VIRTUALLY ALL THE MAJOR ACCOUNTS OF 1917 IN ENGLISH TO DATE deal almost exclusively with events in Petrograd, paying occasional attention to other parts of European Russia. An admirable exception has been provided by Dr John Keep, who has written a fascinating account of the reception of the October coup in the provinces. In this essay other neglected aspects of the hiatus between the capital and the rest of the country are taken up which refer to the period prior to October. As an introduction to these aspects it would seem useful in the first place to mention some of the well-established considerations on this subject.
Historians of every political hue have tended to equate the Petrograd-centred events with the Russian revolution. Because they were initially successful in Petrograd above all, the bolsheviks have preferred since 1917 to concentrate on the political course of events in the capital in order to justify their claim to have inherited the cloak of sovereignty from the old regime.