Inside the Russian Revolution

This is the first republication of Rheta Childe Dorr’s book Inside the Russian Revolution (1917), accompanied by the editor’s research introduction and comments. Dorr (1866–1948) was a leading suffragette from Nebraska, studied at the University of Nebraska, before moving to New York as a journalist and first editor of The Suffragette. Living on the lower East Side, she became a socialist. She visited Russia during the first Russian revolution (1905–1907) and later covered the February Revolution of 1917 for the New York Evening Mail.

Her book Inside the Russian Revolution (1917) depicts the overthrow of the tsar as a positive, democratic move with hope of a Russia following the American path to constitutional democracy. The evolution of revolutionary Russia from February to October changed not only Dorr’s perception of the Russian revolution as a phenomenon but her vision of socialism as well. In this sense, she was among the American radicals who contributed to American phenomenology of the 1917 Russian revolution but were not satisfied with its results. Being a prominent figure in the U.S. political and social life of her time, Rheta Dorr expanded the horizons of the Americans’ identity.

Dorr is also known for other publications. In 1922, she assisted Anna Vyrubova, a lady-in-waiting, the best friend and the confidante of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, with the writing of Vyrubova’s memoir, My Memories of the Russian Court. Thereafter, Dorr wrote her own memoir, A Woman of Fifty, published in 1924. Dorr moved from her autobiography to a biography of Susan B. Anthony, published in 1928, and completed her publishing activity in 1929 with a tome on the question of prohibition.