Topic > Interpreting the Russian Revolution: Perspectives and Debates

Undoubtedly, the Russian Revolution was one of the most significant developments of modern times. It gave rise to an ideology that inspired both hatred and hope around the world, profoundly shaping international politics for more than seven decades. While the importance of the revolution is not a controversial point, the question of why it occurred and the motivations behind it are. Since the origin of the revolution is highly contested, a wide range of books, memoirs and documents are available, offering their own perspective on the events that occurred in 1917, which is not surprising considering the significance of the Revolution. By the end of the 1980s, multiple schools of thought or broad traditions had emerged, including Soviet, liberal, and revisionist perspectives. The interpretations of many writers fit perfectly into these trends. In particular, the historians, Richard Pipes who evokes the liberal perspective, Sheila Fitzpatrick the revisionist and Christopher Hill who describes a Western vision of the Soviet vision. By 1917 the bond between the Tsar and the majority of the Russian people had broken. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayThe Soviet interpretation is at odds with itself. It was founded and promoted primarily by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union until the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Despite this, the Soviet Union produced little to nothing of what we would consider real history. not a few valuable contributions to history were produced in the form of primary sources, during the first decade of the Soviet regime such as memoirs and collections of documents. Following the large plethora of documentation, Soviet historians intended to launch ambitious research projects; thinking that they would be the first Marxists to chronicle history in all seriousness, having the power to support the newly established state and the abundance of recently opened state archives. However, this was little more than a pipe dream once Stalinism emerged, dampening the revival of any real historical study. Under the Stalinist state, historians were intimidated or forced to merge their studies towards the party line or even to rewrite their work entirely; this was the case at first when talking about the Soviet revolution, correctly describing the party struggles that had preceded it, and above all within the Bolshevik party. All this had to be treated in a way that justified Stalin as the all-powerful ruler of Bolshevik Russia.0 The campaign by which historians had delved into the archives found a mortal enemy in the secrecy that prevented any access to the documentation. Historians could not be allowed access to investigate because free inquiry was incompatible with falsification. Finally, all chronicles of the party and the revolution, even those written in the Stalinist spirit, were banned at all levels of teaching, from rural party speeches to academic seminars. Students were allowed to draw from a single source, the CPSU History Short Course, an unusual assortment of Stalinist myths and constructs, written or inspired by the man himself. Carr, despite being a Western historian, made a concerted effort to fill such a knowledge gap absent in the Soviet position; Furthermore, in doing so, he provided an intriguing insight into the revolution itself. Carr was alive in 1917; not only did he see events in Russia from the perspective of a contemporary, but as a socialist he saw them in a very positive light. As part of his research on the revolution he was not at all in a "commanding position... The historian wasinstead in procession with everyone"1. In terms of his lines of inquiry and the narratives he constructed through his research, Carr focused heavily on the state, not the nation and the society behind it. He focused primarily on the top of the state hierarchy, to the point of stating that his History of the Soviet Union is primarily a history of its ruling group. In part, this is due to his rather basic approach. Whenever he refers to developments in the social context, his reference is accompanied by an analysis of what also happens in the ruling group. He tends to see society as the object of policies made and decreed from above. This leads to the thought that he considers the State as the creator of society rather than society as the creator of the State. This approach certainly caused him some difficulties as a historian of a revolution, since a revolution is the collapse of the State and demonstrates that ultimately it is society that creates the State, and not vice versa. He approaches revolutionary upheaval with the mind of an academic scholar interested in constitutional conceptions and governmental mechanisms. Along the lines of his top-down perspective, Carr is argued to have had an overtly strong affliction with the role of Leninism. This is particularly notable through its presentation of the figure of Lenin dominating and overshadowing not only that of the Revolution, but of the Bolshevik Party and the Soviet state as a whole: “it was Lenin who “destroy[ed] the picture [ accepted]”2. Carr's blind affliction does not end there, in his work he focuses on the Lenin who builds a state that evokes his admiration, not on the one who overthrows a state. Carr viewed the story of Lenin the Revolutionary as the necessary prelude to Lenin the Statesman, and ironically simply overlooks the fact that Lenin, at the height of his power, still desired the brutal vision of a classless society. He often quotes Lenin's speeches and writings, ignoring statements that clearly indicated Lenin's resentment towards the masses, including both peasants and workers. Carr's point of view, therefore, was somewhat contradictory: while emphasizing the inevitability of the revolution, he focused above all on the strength of Lenin's personality, unable to resist Lenin's attraction and magnetism, which blinded his socialist principles which they should have helped him draw a conclusion regarding the true cause of the Revolution. Basically the approach interpretation is that people were galvanized into action by a party leader who showed them how to reclaim what was rightfully theirs. This accords with what the future regime wanted as an image of its origins. The best way to preserve the Bolshevik Party's reputation would have been to present it as strong, in control and ready to act. On the other hand, there had to be some emphasis on his defensive actions, otherwise the Bolsheviks might try to overthrow the popular February revolution. It would be more effective, in this case, to present the bourgeoisie as the aggressor and the Bolsheviks as those taking rapid defensive action through a bold strategy initiated by Lenin. This also had to be emphasized, since the Soviet state needed praise on behalf of its founder. The official Soviet biography of, therefore, highly values ​​his genius as a leader of the masses and his abilities as a wise and fearless strategist. From the 1940s until the early 1960s most Western historians of the Russian Revolution adhered to the "liberal" perspective. . Cold War politics and the ideals of American political science played a rolefundamental in shaping the liberal vision. It is politically conservative and fundamentally hostile to Marxist theory. They perceive politics, rather than class conflict, as a means of providing answers. The topic, '...identifiable men pursuing their own advantages' built the Russian Revolution'3 not only highlights the liberals' take on Marxist theory and the motivations behind it, but analyzes the real motives behind the most prolific figures of the movement. This view can be further simplified as history “from above”. The wrong decisions of Tsar Nicholas II and Kerensky, alongside Lenin's ferocious determination, are the foundations of the liberal argument; rather than Marxist notions of class and social conflict. Richard Pipes argues: '...the 'masses' neither needed nor wanted a revolution; the only interested group was the intelligentsia. The emphasis on alleged popular discontent and class conflict derives more from ideological preconceptions than from concrete facts, namely from the discredited Marxist theory that political developments are always and everywhere driven by class conflict. in their actions and requests. They were passively ignorant of the true nature of the revolution and blindly followed the Bolsheviks. Building further on this, John Keep argued that the October “Revolution” was essentially the Bolsheviks' clever exploitation of anarchy for their own ends. While Keep offers more of an exploration of lower-class aspirations than more traditional liberal accounts, he conveys that the masses were in fact "involved in major events over which they had no control." In Pipes's book The Concise History of the Russian Revolution, his general argument is that the October Revolution was a “classic coup d'état, the seizure of governmental authority by a small group, carried out, in deference to democratic professions of the time, with a spectacle of mass participation but with almost no mass involvement.” But to deconstruct this sort of rather broad statement, he divides his account into three different sections. The first, “The Agony of the Old Regime,” offers a description of Russia under the Tsar and the people within the nation struggling for change. Intrinsically, the section focused on the anachronism of the Tsar, his inherent traditions and values, and his omnipotent autocratic hold. He goes further to state that the monarchy that ruled Russia for centuries had run its course and was no longer able to cope with the pressures of modernism. It failed because it was unable to establish a system in which the peasants and the intelligentsia could play a role. Peasants made up the majority of the Russian population but, for the most part, were unfamiliar with the state and remained largely aloof, while the intelligentsia adopted an approach of harsh opposition and discontent towards Russia's monarchical rulers and the reforms introduced by them. serve as peaceful solutions. The second argument Pipes advanced was “Bolsheviks conquer Russia,” which worked to chronicle Lenin's rise and outline the October coup itself. He continues to describe the Bolshevik Party as the creation of Lenin, who “conceived it in his own image and, overcoming all opposition from within and without, kept it on the course he had charted.” revolution as a democratic movement representing the interests of the people, Pipes forcefully argued the opposite, writing: “The events leading to the overthrow of the Provisional Government were not spontaneous but carefully planned and staged by a tightly organized conspiracy.”7 His argument is supported by the grip ofpower by Lenin and control of Russia with very little resistance. Revisionist As a consequence of the Vietnam War, the new left came to fruition. The movement has given rise to new perspectives, different from the path of Western thought so synonymous in our society. The libertarian perspective taken by historians such as Edward Acton, seemed to surpass Soviet and liberal interpretations of the October Revolution and instead focused on the role of the masses; Acton writes: “The goals for which they (the masses) fought were their own.” Although many of the hypotheses made by some libertarian historians were based on circumstantial evidence that were later rejected by liberal and Soviet historians, the attention that libertarians had regarding the sociological impact played by the masses laying the foundations for which the revisionist argument took hold . The revisionist school of thought is divided into two distinct strands. First, the Bolsheviks were much more attuned to their popular demands than previously thought. Secondly, their organization was much less structured and effective. Revisionists emphasize reconsideration of the way political power operates. They refer to the idea that where, historians such as Carr, convey that power is a process exercised downwards by leaders, such as Lenin, his Bolshevik party; Revisionists argue that the Bolsheviks were largely subject to influence and pressure from below. The practical effect of this new perspective is that the Bolsheviks are now seen as much more in line with the more immediate desires of large sections of the population. Instead of forcing the pace of the revolution by exploiting popular grievances, they were adapting their policies to allow them to move with a revolutionary current that already existed. The people, therefore, had a vital influence on revolutionary events. armed revolt." Fitzpatrick reflects here his disagreement with the traditional Western/liberal perspective, which often places great weight on the organizational strength and internal discipline of the Bolshevik Party, serving as one of the main reasons for the victory of the revolution. Fitzpatrick, however, counters by arguing that Lenin's insistence on repudiating the Provisional Government and his decision to embrace the "uncompromising radicalism of the far left of the political spectrum" meant that the Bolsheviks would ultimately be seen by the population as the the only non-corrupt party. from “coalition and compromise politics”. Furthermore, little in the way of party discipline existed during the period when most Bolsheviks were in exile, in prison or humiliated in Petrograd. revolutionary crowd,” leaving the party in a perfect position when the opportunity later arose for Lenin and his followers. The lack of organization did not matter as the Bolsheviks were in a stronger position than their rivals, the Mensheviks, who had sacrificed much of their credibility in 1917 by soliciting support for the policies of the Provisional Government. Instead of being highly centralized and conspiratorial, the Reds were more democratic and decentralized. The essential point is that they have adapted to the objectives of various sectors of society rather than creating their demands. The centralized structure would have been a disadvantage in the adaptation process. The coup itself was carried out by Trotsky and the Military Revolutionary Committee, in the name of the Soviet. But this was not a facade or a pretence as democracy. Due to the expansive rise of revolutionary sentiment in Russia before 1917, Marxist theories about the stages of historical development were contradicted, since the overthrow of capitalism required a high density of.