History of the Russian Revolution is a three-volume book by Leon Trotsky on the Russian Revolution of 1917. The first volume is dedicated to the political history of the February Revolution and the October Revolution, to explain the relations between these two events. The book was initially published in Germany in 1930. It was originally published in Russian, but it was translated into English by Max Eastman in 1932. The English translation of the second volume, originally consisting of two parts, is split into two volumes. The book was considered anti-stalinist in the Soviet Union and was not published in Russia until 1997.

Max Forrester Eastman was an American writer on literature, philosophy and society, a poet and a prominent political activist. Moving to New York City for graduate school, Eastman became involved with radical circles in Greenwich Village. He supported socialism and became a leading patron of the Harlem Renaissance and an activist for a number of liberal and radical causes. For several years, he edited The Masses. With his sister Crystal Eastman, he co-founded in 1917 The Liberator, a radical magazine of politics and the arts.