Exhibiting the Revolution: Expositions at the Museum of the Revolution in Leningrad in the 1920s and 1930s

This article analyses the first two decades of the flagship museum of revolutionary history in Petrograd/Leningrad following the October Revolution of 1917. The article discusses the purpose behind the efforts to enlighten the masses on the revolutionary movement and the methods employed to collect and display artefacts of the revolutionary period in Russia. Further examination is made of the communication methods employed by the museum and how the changing economic and political circumstances affected the ability of the revolutionary museum to enlighten Soviet visitors, especially the nationalization of private collections, the removal of plurality and academic independence and, of course, the demand for Stalinist orthodoxy within cultural expression.