Originally published in Berkeley, CA : University of California Press, 1988.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Front Matter -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Acknowledgements -- The Formation of a Small Polity -- State-Making and the Class Structure -- Dominant Groups and State-Making -- The Agrarian Class Structure and Industrial Workers -- Territorial Integration -- National Integration and Class Integration -- Finnish Nationalism -- Before the Revolution: Organisation, Mobilisation, and the Role of Russia -- Regional Consolidation of Party Support -- The Abortive Revolution -- On Preconditions for Revolutionary Situations -- The Abortive Revolution of 1917–1918 -- State and Nation after the Failed Revolution -- The Finnish State and Revolution in a European Perspective -- Eastern European Revolutionary Movements -- The Formation of Finland in Europe -- Postscript to the Second Printing -- Back Matter -- Bibliography -- Index.

By analysing the experience of Finland, Risto Alapuro shows how upheavals in powerful countries shape the internal politics of smaller countries. This linkage, a highly topical subject in the twenty-first century world, is concretely studied by putting the abortive Finnish revolution of 1917-18 into a long historical and a broad comparative perspective. In the former respect the revolution appears as a tragic culmination in the unfolding of a small European state. In the latter respect it appears as one of those crises that new states experienced when they emerged from the turmoils of the First World War. This second edition inlcudes a new Postscript.