The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture

"Because they were Marxists, the Bolsheviks in Russia, both before and after taking power in 1917, believed that the past was prologue: that embedded in history was a Holy Grail, a series of mysterious, but nonetheless accessible and comprehensible, universal laws that explained the course of history from beginning to end. Those who understood these laws would be able to mould the future to conform to their own expectations. But what should the Bolsheviks do if their Marxist ideology proved to be either erroneous or insufficient-if it could not explain, or explain fully, the course of events that followed the revolution they carried out in the country they called the Soviet Union? Something else would have to perform this function. The underlying argument of this volume is that the Bolsheviks saw the revolutions in France in 1789, 1830, 1848, and 1871 as supplying practically everything Marxism lacked. In fact, these four events comprised what for the Bolsheviks was a genuine Revolutionary Tradition. The English Revolution and the Puritan Commonwealth of the seventeenth century were not without utility-the Bolsheviks cited them and occasionally utilized them as propaganda-but these paled in comparison to what the revolutions in France offered a century later, namely legitimacy, inspiration, guidance in constructing socialism and communism, and, not least, useful fodder for political and personal polemics."-- Provided by publisher "Because they were Marxists, the Bolsheviks in Russia, both before and after taking power in 1917, believed that the past was prologue: that embedded in history was a Holy Grail, a series of mysterious but nonetheless accessible and comprehensible universal laws, that explained the course of history from beginning to end; those who understood these laws would be able to mould the future to conform to their own expectations. But what should the Bolsheviks do if their Marxist ideology proved to be either erroneous or insufficient--if it could not explain, or explain fully, the course of events that followed the revolution they carried out in the country they called the Soviet Union? Something else would have to perform this function. The underlying argument of this book is that the Bolsheviks saw the revolutions in France in 1789, 1830, 1848, and 1871 as supplying practically everything Marxism lacked. In fact, these four events comprised what for the Bolsheviks was a genuine Revolutionary Tradition. The English Revolution and the Puritan Commonwealth of the seventeenth century were not without utility--the Bolsheviks cited them and occasionally utilised them as propaganda--but these paled in comparison to what the revolutions in France offered a century later, namely legitimacy, inspiration, guidance in constructing socialism and communism, and, not least, useful fodder for political and personal polemics." -- Oxford Scholarship Online Because they were Marxists, the Bolsheviks in Russia, both before and after taking power in 1917, believed that the past was prologue: that embedded in history was a Holy Grail, a series of mysterious, but nonetheless accessible and comprehensible, universal laws that explained the course of history from beginning to end. Those who understood these laws would be able to mould the future to conform to their own expectations. But what should the Bolsheviks do if their Marxist ideology proved to be either erroneous or insufficient-if it could not explain, or explain fully, the course of events that followed the revolution they carried out in the country they called the Soviet Union? Something else would have to perform this function. The underlying argument of this volume is that the Bolsheviks saw the revolutions in France in 1789, 1830, 1848, and 1871 as supplying practically everything Marxism lacked. In fact, these four events comprised what for the Bolsheviks was a genuine Revolutionary Tradition. The English Revolution and the Puritan Commonwealth of the seventeenth century were not without utility-the Bolsheviks cited them and occasionally utilized them as propaganda-but these paled in comparison to what the revolutions in France offered a0century later, namely legitimacy, inspiration, guidance in constructing socialism and communism, and, not least, useful fodder for political and personal polemics Cover The French Revolutionary Tradition in Russian and Soviet Politics, Political Thought, and Culture Copyright Dedication Preface Acknowledgements Contents Note on Transliteration PART I: 1789 1: The Initial Reception of the French Revolution 2: The French Revolution in the Russian Revolutionary Movement 3: The Marxist Inheritance of the French Revolution 4: Lenin: The Russian Robespierre 5: Bolsheviks and Mensheviks on the Jacobins and the Girondins 6: 1917—Russian Jacobins Come to Power 7: Mythologizing the New Soviet Regime 8: The Phantom of the Soviet Thermidor 9: Stalin: The Jacobins as Proto-Stalinists 10: Returning to the Leninist Line under Khrushchev and Brezhnev 11: Transgressing the Leninist Line in the Gorbachev Era PART II: 1830 12: The Revolution That Stopped Too Soon PART III: 1848 13: The Revolution That Failed 14: The Phantom of the Russian Bonaparte PART IV: 1871 15: Revolution as Martyrdom PART V: CONCLUSION Conclusion Bibliography Index The Bolsheviks sought legitimacy and inspiration in historic revolutionary traditions, and Jay Bergman argues that they saw the revolutions in France in 1789, 1830, 1848, and 1871 as supplying practically everything Marxism lacked, including guidance in constructing socialism and communism, and useful fodder for political and personal polemics. Jay Bergman. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.