This book gives voice to the experiences, thoughts, and feelings of ordinary Russian people--workers, peasants, soldiers--as expressed in their own words during the vast upheavals of 1917. The documents in the volume are selected from the State Archive of the Russian Federation in Moscow and other Russian collections and most have never been published before. They include letters from individuals to newspapers, institutions, or leaders, collective resolutions and appeals, and even poetry written by self-taught, lower-class authors.