Yuri Slezkine, “The House of Government: A Saga of the Russian Revolution” (Princeton UP, 2017)

Before the revolution that—very unexpectedly—brought them to power, the Bolsheviks lived nomadic lives. They were always on the run from the authorities. That the authorities were always after them is not really a mystery, for all the Bolsheviks really wanted to do was take their authority away. What they would...