This volume focuses on the sources and meaning of the explosion of labour militancy in 1905. Situating the resulting movement in historical context, the author analyzes the re-shuffling of relations between workers and the intelligentsia that stood at the gateway of the entire revolutionary period.

The analytical narrative on 1905 is preceded by several chapters establishing the precedents for the mass strikes that erupted in that year and documenting the long- and short-term reasons for the workers' rapid turn to political protest. The study treats both the indispensable contribution of the revolutionary parties to the political education of the Petersburg labor force and their failure to reach the vast majority of workers. The great events of 1905 itself are framed and elucidated from a number of vantage points in detailed studies of strike actions and worker leaders, factory and union organizing initiatives, liberal overtures to the labor movement, and the incipient and actual breakdown of public order in the capital. The narrative culminates in the October General Strike, when workers organized the first Soviet of Workers' Deputies, a unique fusion of their own antonomous militancy with the ideas and leadership of their socialist and liberal allies.<

Preface
1. The city and the workers
2. Strike movements and the rising political tide, 1896--1904
3. 1904
4. The January strike
5. The workers' movement in February
6. The unity and diversity of the opposition, March-September 1905
7. The first revolution
8. The November strike and the eight-hour day
Conclusion
Appendices
Bibliography
Index.