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Russia Under the Last Tsar: Opposition and Subversion, 1894-1917

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Quite an interesting collection of essays which mainly describe the institutional organization (the Duma and the Council of State)along with the political parties in Nicholas II's Russia, and other essays concerning the security police, terrorism, the state of nationalities and ethnic minorities, antisemitism and the role played by the Orthodox Church. The best thing about this book is that it provides with an accurate information about political forces in the twilight of tsarism, something very few books provide, as most of them deal with the October revolution globally, taking for granted that Bolsheviks were the almost unique political left party and that the right was dominated by aristocrats, when the truth is that Bolsheviks were the minority (they didn't in fact lead a revolution in 1917 but a coup d'état)among the Mensheviks, the Social-revolutionaries, the Social-democrats and the Anarchists. Regarding the right-wing parties, the author gives a brillant account of traditionalists, conservative, ultra-religious, monarchic and liberals. As one realizes reading this book, political forces in Russia were much more fragmented than many people think, something which explains the complexity of the events to come over Russia in 1917 and afterwards.