London, New York and the Russian Revolution – The Emigré Hub of 1917

In this episode of the Explaining History Podcast, we step away from the battlefields and examine how the February Revolution of 1917 was received and interpreted in two key Western cities: London and New York.

When the Tsar fell in March 1917, governments around the world struggled to make sense of what was happening. Russia under revolutionary conditions was—and remains—notoriously difficult to penetrate. Whose reports could be trusted? Which factions would prevail? And what would it mean for the ongoing war against Germany?

For Britain, the stakes were existential. The government of David Lloyd Geor...