Russian Revolutions and Civil War, 1917-1921 Michael Kort

Introduction The Russian Revolution has not permitted Western historians the comfort of neutrality. It led to the establishment of a regime, the Soviet Union, that on the basis of Marxist ideology claimed to be building the worlds first nonexploitative and egalitarian society. As such, the Soviet regime further claimed to represent humanitys future and therefore the right to spread its communist revolution worldwide. These pretentions, however dubiously realized in practice, won the Soviet Union millions of loyalists over the world. At the same time, because these pretentions also threatened any society organized according to different principles, including those of liberal democracy and free enterprise, they made the Soviet regime the object of intense fear and opposition. This reaction was reinforced as the Soviet Union quickly became a brutal dictatorship and, after World War II, emerged as one of the worlds two nuclear superpowers. For these reasons Western scholarship on the Russian Revolution has had an element of contentiousness not often seen in other fields. That in turn is why any serious student of theRussian Revolution must be familiar with its historiography, and why this bibliography not only contains a major section on historiography but also includes historiographic commentary in many of the individual entries. The term Russian Revolution itself refers to two upheavals that took place in 1917: the February Revolution and the October, or Bolshevik, Revolution. The former was a spontaneous uprising that began in Russias capital in late February 1917 and led to the collapse of the tsarist monarchy and the establishment of the Provisional Government, a regime based on the premise that Russia should have a parliamentary government and free-enterprise economic system. The latter took place in late October and was the seizure of power by a militant Marxist political party determined to rule alone, turn Russia into a communist society, and spark a worldwide revolution. (These dates are according to the outdated Julian calendar in use in Russia at the time, which trailed the Gregorian calendar used in the West by thirteen days. According to the Gregorian calendar, the two revolutions took place in March and November, respectively.) Because the Bolsheviks did not consolidate their power until their victory in a three-year civil war, many histories ostensibly about the RussianRevolution include not only the events of 1917 but also their immediate aftermath in early 1918, and then the civil war, which began in mid-1918 and lasted until 1921. That framework has been adopted for this article as well. Matters of evidence and documentation have additionally complicated this subject. In this case the key date is 1991, as that is when the collapse of the Soviet Union finally made many important Russian archives available to scholars for the first time. This significant development is covered in the Published Documentary Collections section of this article. General Overviews Although all of the volumes listed in this section can be called general overviews, they vary

considerably in their structure and approach. Carr 19501953 provides a multivolume and extraordinarily detailed institutional narrative of the establishment and consolidation of the Bolshevik regime, which the author essentially endorses. Chamberlin 1965 is a traditional, sweeping narrative that is critical of the Bolshevik regime, as is Figes 1998, although it begins the story in 1891 and carries it to 1924. Pipes 1996 provides a broad narrative in the condensation of two large volumes on this subject, and provides a view that is highly critical of the Bolshevik regime. Fitzpatrick 1982 is an interpretive essay sympathetic to the Bolshevik regime and adopts a framework that extends to 1932. Schapiro 1984, likewise, is an interpretive essay, albeit from a liberal perspective critical of the Bolsheviks. Read 1996is a revisionist narrative that, while scholarly, comes close to being a textbook. (See the introduction to the Historiography section for the definition of revisionist and related terms in the context of Soviet history.) Shukman 1998 is a short survey with a conclusion critical of the Bolshevik regime. Carr, Edward Hallett. A History of Soviet Russia: The Bolshevik Revolution, 19171923. 3 vols. London: Macmillan, 19501953. E-mail Citation The first three volumes of a series that, first under Carr and then R. W. Davies, eventually totaled fourteen volumes and thousands of pages upon reaching its terminus in 1929. Some scholars argue these volumes constitute a classic work; others, largely because Carr writes as if the Bolshevik regime was the inevitable outcome of the revolution that ended the tsarist regime, dismiss them as an apologia for Bolshevism and therefore largely useless. Chamberlin, William Henry. The Russian Revolution, 19171921. 2 vols. New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1965. E-mail Citation Originally published in 1935, this work remains an extremely valuable source. The author, who covered Russia for the Christian Science Monitor from 1922 to 1933, was a skilled writer, objective observer, and careful researcher. Many specialists believe it has still not been surpassed as an overall history of the period. Volume 1, 19171918: From the Overthrow of the Czar to the Assumption of Power by the Bolsheviks. Volume 2, 19181921: From the Civil War to the Consolidation of Power. Figes, Orlando. A Peoples Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 18911924. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. E-mail Citation A panoramic narrative that draws on recently opened archives and numerous anecdotes with great effect. Figes argues, on the one hand, that Russias long history of serfdom and its autocratic traditions doomed the 1917 effort to establish a democratic regime and, on the other, that it was the Bolshevism and Lenins policies after the seizure of power that put in place the basic elements of the Stalinist regime. Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution, 19171932. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1982. E-mail Citation

A thematic essay rather than a narrative history by the doyenne of revisionist social history. Fitzpatrick views the events of 19171932 as a single process in which Stalins program of industrialization and collectivization, with mass working-class support and through brute force, completed and fulfilled Lenins revolution. The overall revolution is summarized as terror, progress, and social mobility. Slightly less than a third of the book deals with the 19171921 period. Crafted for use in college-level courses. Pipes, Richard. A Concise History of the Russian Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, 1996. E-mail Citation The author calls this volume a prcis of his two massive, path-breaking earlier volumes, TheRussian Revolution (Pipes 1990, under The October Revolution and the Establishment of the Bolshevik Regime) and Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime (Pipes 1993, under The Civil War and Its Immediate Aftermath). Pipes argues that with the coup of October 1917 fanatical intellectuals seized control of the upheaval of 1917 intent on establishing a socialist utopia, but in the end they reconstituted Russias authoritarian tradition in a new regime that laid the basis for totalitarianism. Excellent for advanced undergraduates, this volume covers the period from 1900 to 1924. Read, Christopher. From Tsar to Soviets: The Russian People and Their Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. E-mail Citation A comprehensive but reasonably concise (three hundred pages) overview written from a revisionist social history perspective. As the subtitle suggests, Read stresses the activities and efforts of workers and peasants to defend their interests. While sympathetic to Lenin, Read also is critical of the Bolsheviks for suppressing popular movements after seizing power. Includes an extensive bibliography, which increases its value to undergraduates and graduate students. Schapiro, Leonard Bertram. The Russian Revolutions of 1917: The Origins of Modern Communism. New York: Basic Books, 1984. E-mail Citation Schapiro argues that the Bolsheviks ruthlessly sabotaged the Provisional Governments effort to lay the basis for democracy in Russia and, having seized power in a coup dtat, laid the basis for a totalitarian regime. A concise account that sums up the lifetime work of a distinguished historian of Soviet Russia. Excellent for undergraduates. Shukman, Harold. The Russian Revolution. Stroud, UK: Sutton, 1998. E-mail Citation A short but up-to-date survey by the editor of The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Russian Revolution(Shukman 1988, cited under Bibliographies and Reference Works). This work concludes that Lenin prepared the way for Stalin. Suitable for undergraduates. LAST MODIFIED: 05/23/2012 DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199743292-0088