Richard Thomas Stites was a historian of Russian culture.

In 1978 he published The Women's Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism and Bolshevism, 1860-1930, a book that opened up a new discipline of Russian studies.

In 1984, he wrote the introductory essay for an English translations of Alexander Bogdanov

Alexander Bogdanov

Alexander Aleksandrovich Bogdanov –7 April 1928, Moscow) was a Russian physician, philosopher, science fiction writer, and revolutionary of Belarusian ethnicity....

's science fiction novel Red Star (novel)

Red Star (novel)

Red Star is Alexander Bogdanov's 1908 science fiction novel about a communist utopia on Mars. Set in early Russia during the Revolution of 1905 and on socialist Mars, the novel tells the story of Leonid, a scientist-revolutionary who travels to Mars to learn and experience their socialist system...

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In 1989 he published Revolutionary Dreams: Utopian Vision and Experimental Life in the Russian Revolution.

He also edited several books on Russian popular culture, notably Bolshevik Culture (1985), Mass Culture in Soviet Russia and Culture and Entertainment in Wartime Russia (both in 1995).

He died in Helsinki, Finland from complications of cancer on March 7, 2010, aged 78.