The way in which the Russian Revolution of October 1917 is regarded and commemorated has changed considerably over time, and is a contentious subject, well demonstrated by the absence of any official commemoration in Russia in 2017, a huge contrast to the very large celebrations which took place in Soviet times. This book, which brings together a range of leading historians of the Russian Revolution—from both Russia and the West, and both younger and older historians—explores the changes in the way in which the October 1917 Revolution is commemorated, and also examines fundamental questions about what the Russian Revolution—indeed what any revolution—was anyway. Among the issues covered are how Soviet and Western historians diverged in their early assessments of what the Revolution achieved, how the period studied by historians has recently extended both much earlier before 1917 and much later afterwards, and how views of the Revolution within the Soviet Union changed over time from acceptance of the official Communist Party interpretation to more independent viewpoints. Overall, the book provides a major reassessment of one of the twentieth century’s most important events.
Table of Contents:
List of Contributors viii
List of Figures xv
List of Tables xvii
Preface xviii
CAROL S. LEONARD AND DANIEL ORLOVSKY
I
Introduction: Interpreting the Russian Revolution of 1917 1
1 Introduction—Reflections on the Russian Revolution 3
DANIEL ORLOVSKY
2 The Great Russian Revolution, 1917–1922, and Problems of Historical Memory 12
JUREJ PETROV
II
Selected Western Revisionist Interpretations and Their Critics 17
3 How to End the Revolution: A Problem for Revolutionaries, Their Successors and Historians 19
SHEILA FITZPATRICK
4 More Lessons of October 29
RONALD GRIGOR SUNY
5 Soviet History Framework for Assessing the Russian Revolution 36
ROBERT SERVICE
6 The Politics of National History: Russia’s Ruling Elite and the Centenary of 1917 51
JAMES RYAN
III
The Major Soviet-era and Post-Soviet Russian Perspectives 73
7 From a National Celebration to an Inconvenient Past: Revolution of 1917 in Commemorative Practices and Policies and Annual Celebrations (1918–2017) 75
VITALIY TIKHONOV
8 Post-Soviet Writing About the October Revolution 97
VLADIMIR P. BULDAKOV
9 Culture in Revolution—Revolution in Culture 109
TATIANA A. FILIPPOVA
IV
New Approaches: “Leap Not the Landing” 125
10 The Revolution We Have Lost: 1917 as Future Possibility 127
MARK D. STEINBERG
11 Living Politics: The Kollektiv-Model and the Bolshevik Revolution 139
ANDY WILLIMOTT
12 Psychological and Emotional Experience in the Russian Revolution 158
VLADISLAV B. AKSENOV
13 Gender Images in the Russian Revolution: Backward Women and Forward Men in Iconic Perspective, 1919–1923 176
ELIZABETH A. WOOD
Strategic Space During the Revolution 191
14 Building Soviet Democracy, Breeding Communist Dictatorship: Rise of the Party-State Apparatus, 1917–1923 193
LARA DOUDS
15 Railroads and Strikes in Russia, 1894–1904: Revolution in Times of Railroad Building 212
CAROL S. LEONARD, ZAFAR NAZAROV, LEONID BORODKIN, ROMAN B. KONCHAKOV AND MARIA KARPENKO
Continuum of Crisis 245
16 Governing Revolution in Russia in 1917 and in the 1990s: Comparative Political Economy 247
VLADIMIR MAU AND CAROL S. LEONARD
Impact Assessment 265
17 Two Octobers 267
ROBERT A. ROSENSTONE
18 Hitler, Stalin, or Roosevelt? Which Faces of the 1930s Will We See in the 2020s? 283
JACK A. GOLDSTONE
Conclusion 295
CAROL S. LEONARD AND DANIEL ORLOVSKY
Index 298
