The Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution PDF Author: Sean McMeekin
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 178283379X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 446

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Book Description
At the turn of the century, the Russian economy was growing by about 10% annually and its population had reached 150 million. By 1920 the country was in desperate financial straits and more than 20 million Russians had died. And by 1950, a third of the globe had embraced communism. The triumph of Communism sets a profound puzzle. How did the Bolsheviks win power and then cling to it amid the chaos they had created? Traditional histories remain a captive to Marxist ideas about class struggle. Analysing never before used files from the Tsarist military archives, McMeekin argues that war is the answer. The revolutionaries were aided at nearly every step by Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland who sought to benefit - politically and economically - from the changes overtaking the country. To make sense of Russia's careening path the essential question is not Lenin's "who, whom?", but who benefits?

The Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution PDF Author: Sean McMeekin
Publisher: Profile Books
ISBN: 178283379X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 446

Get Book

Book Description
At the turn of the century, the Russian economy was growing by about 10% annually and its population had reached 150 million. By 1920 the country was in desperate financial straits and more than 20 million Russians had died. And by 1950, a third of the globe had embraced communism. The triumph of Communism sets a profound puzzle. How did the Bolsheviks win power and then cling to it amid the chaos they had created? Traditional histories remain a captive to Marxist ideas about class struggle. Analysing never before used files from the Tsarist military archives, McMeekin argues that war is the answer. The revolutionaries were aided at nearly every step by Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland who sought to benefit - politically and economically - from the changes overtaking the country. To make sense of Russia's careening path the essential question is not Lenin's "who, whom?", but who benefits?

Before the Modern Russian Revolution

Before the Modern Russian Revolution PDF Author: Gini Graham Scott
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 0595508383
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 246

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Book Description
Today, when Russia has regained its power on the world stage and Putin is restoring many of the old traditions and systems, it is helpful to understand what Russia was like at the time of transformation set in motion by Gorbachev and continued by Yeltsin. For a time Russia went through a period called "glasnost" and "perestroika" when all things seemed possible and a spirit of democracy was in the air. The Soviet Union was breaking up and everyday citizens were imagining a new democratic future, though this restructuring soon led to a rampant period of new capitalism and crime, before the crackdown and new economic transformation under Putin. Before the Modern Russian Revolution is a look back at this time of rapid change be a sociologist and anthropologist who traveled to the Russia and other countries that were then part of the Soviet Union. She traveled there three times between 1987 and 1990. This book describes her journey there in 1988 as part of a citizen diplomacy group that offered an opportunity to make personal connections with people in all walks of life. It is an engaging personal account of a journey to the Soviet Union done the "citizen diplomacy" way-meeting people face to face in their homes, schools, churches, courtrooms and marketplaces. It takes you to the heart of Soviet daily life, where you will meet working mothers, the new entrepreneurs, lawyers, artists, journalist, psychologists and others. While providing a marked contrast to the lifestyle of Russians today, these portraits help to provide insight into the new society Russia has become.

The Russian Revolution, 1917

The Russian Revolution, 1917 PDF Author: Rex A. Wade
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107130328
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 371

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Book Description
This book explores the 1917 Russian Revolution from its February Revolution beginning to the victory of Lenin and the Bolsheviks in October.

A People's History of the Russian Revolution

A People's History of the Russian Revolution PDF Author: Neil Faulkner
Publisher: People's History
ISBN: 9780745399034
Category : Alternative Press Collection
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The Russian Revolution may be the most misunderstood and misrepresented event in modern history, its history told in a mix of legends and anecdotes. In A People's History of the Russian Revolution, Neil Faulkner sets out to debunk the myths and pry fact from fiction, putting at the heart of the story the Russian people who are the true heroes of this tumultuous tale. In this fast-paced introduction, Faulkner tells the powerful narrative of how millions of people came together in a mass movement, organized democratic assemblies, mobilized for militant action, and overturned a vast regime of landlords, profiteers, and warmongers. Faulkner rejects caricatures of Lenin and the Bolsheviks as authoritarian conspirators or the progenitors of Stalinist dictatorship, and forcefully argues that the Russian Revolution was an explosion of democracy and creativity--and that it was crushed by bloody counter-revolution and replaced with a form of bureaucratic state-capitalism. Grounded by powerful first-hand testimony, this history marks the centenary of the Revolution by restoring the democratic essence of the revolution, offering a perfect primer for the modern reader.

Russia in Revolution

Russia in Revolution PDF Author: Stephen Anthony Smith
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198734824
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 481

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Book Description
The Russian Revolution of 1917 transformed the face of the Russian empire, politically, economically, socially, and culturally, and also profoundly affected the course of world history for the rest of the twentieth century. Now, to mark the centenary of this epochal event, historian Steve Smith presents a panoramic account of the history of the Russian empire, from the last years of the nineteenth century, through the First World War and the revolutions of 1917 and the establishment of the Bolshevik regime, to the end of the 1920s, when Stalin simultaneously unleashed violent collectivization of agriculture and crash industrialization upon Russian society. Drawing on recent archivally-based scholarship, Russia in Revolution pays particular attention to the varying impact of the Revolution on the various groups that made up society: peasants, workers, non-Russian nationalities, the army, women and the family, young people, and the Church. In doing so, it provides a fresh way into the big, perennial questions about the Revolution and its consequences: why did the attempt by the tsarist government to implement political reform after the 1905 Revolution fail?; why did the First World War bring about the collapse of the tsarist system?; why did the attempt to create a democratic system after the February Revolution of 1917 not get off the ground?; why did the Bolsheviks succeed in seizing and holding on to power?; why did they come out victorious from a punishing civil war?; why did the New Economic Policy they introduced in 1921 fail?; and why did Stalin come out on top in the power struggle inside the Bolshevik party after Lenin's death in 1924? A final chapter then reflects on the larger significance of 1917 for the history of the twentieth century - and, for all its terrible flaws, what the promise of the Revolution might mean for us today.

Rethinking the Russian Revolution as Historical Divide

Rethinking the Russian Revolution as Historical Divide PDF Author: Matthias Neumann
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317359356
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
The Russian Revolution of 1917 has often been presented as a complete break with the past, with everything which had gone before swept away, and all aspects of politics, economy and society reformed and made new.? Recently, however, historians have increasingly come to question this view, discovering that Tsarist Russia was much more entangled in the processes of modernisation, and that the new regime contained much more continuity than has previously been acknowledged.? This book presents new research findings on a range of different aspects of Russian society, both showing how there was much change before 1917, and much continuity afterwards, and also going beyond this to show that the new Soviet regime established in the 1920s, with its vision of the New Soviet Person, was in fact based on a complicated mixture of new Soviet thinking and ideas developed before 1917 by a variety of non-Bolshevik movements.

The Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution PDF Author: Sean McMeekin
Publisher: Basic Books
ISBN: 046509497X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 496

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Book Description
From an award-winning scholar comes this definitive, single-volume history that illuminates the tensions and transformations of the Russian Revolution. ​ In The Russian Revolution, acclaimed historian Sean McMeekin traces the events which ended Romanov rule, ushered the Bolsheviks into power, and introduced Communism to the world. Between 1917 and 1922, Russia underwent a complete and irreversible transformation. Taking advantage of the collapse of the Tsarist regime in the middle of World War I, the Bolsheviks staged a hostile takeover of the Russian Imperial Army, promoting mutinies and mass desertions of men in order to fulfill Lenin's program of turning the "imperialist war" into civil war. By the time the Bolsheviks had snuffed out the last resistance five years later, over 20 million people had died, and the Russian economy had collapsed so completely that Communism had to be temporarily abandoned. Still, Bolshevik rule was secure, owing to the new regime's monopoly on force, enabled by illicit arms deals signed with capitalist neighbors such as Germany and Sweden who sought to benefit-politically and economically-from the revolutionary chaos in Russia. Drawing on scores of previously untapped files from Russian archives and a range of other repositories in Europe, Turkey, and the United States, McMeekin delivers exciting, groundbreaking research about this turbulent era. The first comprehensive history of these momentous events in two decades, The Russian Revolution combines cutting-edge scholarship and a fast-paced narrative to shed new light on one of the most significant turning points of the twentieth century.

Language and Metaphors of the Russian Revolution

Language and Metaphors of the Russian Revolution PDF Author: Lonny Harrison
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498597998
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Language and Metaphors of the Russian Revolution: Sow the Wind, Reap the Storm is a panoramic history of the Russian intelligentsia and an analysis of the language and ideals of the Russian Revolution, from its inception over the long nineteenth century through fruition in early Soviet society. This volume examines metaphors for revolution in the storm, flood, and harvest imagery ubiquitous in Russian literary works. At the same time, it considers the struggle to own the narrative of modernity, including Bolshevik weaponization of language and cultural policy that supported the use of terror and social purging. This uniquely cross-disciplinary study conducts a close reading of texts that use storm, flood, and agricultural metaphors in diverse ways to represent revolution, whether in anticipation and celebration of its ideals or in resistance to the same. A spotlight is given to the lives and works of authors who responded to Soviet authoritarianism by reclaiming the narrative of revolution in the name of personal freedom and restoration of humanist values. Hinging on the clashes of culture wars and class wars and residing at the intersection of ideas at the very core of the fight for modernity, this book provides a critical reading of authoritarian discourse and investigates rare examples of the counter narratives that thrived in spite of their suppression.

The Russian Revolution: A Very Short Introduction

The Russian Revolution: A Very Short Introduction PDF Author: S. A. Smith
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191578363
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 192

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Book Description
This Very Short Introduction provides an analytical narrative of the main events and developments in Soviet Russia between 1917 and 1936. It examines the impact of the revolution on society as a whole—on different classes, ethnic groups, the army, men and women, youth. Its central concern is to understand how one structure of domination was replaced by another. The book registers the primacy of politics, but situates political developments firmly in the context of massive economic, social, and cultural change. Since the fall of Communism there has been much reflection on the significance of the Russian Revolution. The book rejects the currently influential, liberal interpretation of the revolution in favour of one that sees it as rooted in the contradictions of a backward society which sought modernization and enlightenment and ended in political tyranny. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The Russian Revolution

The Russian Revolution PDF Author: Sheila Fitzpatrick
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191579815
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 234

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Book Description
The Russian Revolution had a decisive impact on the history of the twentieth century. In the years following the collapse of the Soviet regime and the opening of its archives, it has become possible to step back and see the full picture. This fully updated new edition of Sheila Fitzpatrick's classic short history of the Russian Revolution takes into account the new archival and other evidence that has come to light since then, incorporating material that was previously inaccessible not only to Western but also to Soviet historians Starting with an overview of the roots of the revolution, Fitzpatrick takes the story from 1917, through Stalin's 'revolution from above', to the great purges of the 1930s. She tells a gripping story of a Marxist revolution that was intended to transform the world, visited enormous suffering on the Russian people, and, like the French Revolution before it, ended up by devouring its own children.