On the Historiography of the Russian Revolution

Slavic Review ◽  
1967 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-264 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert D. Warth
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Western World ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Party Line ◽  
The Status ◽  
Intellectual Climate

The Russian Revolution has not yet achieved the status of the French Revolution as an academic preserve for battalions of professional historians, but few are likely to deny that its impact on the twentieth century is already more profound than that of the French upheaval on the nineteenth. The fiftieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution is now upon us, and it is a melancholy commentary on the uncertain intellectual climate of the Soviet Union that despite lavish funds, abundant trained personnel, and access to archives and primary sources unavailable in the West, Soviet historians have failed to produce a work of permanent importance on this crucial episode of modern Russian history. Yet the stifling orthodoxy of Stalinism has given way to the uncertain but relative freedom under his successors, and the auguries point to a further mellowing of the party line as Soviet society haltingly approaches the educational and living standards of the Western world.

scholarly journals Visual Metaphors for the People: Unpacking Sergei Eisenstein’s Pedagogy of the Russian Revolution Through Film

Elements ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ashley Prescott Brown
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Sergei Eisenstein ◽  
Secondary Sources ◽  
Visual Metaphors ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The People ◽  
General Line ◽  
Communist Ideology

This paper attempts to understand how the celebrated and controversial figure of Sergei Eisenstein understood and contributed to the formation of the Soviet Union through his films of the 1920s.  The lens of visual metaphors offer a specific insight into how artistic choices of the director were informed by his own pedagogy for the Russian Revolution.  The paper asks the questions: Did Eisenstein's films reflect the official party rhetoric?  How did they inform or motivate the public toward the communist ideology of the early Soviet Union?  The primary sources used in this paper are from the films Strike (1925), Battleship Potemkin (1926), October (1928), and The General Line (1929).  Eisenstein created visual metaphors through the juxtaposition of images in his films which alluded to higher concepts.  A shot of a worker followed by the shot of gears turning created the concept of industry in the minds of the audience.  Through visual metaphors, it is possible to understand the motives of Eisenstein and the Communist party.  It is also possible, with the aid of secondary sources, to see how those motives differed.

scholarly journals Access to Communication Tools in Stalin’s Soviet Union

2013 ◽  
Vol 68 (02) ◽  
pp. 357-391
Author(s):  
Larissa Zakharova
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Interpersonal Communication ◽  
Technological Development ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Long Distance ◽  
Communications Networks ◽  
Large Cities ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Postal Services ◽  
The Status

This article examines the status and the place of such means of interpersonal communication as mail, the telegraph, and the telephone in Soviet society under Stalin. Access to tools of communication created a certain hierarchy in the Soviet Union: the telephone was only accessible in large cities, whereas postal services remained limited across the countryside. As it was being implemented, the Soviet project of a communicating society proved to be full of disparities, ultimately centered on the city-dwelling elite. While the radial scheme of communications networks favored contact between the capital and the provinces, the geographical proximity of the regions did not facilitate communications between their inhabitants. The construction of long-distance networks of sociability was affected by the territorial dimensions of the country, varying access to tools of communication, weak technological development, and bureaucratic malfunctioning.

scholarly journals Guido Piovene. Articoli dall’Unione Sovietica (1960)

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Pia Arpioni ◽  
Alberto Zava
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Western World ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Administrative System ◽  
The Third ◽  
Travel Experience ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The 1960S

In the twenty-nine articles that constitute the result of the 1960s travel experience in the Soviet Union, which have so far appeared only on the third page of La Stampa, the cultural-literary operation of Guido Piovene is outlined, perfectly reflecting the programmatic intention to conduct a wide-ranging investigation into Soviet society in the early 1960s, providing a useful comparison with the condition of the western world and overcoming the appearance and conventionality of preconceived ideas (by the visitor) and prepackaged information (from part of the Soviet administrative system). In his reportage Piovene is able to activate the dynamic functions that constitute the main lines of his literary writing: the inclusion of the landscape in the narrative context and the deep internal investigation conducted on the characters, in a balance between inside and outside, between observation and analysis, between reality and dream. The result is a corpus of articles that constitute an important cultural document of that historical period but at the same time another great literary reportage by one of the most refined journalist-writers of the Italian twentieth century.

scholarly journals Kant as the German Theorist of the French Revolution: the Origin of a Dogma

2021 ◽  
Vol 40 (3) ◽  
pp. 63-92
Author(s):  
Alexei N. Krouglov
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Social Democrats ◽  
Historical School ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The French Revolution

The origins in Marxist-Leninist philosophy of the dogma about Kant as the German theorist of the French Revolution requires some analysis and I explain how a phrase of Marx later gave rise to the dogma. I first look at the sources that influenced K. Marx’s view of Kant and the French Revolution, above all С. F. Bachmann and H. Heine. I then examine the form in which Kant’s philosophy was compared with the French Revolution in the non-Bolshevik milieu before the 1917 Russian Revolution (P. Ya. Chaadayev, V. S. Mezhevich, the Dostoyevsky brothers, V. F. Ern, Archbishop Nikanor, P. A. Florensky). Then I look at how Marx’s phrase influenced Russian social democrats and specifically the Bolsheviks (G. V. Plekhanov, V. I. Lenin, V. M. Shulyatikov). I cite the example of the discussion triggered by a letter of Z. Ya. Beletsky concerning the third volume of The History of Philosophy (1943) to demonstrate the non-canonical status of Marx’s thesis on Kant and the French Revolution in the Soviet Union in the first half of the twentieth century. Finally, the first Soviet edition of Kant’s works in the 1960s canonised Marx’s phrase and gave the exact source. The reason why it took so long to give chapter and verse for the Marx quotation is that it occurs as early as 1842 in “The Philosophical Manifesto of the Historical School of Law” which belongs to the idealistic period of the early Marx.

Ten Theories in Search of Reality: The Prediction of Soviet Behavior in the Social Sciences

1958 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-365 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Bell
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Soviet Rule ◽  
Human History ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Complete Bibliography ◽  
The Way

Surely, more has been written about the Russian Revolution and the ensuing forty years of Soviet rule than about any comparable episode in human history. The bibliography of items on the French Revolution occupies, it is said, one wall of the Bibliothéque Nationale. A complete bibliography on the Soviet Union—which is yet to be compiledand may never be because of the geometric rate at which it multiplies—would probably make that earlier cenotaph to scholarship shrink the way in which the earlier tombs diminished before the great complex at Karnak.

Blackness the Color of Red: Negotiating Race at the US Legation in Riga, Latvia, 1922–33

2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (4) ◽  
pp. 832-852 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxim Matusevich
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
The United States ◽  
Primary Sources ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Socialist State ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Job Opportunities ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Usa

This article draws on the archival records of the United States Consulate in Riga, Latvia, during the interwar period and other primary sources to reconstruct the rites of passage by African American citizens of the USA traveling to and from the Soviet Union. In the absence of established diplomatic relations between the USA and the USSR (until 1933), the US legation in Riga served as a popular entry point for American tourists and contract workers attracted by the mystique and job opportunities of the first socialist state. The consular records of the US legation in Riga contain a wealth of materials related to some of these travels. In the course of formal interviews with consular officials, US citizens, including the minority of black visitors, revealed remarkable details of their Soviet odysseys. The archival records bring to life a unique story of ‘race tourism’ by African Americans to the first socialist state and thus provide a rare insight into the early Soviet society and its accepted attitudes toward racial difference; and such accounts are usually juxtaposed with an eviscerating critique of North American and Western racism during the interwar period.

Cassation of Criminal Cases from Moscow Province Courts and Tribunals, 1921–1928

2014 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 146-168 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Newman
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Soviet Period ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Criminal Cases ◽  
Judicial Decisions ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Case Files ◽  
The Law

Although students of the Soviet period have long been fascinated with criminality, few works have studied courts and common criminals on the basis of trial records, especially during the nep. Aside from scholarly treatments of show trials, the reasoning behind judicial decisions and criminal pleas has been left to the imagination of Sovietologists. This gap is addressed by examining case files involving the primary form of appeal available to Soviet convicts: cassation. After detailing the evolution of Soviet cassation from its origins in the French Revolution and contextualizing its place in the Soviet justice system, this article embarks on a close reading of convicts’ pleas, prosecutors’ reports, and judges’ written decisions in cassational cases. Cassational appeals are examined to determine how different seats of power within the judiciary sparred over verdicts. Judicial decisions of cassational cases are cross-referenced with legal codes and legislation to determine how Soviet judges applied the law, particularly when considering the social backgrounds of appellants. From the outlook of criminals themselves, the wording of their appeals is analyzed to determine how they understood the law, Soviet society, and what they thought they needed to say to gain redemption. Ultimately, this paper explores how individuals brought before courts understood Soviet power and justice through the lens of criminal appeals during the infancy of the Soviet Union.

A Sacred Space Is Never Empty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Smolkin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Experiment

When the Bolsheviks set out to build a new world in the wake of the Russian Revolution, they expected religion to die off. Soviet power used a variety of tools—from education to propaganda to terror—to turn its vision of a Communist world without religion into reality. Yet even with its monopoly on ideology and power, the Soviet Communist Party never succeeded in overcoming religion and creating an atheist society. This book presents the first history of Soviet atheism from the 1917 revolution to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The book argues that to understand the Soviet experiment, we must make sense of Soviet atheism. It shows how atheism was reimagined as an alternative cosmology with its own set of positive beliefs, practices, and spiritual commitments. Through its engagements with religion, the Soviet leadership realized that removing religion from the “sacred spaces” of Soviet life was not enough. Then, in the final years of the Soviet experiment, Mikhail Gorbachev—in a stunning and unexpected reversal—abandoned atheism and reintroduced religion into Soviet public life. The book explores the meaning of atheism for religious life, for Communist ideology, and for Soviet politics.

New Materials for Studying Preparation and Staging of the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in 1957

2018 ◽  
pp. 550-563
Author(s):  
Daniel Sawert ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Central Asia ◽  
Trade Unions ◽  
Soviet Society ◽  
Unique Event ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Archival Documents ◽  
Cultural Standards ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Local Traditions

The article assesses archival materials on the festival movement in the Soviet Union in 1950s, including its peak, the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students held in 1957 in Moscow. Even now the Moscow festival is seen in the context of international cultural politics of the Cold War and as a unique event for the Soviet Union. The article is to put the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students in the context of other youth festivals held in the Soviet Union. The festivals of 1950s provided a field for political, social, and cultural experiments. They also have been the crucible of a new way of communication and a new language of design. Furthermore, festivals reflected the new (althogh relative) liberalism in the Soviet Union. This liberalism, first of all, was expressed in the fact that festivals were organized by the Komsomol and other Soviet public and cultural organisations. Taking the role of these organisations into consideration, the research draws on the documents of the Ministry of culture, the All-Russian Stage Society, as well as personal documents of the artists. Furthermore, the author has gained access to new archive materials, which have until now been part of no research, such as documents of the N. Krupskaya Central Culture and Art Center and of the central committees of various artistic trade unions. These documents confirm the hypothesis that the festivals provided the Komsomol and the Communist party with a means to solve various social, educational, and cultural problems. For instance, in Central Asia with its partiarchal society, the festivals focuced on female emancipation. In rural Central Asia, as well as in other non-russian parts of the Soviet Union, there co-existed different ways of celebrating. Local traditions intermingled with cultural standards prescribed by Moscow. At the first glance, the modernisation of the Soviet society was succesful. The youth acquired political and cultural level that allowed the Soviet state to compete with the West during the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students. During the festival, however, it became apparent, that the Soviet cultural scheme no longer met the dictates of times. Archival documents show that after the Festival cultural and party officials agreed to ease off dogmatism and to tolerate some of the foreign cultural phenomena.

Staging the Folk: Choreographic Issues of National Representation

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 222-246
Author(s):  
Anthony Shay
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
French Revolution ◽  
Folk Dance ◽  
Ethnic Representation ◽  
Nation States ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Classical Ballet ◽  
Dance Companies

This article looks at the multiple ways that folk dance has been staged in both the nineteenth century when character or national (the two terms were used interchangeably) dance was widely used in classical ballet, and the twentieth in which Igor Moiseyev created a new genre of dance related to it. The ballet masters that created character dance for ballet often created ballroom dances based on folk origin, but that would be suitable for the urban population. This popularity of national dance was the result of the burgeoning of romantic nationalism that swept Europe after the French Revolution. Beginning in the 1930s with Igor Moiseyev founding the first professional ‘folk dance’ company for the Soviet Union, nation states across the world established large, state-supported folk dance companies for purposes of national and ethnic representation that dominated the stages of the world for the second half of the twentieth century. These staged versions of folk dance, were, I argue an extension of nineteenth century national/character dance because their founding directors, like Igor Moiseyev, came from the era when ballet dancers were trained in that genre.

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