October: The Story of the Russian Revolution

Acknowledgements

This book, more than anything else I have written, has not merely benefitted from, but relied on, the engagement and insights of readers and interlocutors. I am more grateful than I can say for their patience and generosity, and for their trenchant and thought-provoking help, feedback, suggestions and criticisms.

I owe an immense debt to all the enormous number of writers from whose work I have learned during my research. I have also been privileged to have received thoughtful and detailed responses to drafts of this manuscript from leading researchers on the topics it touches, who in many cases even shared as-yet-unpublished work. I extend my deepest gratitude to Gleb Albert, Barbara Allen, Clayton Black, Eric Blanc, Lars Lih, Kevin Murphy and Ronald Suny. October is immeasurably better for their generous help.

I am profoundly grateful, too, to many other readers. Their detailed thoughts and responses have been quite invaluable. My thanks to Mic Cheetham, Maria Headley, Frank Hemmes, Susan Powell, Jord Rosenberg and Rosie Warren.

In Russia, I was very fortunate to benefit from the hospitality of and conversations with Boris Kolonitskii, Artemy Magun, Yoel Regev, Alexander Reznik, Alexander Skidan and Elizaveta Zhdankova.

I am deeply grateful to the Rockefeller Bellagio Center, Italy, for granting me a residency fellowship for the writing of this book. I am also thankful for their invaluable support and help, in various ways, to David Broder, Valeria Costa-Kostritsky, José – Gurru – Corominas, Cassia Corominas-Miéville, Indigo Corominas-Miéville, Boris Dralyuk, Brian Evenson, Tsuyoshi Hasegawa, Stuart Kelly, Jemima Miéville and Paul Robbins.

For their solidarity and friendship, and for being constant sources of political and intellectual inspiration, I thank my fellow founding editors of Salvage: Jamie Allinson, Richard Seymour and Rosie Warren.

My thanks also to all at Verso, especially Mark Martin, Anne Rumberger, Sarah Shin and Lorna Scott-Fox, for copy-editing above and beyond the call of any duty. Finally, in particular, I am grateful to Sebastian Budgen, my editor and friend. This book came about from his suggestion, and I owe him an immense intellectual and political debt.