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The 1905 Russian Revolution. Alexander Shlyapnikov’s Writings

Buy hardcover (Brill)
Published Nov 2025

Alexander Shlyapnikov

Editor / Translator: Barbara C. Allen
These translations by Barbara C. Allen of Alexander Shlyapnikov’s memoirs of his childhood and youth and of his history of the 1905 Revolution in Russia illuminate how a working-class provincial youth from a religious dissenter family became a Marxist revolutionary. The book comprises a brief published autobiography, an unpublished memoir of Shlyapnikov’s childhood, a short fictional piece based on his early experience of factory work, a published historical survey of the 1905 Revolution in Russia, and three article-length published memoir-histories about his early activities in the revolutionary underground and his leadership of a revolutionary organisation in the town of Murom.

Biographical Note

Barbara C. Allen, Ph.D. (2001), Indiana University Bloomington, is Professor of Russian & Soviet History at La Salle University. She is author of Alexander Shlyapnikov, 1885–1937: Life of an Old Bolshevik (Brill 2015), and the editor/translator of other works.

Readership

This book is especially relevant to scholars and students in the social sciences, particularly those interested in labor history, political activism, and social movements in historical context.

Table of Contents

List of Figures
Abbreviations and Acronyms

Introduction

1 Autobiography

2 Memoir of Childhood
1 In Doschatoye
2 In Murom
3 Summer in Doschatoye
4 To School
5 In School, on the Street, and at Home
6 Winter
7 Spring
8 Summer
9 In Second Class
10 Our Street
11 Summer Holidays
12 In Third Grade
13 Trip to Nizhny [Novgorod] and Sormovo

3 To the Factory (a Short Story)

4 The Revolution of 1905
1 Struggle for Land and Freedom
2 Economic Development after the Emancipation of the Peasants
3 Workers’ Situation and Strike Actions
4 The Revolutionary Movement and the War with Japan
5 The Government’s ‘Spring’ and the Liberals
6 9 (22) January
7 From the January Days to the RSDRP Third Congress
8 The Peasant Movement
9 From the Strikes of 1 May to a General Strike
10 Revolutionary Movement in October according to Police Reports
11 From October Strike to December Uprising
12 Counterrevolution’s Crusade
13 Revolution’s Lessons and Perspectives

5 Underground Work in Murom District, 1902–04

6 The Year 1905 in Murom

7 Red Days in the Hinterland (Murom in 1905)

8 Epilogue

Appendix A: Book Review by Alexander Shlyapnikov
Appendix B: Reviews of Alexander Shlyapnikov’s Works
Appendix C: Excerpts from Alexander Shlyapnikov’s Testimony at His 1933 Purge
Bibliography
Index