-roots party membership, had crucial implications for the outcome of the revolution in October.