Note on Dates¶
Core Argument¶
This brief prefatory chapter establishes the calendrical framework governing the chronological ordering of the collected articles. It specifies that Russia operated under the Old Style (Julian) calendar until 14 February 1918, a system lagging thirteen days behind the New Style (Gregorian) calendar then standard in the West and universally adopted today. The editorial decision is to render dates for articles written in Russia, or for events occurring there, in the Old Style, with the New Style equivalent appended in brackets. However, the volume’s overall sequence follows the New Style calendar exclusively. This technical note is essential for preventing chronological confusion when reading documents spanning the revolutionary period, as the same event could be dated differently depending on the calendar in use. The thirteen-day discrepancy means that, for example, the October Revolution of 1917 occurred on 25 October Old Style but 7 November New Style. By standardising the ordering to New Style, the editor ensures that the unfolding of events and the sequence of polemical interventions appear in the order they would have been experienced by an international audience, while preserving the original Russian dating for authenticity. The note implicitly warns the reader against assuming a simple one-to-one correspondence between dates cited in the text and the actual chronological progression of the revolution.