Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923, Vol. 1 Book

Carr is a sympathiser (with Lenin and the Revolution as a whole, if not with Stalin), which will become abundantly clear while reading the book, but even if you consider this a knock against the author (I don't), Carr is a master of the historical material, and an expert at explaining not only the facts and events themselves, but contextualizing the behavior of the Bolshevik leadership in terms of Marxist-Leninist ideology, as well as how this ideology fit in the context of Western political philosophy as a whole. This is useful whether or not one "agrees" with the Revolution, as it allows one to see the Bolsheviks very much as they saw themselves - i.e., as revolutionaries who, though willing to use violence, were fundamentally committed towards an emancipatory political project, and trying to make sense of chaotic and changing conditions through the lens of a Marxist ideology that had always had quite little to say about the practical work of building socialism. In short, it takes the revolutionaries at their word, and rather soberly assesses their successes and failures, with a minimum of moralism, hysteria, demonization, or hagiography.

Looking forward to reading vols. 2 and 3 when I get some time