This book, originally published in 1987, focuses on the factors which contributed to the Moscow uprising of December 1905, by comprehensively surveying a vast field of both Russian and English language literature on the subject. In order to explain why the uprising occurred in Moscow when it did, the author discusses the contributions of the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks, the Soviet-Revolutionaries and the government, concluding that the uprising happened at that time because the parties were committed to it and agitated for it and the local government in Moscow was not in control of the situation.