THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

by Sheila Fitzpatrick ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 24, 1983

The Russian Revolution is one of those historical events that warrants new short introductory texts periodically because of the development of new knowledge about it and because historians are always at odds about how to interpret it. For a while, this should stand as the best current version: brief as it is, U. of Texas historian Fitzpatrick, (The Commissariat of Enlightenment, Education and Social Mobility in the Soviet Union) does more than survey, she interprets. In her view, the Russian Revolution began with the so-called dual power of February 1917 (when power was unharmoniously shared by the provisional government and the councils, or Soviets, that sprang up outside official channels), and came to a close with completion of the USSR's first Five-Year Plan in the mid-1930s. What holds the period together is the ideology of class war: on his return to Russia, Lenin confounded his party colleagues by insisting that they have nothing to do with the class and party collaboration existing between the provisional government and the Soviets. The Bolsheviks, though a party with many intellectuals at the top, had a real proletarian base; culturally, Fitzpatrick emphasizes, they were proud of a certain gruffness and penchant for action. She believes that the period covered here was one of upward mobility for the proletariat, and that the post-1917 upheavals were a manifestation of class war within the new regime. Stalin therefore represents the continuation and completion of the revolution, since it was under his leadership that the party intellectuals, along with pre-Revolution elites, finally lost out to the like of Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev, upwardly mobile sons of the working class. By the end of the first Five-Year Plan, the regime's rule was consolidated over town and country; the economic system had been redesigned and set on its course; and the Stalinist leadership had become ""respectable,"" extolling the virtues of education, occupational status, and order. The transformation was now complete and a new ruling class was in place. Fitzpatrick thus sees change within continuity, and gives a much more nuanced view of the whole period than that found in most studies. A real accomplishment, also calling for a lower-priced edition.

Pub Date: Feb. 24, 1983

ISBN: 0199237670

Page Count: -

Publisher: Oxford Univ. Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1983

Categories: NONFICTION