I'm sure the Chamberlin vols. have their literary merits (though LDT in his History of The Russian Revolution, has substantial merits on that score, get the one vol. abridgement from Doubleday/Anchor Books, edited by Fred Dupee of the Partisan Review crowd, who either Max Eastman or he translated) but, more recent treatments like Alexander Rabinowitch who contests the Pipes line of the seizure of power as a pure coup d'etat and not what it was a mass, popular uprising (against the wishes of Zinoviev, Kamenev, Stalin, see, "Stalin In October, " by Robert Slusser.)
The Bolsheviks Come to Power: The Revolution of 1917 in Petrograd by Alexander Rabinowitch used copies for $5.95 on the net.
On Darkness at Noon, btw, Zizek had a great piece on Bukharin and Koestler here, http://www.bard.edu/hrp/zizekessay2.htm More on Koestler in a bio full of dirt on his extra-mrital affairs, the David Cesarani bio, for his disillusionment see, "ThebPassing Of An Illusion: The Idea of Communism in the Twentieth Century, " by Francois Furet who was in the PCF after WWII. Much material in the Furet on Popular Front anti-fascism as well.
originally in NLR.
Victor Serge, "Year One of the Russian Revolution, " is quite good, too, as well as, these http://www.hewett.norfolk.sch.uk/CURRIC/history/toms%20web%20stuff/NMUreading_list%20russian%20history.htm
, of which Robert Service has a new one of interest to Russiaphiles, "Russia: Experiment With a People, from 1991 to the Present." His bio of Lenin is well regarded.
The Russian Revolution :1917-1921 ed. by Ronald Kowalski, Routledge. (Another reader on Stalinism has the best from opposing povs from recent scholarship, a few of the pieces translated from Russian, ed. by Chris Ward, "Stalin's Russia. "
The Russian Revolution: 1917-1921 is a collection of documents and sources reviewing the ever-changing debate on the nature of the Russian Revolution. Such events as the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, that had indeed grown from the Revolution, have provided fresh perspectives from which to view it. The collection provides excerpts from newspapers, memoirs and literature, complete with commentary and background information on sources.
With a focus on thematic issues such as the actions of peasants and workers, Ronald Kowalski addresses the key question of whether the revolution was a coup foisted on the people or a popular movement. The book incorporates the latest scholarship and contains newly available documentary material translated into English for the first time.
Publisher:
Routledge