Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917

This is the first book in any language to probe the political culture of the Russian Revolution. The authors examine how language and other symbols--flags and emblems, public rituals, songs, codes of dress--were used to identify competing sides and to create new meanings in the struggles of 1917. The party or faction that could control the systems of symbolic meaning, the authors find, was well on the way to mastering the revolution itself.