The Petrograd Workers in the Russian Revolution is a study of the Russian Revolutions of 1917 and of the first months of the Soviet power as viewed and experienced 'from below', by the industrial workers of Petrograd, Russia's capital and the centre of its revolutionary movement. Based largely on contemporary scores, it lets the workers speak for themselves, showing them as conscious creative subjects of the revolutionary process, indeed, as the leading force of the revolution.

In doing so, it sheds light on the nature and role of the Bolshevik party as an authentic workers' organisation that by the summer of 1017 had become the leading political force among workers.