This is the first and only comprehensive account of four great popular Russian rebellions of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Avrich gives a very accurate and highly readable account of the revolts and also tries to makes sense of their causes and effects. "Russian revolts, senseless and merciless." Such was Pushkin's description of the Russian peasant rebellions, but there was also much romance and legend accrued to the deeds of the charismatic figures who led the revolts: Ivan Bolotnikov (1606-1607), Stenka Razin (1670-1671), Kondrati Bulavin (1707-1708), and Emelian Pugachev (1773-1774), who lead the last and greatest of the mass revolts.