The Russian Revolution

by Fitzpatrick, Sheila

• ISBN13: 9780199237678
• ISBN10: 0199237670
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-03-20
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

The Russian Revolution had a decisive impact on the history of the twentieth century. Now, following the collapse of the Soviet regime and the opening of its archives, it is possible to step back and see the full picture of this event for the first time. Impeccable in its scholarship and objectivity, this superb volume tells the gripping story of a Marxist revolution that was intended to transform the world, but instead visited enormous suffering on the Russian people, and, like the French Revolution before it, ended up by devouring its own children. The author offers insightful descriptions of the February and October Revolutions of 1917, the Civil War, the interlude of NEP, Stalin's "revolution from above," the various Five-Year Plans, and the Great Purges--all treated as discrete episodes in a twenty-year process of revolution. The book incorporates data from archives that were previously inaccessible not only to Western but also to Soviet historians, as well as drawing on important recent Russian publications such as the memoirs of one of the great survivors of Soviet politics, Vyacheslav Molotov. In the Select Bibliography, the author highlights the most important of the recent scholarly works, directing readers to the burgeoning Western scholarship on the Russian Revolution in the last ten to fifteen years. Sheila Fitzpatrick is an internationally known expert on Soviet history. This lively and readable Third Edition uses newly available Soviet archival material and the latest Russian and Western research to provide an authoritative, compact account of one of the key events of modern history.

Author Biography

Sheila Fitzpatrick is Bernadotte E. Schmitt Professor of Modern Russian History at the University of Chicago. A past president of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies and a co-editor of The Journal of Modern History, she is the author of many other books and articles about Russia. She lives in Chicago and Washington, DC.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements	p. v
Introduction	p. 1
The Setting	p. 15
The society	p. 16
The revolutionary tradition	p. 24
The 1905 Revolution and its aftermath; the First World War	p. 32
1917: The Revolutions of February and October	p. 40
The February Revolution and 'dual power'	p. 44
The Bolsheviks	p. 49
The popular revolution	p. 52
The political crises of the summer	p. 57
The October Revolution	p. 61
The Civil War	p. 68
The Civil War, the Red Army, and the Cheka	p. 72
War Communism	p. 78
Visions of the new world	p. 84
The Bolsheviks in power	p. 87
NEP and the Future of the Revolution	p. 93
The discipline of retreat	p. 96
The problem of bureaucracy	p. 102
The leadership struggle	p. 107
Building socialism in one country	p. 111
Stalin's Revolution	p. 120
Stalin versus the Right	p. 124
The industrialization drive	p. 130
Collectivization	p. 135
Cultural Revolution	p. 141
Ending the Revolution	p. 149
'Revolution accomplished'	p. 151
'Revolution betrayed'	p. 157
The Terror	p. 163
Notes	p. 173
Select Bibliography	p. 185
Index	p. 193
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