The Russian Revolution: A Very Short Introduction

by Smith, S. A.

• ISBN13: 9780192853950
• ISBN10: 0192853953
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-05-16
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This Very Short Introduction provides an analytical narrative of the main events and developments in Soviet Russia between 1917 and 1936. It examines the impact of the revolution on society as a whole--on different classes, ethnic groups, the army, men and women, youth. Its central concern isto understand how one structure of domination was replaced by another. The book registers the primacy of politics, but situates political developments firmly in the context of massive economic, social, and cultural change. Since the fall of Communism there has been much reflection on thesignificance of the Russian Revolution. The book rejects the currently influential, liberal interpretation of the revolution in favour of one that sees it as rooted in the contradictions of a backward society which sought modernization and enlightenment and ended in political tyranny.

Author Biography

Stephen Smith is Professor of History at the University of Essex. He works on the social history of the Russian and Chinese revoltuions and is author of Red Petrograd: Revolution in the Factories, 1917-1918 (Cambridge University Press, 1983), and A Road is Made: Communism in Shanghai, 1920-27 (Curzon Press, 2000).

Table of Contents

List of illustrations	p. viii
List of maps	p. x
Introduction	p. 1
From February to October	p. 5
Civil war and the foundation of the Bolshevik regime	p. 40
War Communism	p. 72
NEP: politics and the economy	p. 100
NEP: society and culture	p. 129
Conclusion	p. 157
Further reading	p. 169
Index	p. 173
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