Hay Renauda

[89th]

Apologies if I misremembered your Russian knowledge...

Man it's easy/intriguing to go down the wiki black hole about Russia in the early 1900s. Came across an article about Leon Trotsky's influence, which led me to Lenin of course, but also his brother Ulyanov's death which influenced Lenin, reading about Bolshevik and the October Revolution (yes, most of this I knew the basics of), Kolchak and the White Army, etc...

[Renauda]

Yeah, the late imperial period, Revolution, Civil War and Stalin era up to WWII all make for intriguing reading.

[jon-nyc]

If you want to get into it get Robert Service’s Lenin biography. Covers the times very well.

[Renauda]

I agree the Service’s bios of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin are very good - perhaps the best single volume English language bios of Lenin and Trotsky available.

I also highly recommend Orlando Figes’ A People’s Tragedy for a good read on the 30 year period leading up to the Bolshevik coup in October 1917. I have heard but not read, that Antony Beevor’s recently published survey of the Russian Revolution is also very good. Beevor, like Figes, is immensely readable and always well researched and organised.