The Downfall of the Russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires and the Monarchist Counter-Revolution

The aim of this article is to offer a comparative analysis of the revolutionary dissolution of the Russian and the Austro-Hungarian Empires, and also to study the process of revolution-counter-revolution, in particular, the origins, classification, and results of the monarchist counter-revolution witnessed in the territories of the former Empires. The monarchist counter-revolution in Central and Eastern Europe emerged in these countries (Russia, Hungary, Finland) precisely as a response to Soviet power and Bolshevism, as an ideology and political practice. It would not have had a serious basis during the democratic republican period of the revolution that preceded Bolshevism. The factors involved in the emergence of a monarchist counter-revolution include the following: the existence of strong monarchist traditions in society, the presence of charismatic military and political leaders who professed monarchical views (for example, Lieutenant-General Baron Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim in Finland, Lieutenant-General Pavlo Skoropadsky in Ukraine, Major-General Pyotr Krasnov in the Don, Vice-Admiral Alexander Kolchak in Russia, Vice-Admiral Miklós Horthy in Hungary), and, finally, international military and diplomatic support from neighboring monarchies, for instance, the German Empire and the Kingdom of Sweden in the case of Finland, the German Empire and the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the cases of Ukraine and Don, and we can also consider, in a certain sense, the Kingdom of Romania in the case of Hungary. The monarchist counter-revolution developed at the periphery of each state (for example, in Finland, it was in Vaasa, in Hungary – Szeged, in Russia – Omsk), since the capitals were captured by the Bolsheviks. Admittedly, the monarchist counter-revolution was defeated in Russia, but, in Finland and Hungary, its victory had only a provisional character, since both Kingdoms existed without their kings due to Allied pressure.

Repetition: Thinking Between G.W. F. Hegel’s Philosophy of History (1837) and Karl Marx’s The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852)

Taking its cue from the untimely paradoxes manifesting themselves in some of the most visible instances of Hegel’s and Marx’s reception in the twentieth century, this essay proceeds to explore the ground between the two thinkers with particular reference to their philosophico-historical grasp of repetition. After a number of preliminary observations on the ideological subtext involved in Marx’s reference to Hegel in the Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and the temporality their intertextual conjuncture stages, I focus on four major complications that attend the comparison of Hegelian and Marxian notions of repetition, as well as on their correlation to the historical events of Revolution, Counter-Revolution and Restoration. I conclude with some reflections on the “exit strategies” Marx and Hegel adopt vis-à-vis the specter of iteration as a sign of submission to the gravitational pull of the past upon the present and future.