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History of the Russian Revolution and Soviet Union

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  • A dissection of The Bolsheviks and Workers Control

    Votes: 8 19.5%

  • Debunking basic but still annoyingly common myths about the Russian Revolution

    Votes: 33 80.5%
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    • Lazer Raptor

    Lazer Raptor

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    Greetings Comrades!

    One hundred and four years ago, on this day, the Bolsheviks successfully overthrew the Provisional Government in what would later be termed the October Revolution. The Bolshevik seizure of power would have dramatic and far-reaching implications for the 20th century, and its aftereffects linger to this day. Heretofore, there hasn't been a specific thread on SV dedicated to discussing the history of the Russian Revolution and its aftermath. In making this thread I hope to change this state of affairs, and provide a place for people fascinated by Russian revolutionary history to share their knowledge.

    I originally intended for this opening post to have either a breakdown of myths about the October Revolution or a dissection of the (in)famous pamphlet The Bolsheviks and Workers Control, but I haven't found the time, and I felt it would be better to post this thread now and then make said posts later. I'll set up a poll to request I or someone else in the thread post about specific topics, since I still want to write those posts when I have more energy to do so.

    I also want to single out @GiantMonkeyMan as one of the most knowledgeable person on this forum regarding the Russian Revolution, and someone who almost always posts high quality stuff.

    Now, I'm going to just open the thread up to general discussion with a simple question: What is your favorite work on the Russian Revolution, and why?
    I'll post my answer tomorrow, but I'm really interested to see what sort of responses I get!

    This is why, I made this post while responding to @ParadoxGamer1444 in the HOI4 thread:
    Lazer Raptor said:
    I'm not going to touch your references to the Russian Revolution(s) because I could and would derail the thread over it, and this isn't the place. If you want, I could make a Russian Revolution history thread in War and Peace for us to have this conversation in, and I'd be happy to do so, but not here.
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    And I got quite a bit of interest in just such a thread, and as such committed to making one.
    Lazer Raptor said:
    Very well, I'll try and write a solid opening post and ping the relevant notables.
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    • Lazer Raptor said:
    Now, I'm going to just open the thread up to general discussion with a simple question: What is your favorite work on the Russian Revolution, and why?
    I'll post my answer tomorrow, but I'm really interested to see what sort of responses I get!
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    One recent work that has very much influenced the way that I think about the results of the October Revolution has been Lara Doud's Inside Lenin's Government which takes an in-depth look at the early Bolshevik regime. It's a fascinating work that really challenges a lot of the perceptions that people might have.

    However, perhaps my favourite work has to be China Mieville's October just because it's so very readable.

    I would also bring up a point about history: in order to understand the October Revolution, you have to understand the failed coup by Kornilov, in order to understand that you have to understand the July Days and the state of the army, and so on. There is a lot to these entire series of events so as much as I welcome discussion about October, I would also welcome discussion about the events that led up to it and the events that came after (to a point).
     
    This is probably something going to be covered under the debunking basic myths part, but I just have to ask...what on Earth is Kerensky's appeal that he had any support back then and still has 'supporters' to this day? Everything I've read about the man points to supreme levels of incompetence.
     
    always_confused said:
    This is probably something going to be covered under the debunking basic myths part, but I just have to ask...what on Earth is Kerensky's appeal that he had any support back then and still has 'supporters' to this day? Everything I've read about the man points to supreme levels of incompetence.
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    Honestly, I think it's just that he was the one "in charge" when the Provisional Government was overthrown. Why it was overthrown, how it was overthrown, and what actions and choices did Kerensky make that contributed to the movements against the Provisional Government ultimately don't matter to the sort of people who now support him. I also honestly don't think that he was any less or more incompetent than many liberal politicians of the current era (or any era, really) it's just that his sort of politics were completely and utterly inadequate to overcome the challenges that his government faced.
     
    I mean tbf before being actually placed in charge of the whole Provisional Government and drifting rightwards Kerensky did make his bones being a like ACLU style activist lawyer defending strikers and protestors and making grand firebrand-y speeches about how all classes needed to get their rightful share and the rich parasites destroying Russia need to fuck off. I imagine in a ww1-less world where the continual failures of Tsardom keep making the Russian agricultural crisis worse even in peacetime, Kerensky's Trudoviks/Popular Socialists could have drastically eaten into the Kadets and make somewhat common cause as their enemy's enemy with the revolutionary left in hijacking the Duma and in semi-intentionally giving cover to their general strikes and self-expropriation and mutual aid like 1905 all over again.
     
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    bookwyrm said:
    I mean tbf before being actually placed in charge of the whole Provisional Government and drifting rightwards Kerensky did make his bones being a like ACLU style activist lawyer defending strikers and protestors and making grand firebrand-y speeches about how all classes needed to get their rightful share and the rich parasites destroying Russia need to fuck off. I imagine in a ww1-less world where the continual failures of Tsardom keep making the Russian agricultural crisis worse even in peacetime, Kerensky's Trudoviks/Popular Socialists could have drastically eaten into the Kadets and make somewhat common cause as their enemy's enemy with the revolutionary left in hijacking the Duma and in semi-intentionally giving cover to their general strikes and self-expropriation and mutual aid like 1905 all over again.
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    Maybe, but I think you're drastically overestimating the power of the Duma. It had been gutted by that point and spent most of the post-February period, to the extent it existed... still not that powerful or important.

    It's a lot, actually, like the German Legislature before the fall of the Second Reich: there was too little power actually invested in these bodies for winning it to actually mean much.
     
    The Laurent said:
    Maybe, but I think you're drastically overestimating the power of the Duma. It had been gutted by that point and spent most of the post-February period, to the extent it existed... still not that powerful or important.

    It's a lot, actually, like the German Legislature before the fall of the Second Reich: there was too little power actually invested in these bodies for winning it to actually mean much.
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    Oh absolutely, I meant more in the kinda Continental Congress energy of the inter-opposition and Kadet party conferences that very much had the threat of acting like an extralegal legislature weighing over the Tsar's head when Nicky finally gritted his teeth and abandoned the somehow even more disproportionally aristocratic and institutionally defanged Bulygin Duma for the October Manifesto. More like the hypothetical Trudovik-led Duma delegates going rogue and invoking a larger body of current and former members, activists and thinkers, and aligned organizations, and keeping up a political liberal pressure that semi-purposefully allows their left flank to get out into the streets and organize; with the future confrontations between the Kerensky types who enthusiastically use and command the left and that socialist left demanding the working masses get to use and command Kerensky working out much healthier as Russia hasn't been going through the hell of millions of war deaths and hyper-nationalist crackdowns and repressions and wartime economic dysfunction and dislocation.
     
    GiantMonkeyMan said:
    One recent work that has very much influenced the way that I think about the results of the October Revolution has been Lara Doud's Inside Lenin's Government which takes an in-depth look at the early Bolshevik regime. It's a fascinating work that really challenges a lot of the perceptions that people might have.

    However, perhaps my favourite work has to be China Mieville's October just because it's so very readable.

    I would also bring up a point about history: in order to understand the October Revolution, you have to understand the failed coup by Kornilov, in order to understand that you have to understand the July Days and the state of the army, and so on. There is a lot to these entire series of events so as much as I welcome discussion about October, I would also welcome discussion about the events that led up to it and the events that came after (to a point).
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    Both of those are excellent books!

    Inside Lenin's Government essentially does the same thing to our understanding of the Bolshevik regime what The Bolsheviks Come To Power did for our understanding of the Bolshevik party in 1917. It charts the development of the centralized party-state in a manner I have not seen in any other major scholarly source, and that alone makes it super worthwhile.

    October isn't a book of academic history, but it's still an amazing read and probably the best introduction to the Russian Revolution for someone who knows very little about the topic. It marvelously captures the energy of the Russian Revolution, is hard to put down, and its further reading section is an excellent jumping off point.

    I think my personal favorite work on the Russian Revolution is probably the A People's Tragedy, which is probably surprising! It is by no means a perfect work of scholarship or pivotal in the historiography of the revolution, but it's probably the best of the one volume histories I've read. It's well-written and enaging throughout, well-researched, and does an excellent job looking at the social basis of the revolution. Figes also doesn't pull his punches when discussing just how incompetent, brutal, and poorly run the Russian Empire was, or the numerous failings of liberal and "moderate socialist" politicians. That being said, his pathological hatred of Lenin clouds his judgement quite a bit, and he uncritically recites some rather silly claims (like a homosexual conspiracy against Rasputin). Nevertheless, it's still the best single volume academic work whose scope ranges from the late 1800s to the end of the Civil War that I've read.
     
    The Laurent said:
    A... what?
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    "The central figure in this plot was Prince Felix Yusupov, a 29-year- old graduate of Oxford, son of the richest woman in Russia, and, although a homosexual, recently married to the Grand Duchess Irina Alexandrovna, daughter of the Tsar's favourite sister. Two other homosexuals in the Romanov court — the Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, a favourite nephew of the Tsar, and the Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich — were also involved. Rasputin had become increasingly involved with the homosexual circles of the high aristocracy. He liked to 'lie with' men as much as with women. Yusupov had approached him after his wedding in the hope that he might 'cure' him from his sexual 'illness'. But Rasputin had tried to seduce him instead. Yusupov turned violently against him and, together with the Grand Dukes Dmitry and Nikolai, plotted his downfall. Along with their own homosexual vendetta (and perhaps in order to conceal it) they had grave political concerns which they voiced to the right- wing Duma leader and outspoken critic of Rasputin, V M. Purishkevich, who joined them in their plot."
    -A People's Tragedy p. 289
     
    Lazer Raptor said:
    "The central figure in this plot was Prince Felix Yusupov, a 29-year- old graduate of Oxford, son of the richest woman in Russia, and, although a homosexual, recently married to the Grand Duchess Irina Alexandrovna, daughter of the Tsar's favourite sister. Two other homosexuals in the Romanov court — the Grand Duke Dmitry Pavlovich, a favourite nephew of the Tsar, and the Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich — were also involved. Rasputin had become increasingly involved with the homosexual circles of the high aristocracy. He liked to 'lie with' men as much as with women. Yusupov had approached him after his wedding in the hope that he might 'cure' him from his sexual 'illness'. But Rasputin had tried to seduce him instead. Yusupov turned violently against him and, together with the Grand Dukes Dmitry and Nikolai, plotted his downfall. Along with their own homosexual vendetta (and perhaps in order to conceal it) they had grave political concerns which they voiced to the right- wing Duma leader and outspoken critic of Rasputin, V M. Purishkevich, who joined them in their plot."
    -A People's Tragedy p. 289
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    ...when was A People's Tragedy written? That's very... 90s as a way of interpreting stuff, I guess I'd say.
     
    Lazer Raptor said:
    You guessed correctly! A People's Tragedy was published in 1996. This is part of why I don't recommend that people read it without caveats, especially because his sourcing for this claim in particular is also kind of dubious.
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    I kind of think this needs to be said about pretty much every single work ever written about the Russian Revolution: read it with caveats.

    As for A People's Tragedy, I do think it is one of the most comprehensive works and I often refer back to it but yes his take on the Bolsheviks and Lenin in particular can be dire at times.

    One other author I would like to mention for his accessibility is Victor Serge, particularly his memoirs but also his Year One of the Russian Revolution. He is someone intimately involved in many of events of the early years but he also has a great and engaging writing style with many fascinating anecdotes.
     
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