1st Edition
The Russian Revolution of 1917 - Memory and Legacy
The way in which the Russian Revolution of October 1917 is regarded and commemorated has changed considerably over time, and is a contentious subject, well demonstrated by the absence of any official commemoration in Russia in 2017, a huge contrast to the very large celebrations which took place in Soviet times. This book, which brings together a range of leading historians of the Russian Revolution – from both Russia and the West, and both younger and older historians – explores the changes in the way in which the October 1917 Revolution is commemorated, and also examines fundamental questions about what the Russian Revolution - indeed what any revolution – was anyway. Among issues covered are how Soviet and Western historians diverged in their early assessments of what the Revolution achieved, how the period studied by historians has recently extended both much earlier before 1917 and much later afterwards, and how views of the Revolution within the Soviet Union changed over time from acceptance of the official Communist Party interpretation to more independent viewpoints. Overall, the book provides a major reassessment of one of the twentieth century’s most important events.
List of Contributors
List of Figures
List of Tables
Preface
Carol Leonard and Daniel Orlovsky
I. Introduction: Interpreting the Russian Revolution of 1917
1. Daniel Orlovsky
2. Jurej Petrov
II. Selected Western Revisionist Interpretations and their Critics
3. Sheila Fitzpatrick, “How to End the Revolution: A problem for revolutionaries, their successors and historians”
4. Ronald Suny, “Lessons of October” (previously published)[1]
5. Robert Service, “Soviet History Framework for Assessing the Russian Revolution” (previously published)[2]
6. James Ryan, “The Politics of National History: Russia’s Ruling Elite and the Centenary of 1917”
III. The Major Soviet-era and Post-Soviet Russian Perspectives
7. Vitaly Tikhonov, “Soviet historiography of the Revolution of 1917: Between historical politics and scholarly research”
8. Vladimir Prokhorovich Buldakov, “Post-Soviet Writing about the October Revolution”
9. Tatiana Filippova, “Culture in Revolution – Revolution in Culture”
IV. New Approaches
“The Leap Not the Landing”[3]
10. Mark Steinberg, “The Revolution We have Lost: 1917 as Future Possibility”
11. Andy Willlimott, “Perestroika byta and the Urban Communes: From the floors of the old house a new way of life will arise”
12. Vladislav Aksenov, “Psychological and Emotional Experience in the Russian Revolution”
13. Elizabeth Wood, “Gender Images in the Russian Revolution: Backward Women and Forward Men in Iconic Perspective, 1919-1923”
Strategic Space During the Revolution
14. Lara Douds, “Government in revolution: Power, ideology and practice across 1917”
15. Carol Leonard, Leonid Borodkin, Roman Konchakov, Maria Karpenko and Zafar Nazarov, “Railroads and Strikes in Russia (1894-1904): Railroad building in times of Revolution”
Continuum of Crisis
16. Vladimir Mau and Carol Leonard, “Revolutions and Times of Crisis”
Impact Assessment
17. Robert A Rosenstone, “Two Octobers”
18. Jack Goldstone, “Hitler, Stalin, or Roosevelt? Which Faces of the 1930s will we see in the 2020s?”
Conclusion
Carol Leonard and Daniel Orlovsky
[1] Ronald Grigor Suny, "Lessons of October," Science & Society 81, no. 4 (2017): 587-594.
[2] Robert Service, Penguin History of Modern Russia From Tsarism to the Twenty-First Century (Penguin, 2015), xxiii to xlii.
[3] Quoted in Mark Steinberg Chapter 10.
Biography
Carol S. Leonard is Director of the Center for Russian Studies, International Laboratory: Russia's Historical Legacies and Regional Development at the Presidential Academy of the National Economy and Public Administration, Moscow
Daniel Orlovsky is Professor of History at Southern Methodist University
Jurej Petrov is Director of the Institute of Russian History at the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
