Historians Flashcards
Richard Pipes
- anti-communist
- totalitarian school of thought
- survivor of the Holocaust
What does Pipes mainly argue about the Russian Revolution?
Lenin and the Bolsheviks took power by force
When did Pipes begin research?
His research was primarily shaped in the 1950s when the totalitarian school of thought was the dominant explanation for the Russian Revolution
When did the Revisionist school of thought emerge?
1980s
Whats the totalitarian position on the RR?
The Bolsheviks and the Soviets took over the Russian government bob force
Whats the revisionist position on the Russian Revolution?
the revolution was legitimised by the rising number of working-class Russians
What was the historical context of Richard Pipes’ scholarship?
- survivor of Holocaust
- Cold War
- Communist government in Poland where he was born
Sheila Fitzpatrick
- belongs to Revisionist school
What was the historical context of Sheila Fitzpatrick’s scholarship?
- the social movements of the 1960s
- the culture of Britain and the USSR
context 1945-1962
- tension between US and USSR
- war in Korea
- McCarthyism
context 1962-1972
- Cold War winding down
- social movements
Liberal / Conservative historians
- Pipes
- Robert Service
- Martin Malia
What do liberal or conservative historians claim?
the Russian Revolution failed because its ideology was deeply flawed
Orlando Figes
Figes argues from the revisionist pov, but is fairly conservative in his political persuasion (not far from Pipes), he re-emphasises the importance of key individuals.
How does Figes address criticisms of early revisionist accounts?
He re-emphasizes the importance of key individuals like Lenin, putting the ‘leaders back into history’
The fall of the former USSR in 1991 has also…
drastically changed the historiographical landscape
What is Robert Service’s view?
He offers a revised understanding of the totalitarian view