The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a key turning point in the history of modern Europe and the world. For much of the twentieth century, politics were defined by attitudes to what had taken place in Russia in 1917. To understand the Russian Revolution, then, is to understand a key building block of modern history and the contemporary world. Senior lecturer and renowned Russian researcher Dr. Jonathan Smele sheds new light on the many forces that came to bear in tsarist Russia, from the emancipation of the serfs in the mid-nineteenth century to the climactic revolutions of the early twentieth century that brought the small Bolshevik party to power.