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On the Russian Revolution: Was Stagnation its Cause?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2009
Extract
The Russian Revolution is one of the major events in the history of the 20th century. It is one of the “turning points” not only in the history of Russia, but also in universal history. Its result, i.e., the creation, in Russia, of a Communist society, has become a challenge to the Western World, as an invitation to imitation, and, at the same time, as a threat of forcible transformation
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1942
References
1 The following works may be used for a general orientation in the events and situations discussed in this paper:
N. Basili, Russia under Soviet Russia, 1938;
W. Chamberlin, Soviet Russia, 1930;
W. Chamberlin, Russia's Iron Age, 1935;
W. Gurian, Bolshevism, Theory and Practice, 1932.
M. Karpovich, Imperial Russia, 1932;
Sir B. Pares, A History of Russia, 1930;
G. Vernadsky, Political and Diplomatic History of Russia, 1936.
2 Miliukoff, P. N., Russia on the Crossway (in Russian), Paris, 1927Google Scholar.
3 Toynbee, A. J., A Study of History, London 1936–1939, vol. III. p. 202Google Scholar.
4 Best, H., The Soviet Experiment, New York, 1941, pp. 15–6Google Scholar.
5 This fact is a major challenge to the Marxist doctrine.
6 Trotsky, L., Revolution Betrayed, New York, 1937, p. 6Google Scholar.
7 The term “quasi-feudal” is used because the possibility of terming “feudal” the social order which prevailed in Muscovite Russia is doubtful.
8 Miliukoff, P. N., Outlines of Russian Culture, Philadelphia, 1942, vol. III, p. 73Google Scholar.
9 In 1911, 67% of the population of Portugal were illiterate.
10 For an explanation of this fact, of Pirenne, H., Medieval Cities, Princeton University Press, 1925Google Scholar.
11 Says Best: “The liberty of those who tilled the soil did not proceed far” (op. cit. supra, p. 15). The economic development of Russia is discussed by Mavor, J., An Economic History of Russia, 1914Google Scholar. Cf. also Karpovich, M. and others, An Economic History of Europe Since 1750, 1937Google Scholar.
12 Cf. Antsiferov, A. N. and others, Russian Agriculture During the War, in Economic and Social History of the War, New Haven, 1930Google Scholar.
13 Prime Minister, 1906–1911.
14 Op. cit. supra, note 12, p. 106. On Stolypin's agrarian reform see Karpov, N., The Agrarian Policy of Stolypin, (in Russian), Moscow, 1925Google Scholar.
15 Figures for 1895 have been borrowed from The Productive Forces of Russia (in Russian), a symposium published by the Ministry of Finance, St. Petersburg, 1896. Figures for 1916 are based on the findings of the agricultural census of 1916.
16 Figures for 1863 and 1888 are derived from Mendeleyev, D., The Tariff Explained (the classic work on the early history of Russian Industry), 2 vol., St. Petersburg, 1891–1892Google Scholar, Figures for 1913 are taken from official reports of the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
17 The best history of Russian railways is to be found in Vostokov, P., “Les Chemins de Fer Russes autrefois at aujourd'hui,” Le Monde Slave, 1935, IIIGoogle Scholar.
18 Figures concerning the population are based on the standard work of Volkov, E., Dynamics of the Population of the USSR (in Russian), Moscow, 1930Google Scholar. Cf. also Timasheff, N. S., “The Population of Soviet Russia,” Rural Sociology, vol. 5, No. 3Google Scholar.
19 Cf. D. M. Odinets, “Russian Primary and Secondary Schools during the War,” in the collection quoted supra, note 12.
20 The figures relating to the population have been computed on the basis of Volkov's work (cf. supra, note 18). The figures relating to the number of pupils in elementary schools have been derived from the following sources: for 1880 and 1911 from the findings of special school census; for 1894—from the very careful estimate of Professor Ostrogorsky, A. in Obrazovaniye, 1897, No. 9Google Scholar; for the other years—from official reports of the Ministry of Education.
21 For the year 1897, the index of education could be directly derived from the Census of 1897. For 1914, the figure in text is an estimate based on complicated calculations; cf. my forthcoming paper “Overcoming Illiteracy,” Russian Review Vol. 2, No. 1. The advance between 1897 and 1914 (and the later decline up to 1923), is reflected in the fact that, in 1926 (when another census was taken), the maximum of literacy was observed in the age group of 25–29, and not in the age group of 10–14 which is to be expected in a country which is overcoming illiteracy.
22 Cf. Sorokin, P., Social and Cultural Dynamics, New York, 1937, vol. III, pp. 498–9Google Scholar.
23 Niedermeyer, O. and Semionow, J., Sowjet-Russland, Berlin, 1934, pp. 19fGoogle Scholar.
24 That the revolution was not inevitable, is the main idea of SirPares, Bernard in The Fall of the Russian Monarchy, London, 1939Google Scholar.
25 The theory of the causation of revolutions used in the text does not permit one to explain the specific character that individual revolutions receive. The present writer hopes to publish another paper devoted to the general problem of the determination of the character of revolutions and to the particular conditions which directed the Russian Revolution towards Communism.