Russian revolution extra reading Flashcards
1
Q
Hitlerism and Stalinism: Comparisons and Explanations say:
A
- During the Cold War era, it became commonplace to bracket them together under the label ‘totalitarian’, a term often criticised by Western academics, although frequently adopted in post - soviet Russia
- The term ‘totalitarian’ in his view is appropriate only in the sense that the leaders were concerned with the ‘totality’ of society. Neither Hitler nor Stalin would have been able to survive in power without a considerable degree of popular support. And whilst admitting that there are no statistics to prove this, nevertheless, he says, there is considerable evidence of voluntary participation in the system, despite periods of unpopularity
- Both were imposed from at least indirectly, the result of the First World War-which left both Germany the Soviet Union as international pariahs: Germany felt humiliated by defeat whilst Soviet Russia was seen by the victorious powers as a source of subversion. Another common factor was the absence of a functioning parliamentary or capitalist system. None existed in the Soviet Union (skipped stage 4) whilst the parliamentary and market systems Weimar Germany had already become paralysed by economic collapse at the end of the 1920s. At the height of the slump, a third of the workforce was unemployed and in the German elections of November 1932, the Nazi and Communist party votes amounted to 52% of all votes cast. In economic and social crisis, Overy finds it unsurprising that many people in both countries should welcome a ‘saviour’ or ‘redeemer’. The rise of the two dictators, he says, was not historically preordained but was nevertheless intelligible
- In Russia’s case, the problem related to large ethnic minorities inside the country. Stalin, like Hitler, sometimes treated these minorities with extreme brutality; but this, in Overy’s view, didn’t make him a ‘Russian nationalist’. Stalin’s purges (from which Russians also suffered) were political, not ethnic motivated by the fear (real or imagined) of a security threat. However, Stalin did much to promote the literacy of the minorities such as giving them, for the first time, books and newspapers in their own languages
- Another obvious difference between Nazism and Stalinism is that the Bolsheviks abolished capitalism and the Nazis did not. Overy argues, however, that the difference is less clear cut than it seems, since in Nazi Germany the state acquired an increasing control over the economy, especially in the run up to war. State ownership spread rapidly; and in both countries formal markets were suppressed and private consumption restrained. The Soviet Union was not demonstrably socialist, whilst Germany was not conventionally capitalist
- Overy stresses that the two regimes were important in fundamentally different ways as Soviet communism was intended as an instrument for human progress whereas Nazism was intended to further the progress of a particular people
2
Q
Who wrote Hitler and Stalinism:
A
Benn
3
Q
What does The February Revolution. In A People’s History of the Russian Revolution say:
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The slogan ‘Bread!’, others could now be heard: ‘Down with the autocracy!’,
‘Down with the war!’
4
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Who wrote The February Revolution. In A People’s History of the Russian Revolution:
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Faulkner
5
Q
What does The Russian Revolution and the German Social Democratic Party in 1917 say:
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- The fall of Nicholas II in March, 1917, robbed patriotic German socialists of the chief symbol of evil which they had used to mobilize the fighting spirit of the German proletariat. The most immediate effect of the March revolution, therefore, was to accentuate the differences that already existed between the prowar and antiwar factions within the Social Democratic Party of Germany (S.P.D.). In April the antiwar “minority” socialists formally seceded from the mother party, creating the Independent Social Democratic Party (U.S.P.D.), and winning the support of about one-third of the
socialists of Germany. Within the U.S.P.D. the extremely radical Spartacus League, led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, constituted an autonomous left wing. Though exceedingly vocal, the Spartacists could claim only a few thousand members throughout the Reich - German radicals did their limited best to rally the German people around the slogan “without revolution, no peace”
- The independent socialists were less revolutionary than the Spartacists. Wanting peace more than proletarian power, independent socialist leaders saw in the March revolution an important expression of the desire for peace in Russia. Instead of calling upon the German people to revolt, Independents demanded that the existing German
Government issue an unambiguous declaration that it wanted “peace without annexations.” - Lenin’s return to Petrograd from Switzerland. Though Paul Levi, a German Spartacist, and Fritz Platten, a Swiss socialist, both tried to persuade the German ambassador to Switzerland to arrange the trip, it was a Russian-born German majority socialist, Alexander Helphand, who was instrumental in securing the desired result. Better known by the pseudonym of “Parvus,” Helphand (or Gelfand) was by his own admission a supporter of the German war effort and a war profiteer.’ Soon after the March revolution Parvus proposed to Matthias Erzberger, influential Center Party Reichstag deputy, and to Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, German Ambassador to Denmark, that the German Government facilitate Lenin’s return
- Matthias Erzberger, is usually credited (or blamed) for it, the peace resolution was inspired by majority socialists, who were motivated by a desire to bridge the chasm that separated Berlin from Petrograd
- The mutinies of sailors in the German fleet in June, July and August, 1917, provoked by dissatisfaction with living conditions on shipboard, were led by men who sympathized with the Russian revolution, and who hoped for peace
6
Q
Who wrote The Russian Revolution and the German Social Democratic Party in 1917:
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Snell
7
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What does The Russian Revolution and the German Social Democratic Party in 1917 say:
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- A delegation of Russian moderate left-wing Soviet members ventured to Western
Europe in the summer of 1917 to rally support for reuniting the Second International and ending the war. British and French labor leaders and Western governments refused to support the peace initiative altogether. Likewise, peace attempts initiated by the Pope also failed. The failure of these moderate socialists to make any progress towards ending the war gave more credence to the Bolshevik argument for the necessity of a
unilateral Russian-German peace agreement. The failure of the delegation “contributed to and symbolizes the failure of the moderates in 1917.” - Not that other Europeans involved in the bloodbath of the trenches or the sufferings at home needed external examples to tell them things were bad. In Austria-Hungary, flour rations were slashed in half, resulting in strikes around Vienna on January 14, 1918. The strikes spread throughout the Hapsburg Empire and around 700,000 workers of various ethnic backgrounds took part in the strikes, which lasted ten days. Early the next month, there was a naval mutiny that lasted for three days: sailors flew the red flag, demanded a peace without annexations and killed an officer
- Revolution gripped Hungary, particularly Budapest, and Austrian socialists seized a degree of power in the erstwhile capital Vienna. In March 1919, the Hungarian government was turned over to the Communist Bela Kun. June 1919 saw the emergence of a Slovak Soviet Republic, which quickly “issued a number of decrees nationalizing industrial plants, banks, large estates and other private property. It ordered the payment of old age and disability benefits. Everybody who worked was eligible to vote.” Within a few months, both radical experiments were suppressed by
reactionary armies with the help of moderate Social Democrats - The Socialist vote rose from 18 percent in 1913 to 31 percent in 1919 in Italy
- A key cause against socialism across Europe especially in the UK was nationalism
8
Q
Who wrote The Russian Revolution and the German Social Democratic Party in 1917:
A
Pelz
9
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What does The February Revolution and the Russian Army say:
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- This belief is based on the fact that in the early press reports describing the street demonstrations of the workers and the mutiny of the troops in Petrograd, and in the historical accounts which were subsequently published and widely circulated (such as Leon Trotsky’s History of the Revolution), the names of the crack Guard regiments figured prominently. In these accounts one reads that a mutiny broke out in the Volynski and Pavlovski regiments, units of the 2nd and 3rd Infantry Divisions of the Guard which had won great distinction in the Napoleonic wars; that the whole Preobrazhenski regiment, one of the two oldest regiments of the ist Infantry Division of the Guard formed by Peter the Great, “was marching [in mutiny] down the street . . . without a single officer”; and that Voroshilov, one of Lenin’s and Trotsky’s close associates at the time, “led the Izmailovski Guard Regiment [another unit of the ist Infantry Division] in street battles.”
- On the fourth day the rioting elements were joined by mutinous soldiers of the 4th Company (1,500 strong) of the Pavlovski replacement regiment
- On March 12, the fifth day of the rioting, the capital was in the hands of an armed mob which recognized no authority except its own. The mob set fire to government buildings, seized the arsenal, and threw open the prison gates, setting criminal
offenders free. Policemen, as well as many officers, were disarmed,
beaten, and occasionally killed - Speaking of revolutionary propaganda and the morale in the Army, Brusilov wrote: “[During the winter of 1916-1917] as before, the drafts sent me were poorly trained and their minds were poisoned by propaganda, but at the front by dint of hard work, all that, was soon put aright. . I was convinced that with careful preparation on the same lines as that of the preceding year, and with the increased materiel that I now had, we could not but attain a striking success in I9I7. . . In any case, the discipline was still excellent at that moment [winter of 1916-1917], and had we taken the offensive there was no doubt that the troops would have done their duty
as they did in 1916.”
10
Q
Who wrote The February Revolution and the Russian Army:
A
Nikolaieff
11
Q
What does The Problem of Power in the February Revolution of 1917 in Russia say:
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- Only four days after his return to Russia from exile, Lenin wrote an article entitled “Dual Power,” in which he stated: “The fundamental problem in any revolution is the problem of state power. Unless this problem is understood, there can be no conscious participation in this revolution, not to speak of its leadership.”
- The first stage demonstrated the limitations of the workers which had obviously reached the saturation point on 25 February without the active participation of the soldiers. This became clear when government resorted to the rigorous suppressive measure on 26 February. But this policy backfired, driving the soldiers who had hitherto vacilitated between military discipline and sympathy with the demonstrators into a position where they had no choice but to shoot for the regime or against it. The soldiers’ insurrection was sudden and explosive, causing all high governmental machinery in Petrograd to collapse rapidly. Nevertheless, the insurgents could not form a revolutionary by themselves. They had to look for leadership elsewhere as a solution to the problem of power
12
Q
Who wrote The Problem of Power in the February Revolution of 1917 in Russia:
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HASEGAWA
13
Q
What does Carr say:
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- Carr lived through both the first world war which the security of pre-war levels had been scarcely imaginable since 1914 through working in the foreign office and through being a junior member to study the Russian problem, he witnessed the second of the upheaval which he experienced
- It was the first attack against capitalism
