The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture

The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture PDF Author: Jay Bergman
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198842708
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 568

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Book Description
The Bolsheviks sought legitimacy and inspiration in historic revolutionary traditions, and Jay Bergman argues that they saw the revolutions in France in 1789, 1830, 1848, and 1871 as supplying practically everything Marxism lacked, including guidance in constructing socialism and communism, and useful fodder for political and personal polemics.

The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture

The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture PDF Author: Jay Bergman
Publisher:
ISBN: 0198842708
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 568

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Bolsheviks sought legitimacy and inspiration in historic revolutionary traditions, and Jay Bergman argues that they saw the revolutions in France in 1789, 1830, 1848, and 1871 as supplying practically everything Marxism lacked, including guidance in constructing socialism and communism, and useful fodder for political and personal polemics.

The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture

The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture PDF Author: Jay Bergman
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019258037X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 503

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Book Description
Because they were Marxists, the Bolsheviks in Russia, both before and after taking power in 1917, believed that the past was prologue: that embedded in history was a Holy Grail, a series of mysterious, but nonetheless accessible and comprehensible, universal laws that explained the course of history from beginning to end. Those who understood these laws would be able to mould the future to conform to their own expectations. But what should the Bolsheviks do if their Marxist ideology proved to be either erroneous or insufficient-if it could not explain, or explain fully, the course of events that followed the revolution they carried out in the country they called the Soviet Union? Something else would have to perform this function. The underlying argument of this volume is that the Bolsheviks saw the revolutions in France in 1789, 1830, 1848, and 1871 as supplying practically everything Marxism lacked. In fact, these four events comprised what for the Bolsheviks was a genuine Revolutionary Tradition. The English Revolution and the Puritan Commonwealth of the seventeenth century were not without utility-the Bolsheviks cited them and occasionally utilized them as propaganda-but these paled in comparison to what the revolutions in France offered a century later, namely legitimacy, inspiration, guidance in constructing socialism and communism, and, not least, useful fodder for political and personal polemics.

The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin

The Political Thought of Joseph Stalin PDF Author: Erik van Ree
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135786046
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 440

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Book Description
This book presents a comprehensive analysis of the political thought of Joseph Stalin. Making full use of the documentation that has recently become available, including Stalin's private library with his handwritten margin notes, the book provides many insights on Stalin, and also on western and Russian Marxist intellectual traditions. Overall, the book argues that Stalin's political thought is not primarily indebted to the Russian autocratic tradition, but belongs to a tradition of revolutionary patriotism that stretches back through revolutionary Marxism to Jacobin thought in the French Revolution. It makes interesting comparisons between Stalin, Lenin, Bukharin and Trotsky, and explains a great deal about the mindset of those brought up in the Stalinist era, and about the era's many key problems, including the industrial revolution from above, socialist cultural policy, Soviet treatment of nationalities, pre-war and Cold War foreign policy, and the purges.

Salazar

Salazar PDF Author: Tom Gallagher
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 1787384519
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Fifty years after his death, Portugal's Salazar remains a controversial and enigmatic figure, whose conservative and authoritarian legacy still divides opinion. Some see him as a reactionary and oppressive figure who kept Portugal backward, while others praise his honesty, patriotism and dedication to duty. Contemporary radicals are wary of his unabashed elitism and skepticism about social progress, but many conservatives give credit to his persistent warnings about the threats to Western civilization from runaway materialism and endless experimentation. For a dictator, Salazar's end was anti-climactic--a domestic accident. But during his nearly four decades in power, he survived less through reliance on force and more through guile and charm. This probing biography charts the highs and lows of Salazar's rule, from rescuing Portugal's finances and keeping his strategically-placed nation out of World War II to maintaining a police state while resisting the winds of change in Africa. It explores Salazar's long-running suspicion of and conflict with the United States, and how he kept Hitler and Mussolini at arm's length while persuading his fellow dictator Franco not to enter the war on their side. Iberia expert Tom Gallagher brings to life a complex leader who deserves to be far better known.

Mandelstam's Worlds

Mandelstam's Worlds PDF Author: Andrew Kahn
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192599828
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 720

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Book Description
Rightly appreciated as a 'poet's poet', Mandelstam has been habitually read as a repository of learned allusion. Yet as Seamus Heaney observed, his work is 'as firmly rooted in both an historical and cultural context as real as Joyce's Ulysses or Eliot's Waste Land.' Great lyric poets offer a cross-section of their times, and Mandelstam's poems represent the worlds of politics, history, art, and ideas about intimacy and creativity. The interconnections between these domains and Mandelstam's writings are the subject of this book, showing how engaged the poet was with the history, social movements, political ideology, and aesthetics of his time. The importance of the book also lies in showing how literature, no less than history and philosophy, enables readers to confront the huge upheaval in outlook can demand of us; thinking with poetry is to think through the moral compromise and tension felt by individuals in public and private contexts, and to create out of art experience in itself. The book further innovates by integrating a new, comprehensive discussion of the Voronezh Notebooks, one of the supreme achievements of Russian poetry. This book considers the full political dimension of works that explore the role of the poet as a figure positioned within society but outside the state, caught between an ideal of creative independence and a devotion to the original, ameliorative ideals of the revolution.

Nikolai Gretsch's Travel Letters: Volume 1 - Letters from England

Nikolai Gretsch's Travel Letters: Volume 1 - Letters from England PDF Author: Nikolai Gretsch
Publisher: Anthem Press
ISBN: 1839980834
Category : Travel
Languages : en
Pages : 293

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Book Description
Nikolai Gretsch's Travel Letters is a fully translated English edition of a three-volume account published by Nikolai Gretsch (1787–1867) in St. Petersburg in 1839. In the original Russian, Gretsch describes his travels in post-Napoleonic England, France, and Germany in 1837 at the behest of the Russian Empire. His official task was to examine educational systems, but as he travelled, he also noticed the cultural norms in his surroundings, the history of each country, and the personal experiences of the people he met. On his return home, Gretsch assembled his entertaining and often humorous personal observations into the edition that forms the basis for the present translation. His astute observations provide a rich contemporary resource for information about the countries he visited, especially given his status as an outsider. Additionally, as a result of his government position, Gretsch was able to move in social circles that would have been closed to many other people. In England, he once found himself in the same room with Princess (the future Queen) Victoria, and in France, he dined with Victor Hugo. Gretsch’s observations offer a treasure-trove of contextual information that will be valuable to anyone interested in cultural interactions during the nineteenth century.

The Russian Intelligentsia

The Russian Intelligentsia PDF Author: Christopher Read
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350035408
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 557

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Book Description
The Russian Intelligentsia is the first single-volume history of a small but tremendously influential group of Russian intellectuals who achieved world renown in a variety of spheres. While previous accounts have addressed the history of individuals within this collective, Christopher Read offers the first explanation of the intelligentsia as a group. Read traces the vast debates that broke out between, and within, a multitude of intellectual factions, and contextualizes the ideas of the group within the framework of cultural, social, political, and economic development from the late 18th century to the present day. This comprehensive yet accessible account demonstrates how the Russian intelligentsia morphed from one incarnation to the next, and effectively situates this change and continuity within a pan-European context. It considers the role of the intelligentsia throughout its origins, its transformation during the Russian Revolution, and since the collapse of communism, and highlights the beliefs of key figures such as Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Ivan Pavlov, Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Mikhail Gorbachev. In doing so, Read provides an essential guide to a fascinating aspect of Russia's social and cultural history.

New Myth, New World

New Myth, New World PDF Author: Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal
Publisher: Penn State Press
ISBN: 9780271046587
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
The Nazis' use and misuse of Nietzsche is well known. In this pioneering book, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal excavates the trail of long-obscured Nietzschean ideas that took root in late Imperial Russia, intertwining with other elements in the culture to become a vital ingredient of Bolshevism and Stalinism.

End of History and the Last Man

End of History and the Last Man PDF Author: Francis Fukuyama
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1416531785
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
Ever since its first publication in 1992, the New York Times bestselling The End of History and the Last Man has provoked controversy and debate. "Profoundly realistic and important...supremely timely and cogent...the first book to fully fathom the depth and range of the changes now sweeping through the world." —The Washington Post Book World Francis Fukuyama's prescient analysis of religious fundamentalism, politics, scientific progress, ethical codes, and war is as essential for a world fighting fundamentalist terrorists as it was for the end of the Cold War. Now updated with a new afterword, The End of History and the Last Man is a modern classic.

Interpreting the Russian Revolution

Interpreting the Russian Revolution PDF Author: Orlando Figes
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780300081060
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 198

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Book Description
The authors examine the diverse ways that language and other symbols--including flags and emblems, public rituals, songs, and codes of dress--were used to identify competing sides and to create new meanings in Russia's political struggles of 1917. 32 illustrations.