December 3, 1957 The Department of Historical Sciences of the USSR Academy of Sciences decided to create a research group that would deal with a special study of the problem of the revolutionary situation based on primary sources. The book offered to the reader is the result of the first year of classes of the group. It presents the works of historians of Moscow, Leningrad, Kyiv, Kharkov, Vilnius, Smolensk, Saratov, Ulyanovsk. Perm, Tobolsk.