Creating a Culture of Revolution: Workers and the Revolutionary Movement in Late Imperial Russia

How did Russian workers develop the revolutionary outlook and the level of political consciousness and organizational experience that made them the crucial political and social force in the revolutions of 1905 and 1917? Creating a Culture of Revolution offers an alternative reading of the revolutionary workers’ movement, with circle activity and propaganda literature at the center of a developing “culture of revolution.” Pearl focuses on four popular genres of propaganda literature: revolutionary skazki or tales, expositions of political economy, poetry and song, and foreign novels in translation. Her analysis of the grassroots revolutionary subculture of radical workers contributes to a reevaluation of the broader history of the Russian revolutionary movement.