Interpretations of the Revolutions Flashcards
Quote Smith (Revisionist)
‘The collapse of the autocracy was rooted in a crisis of modernisation’
Figes on 1905 Revolution (Revisionist)
“‘although the regime succeeded in restoring order, it could not hope to put the clock back. 1905 had changed society for good. Many of the younger comrades of 1905 were the elders of 1917. They were inspired by its memory and instructed by its lessons”.
‘Bloody Sunday’
it was their faith in the Tsar that was riddled by bullets on that day. They came to realise that they could win their rights only by struggle
Trotsky on the 1905 Revolution
“The events of 1905 were a prologue to the two revolutions of 1917, that of February and that of October”.
Pipes (Liberal)
‘flaws [of Tsarist] that proved fatal under the pressure generated by World War I’
Figes (revisionist) on the importance of WW1
‘The First World War was a titanic test… and one that Tsarism failed in a singular and catastrophic way”.
C. Hill (Western Marxist historian)
“War accelerated the development of revolutionary crises, but their deep-lying causes could not be wished away in times of peace”.
Wood (revisionist) on Nicholas II’s actions
“The tsar foolishly added to his own isolation by assuming personal command of the Russian army in 1915. His unhelpful presence at military headquarters in Mogilev left the conduct of affairs in the capital…in the hands of his neurotic wife - contemptuously known by the public as nemka (‘the German Woman’) - and the abominable Rasputin”.
Smith (Revisionist) on the February Revolution
“When the February Revolution came, it was not as the result of military defeat, or even war weariness, but as the result of the collapse of public support in the government”.
Wood (revisionist) on the downfall of ‘Bloody Nicholas’
“It was caused by the spontaneous upsurge of the politically radicalized masses”.
The 1905 Revolution had shown…
that the Soviets were organs of armed uprising and the embryo of a new, revolutionary power
Smith on the link between war and February revolution
‘For the reluctant revolutionaries of the Provisional Government the overthrow of the tsar was an act of national self-preservation driven by the need to bring victory in war’
Service on the inevitability of socialist rule
“If Lenin had never existed, a socialist government would probably have ruled Russia by the end of [1917].”
Ulam (liberal) on Bolshevik seizure of power
“The Bolsheviks did not seize power, they picked it up”.
