Working with Russian Revolution
Historiography
• d. Working with Russian Historiography Nick
Frigo, Santa Maria College/Education
Consultant The Russian Revolution presents
students with a range of historiography. The
collapse of the Soviet Union and translation of
new primary and secondary sources over the past
decade has meant that students are able to
access a rich collection of very recent history
writing from a range of different schools. During
this session Nick will set out for students some of
the significant forms of historiography about the
Russian Revolution and ways of dealing with it in
assessment.
What is historiography?
• This word has been used at many time to
describe the writing of history (the work done by
historians).
• It can also be defined as describing another level
of thinking – the study of how history has been
written, spoken or thought about over time.”
• For our purposes let’s stick with the first
explanation + historians like to interpret,
reinterpret and debate things . . .
What is historiography?
• Historians often debate about aspect of particular
events.
1. How aware was the population of the Bolsheviks
coming to power?
2. How much did the revolution change the
provinces?
3. To what extent was Tsar Nicholas solely
responsible for the revolution?
4. How significant were the events of Bloody
Sunday?
5. Is it all about Lenin?
Tsarist Russia
Lenin Leadership
How does Historiography fit into the
VCAA exam expectations?
Use of Historiography in Revs
• Students should not learn responses such as ‘this is a
secondary source’ or ‘this is a primary source’. Many
students were reliant on Pipes and Schama, Zinn and
Halliday; however, they needed to show knowledge of a
wider range of views.
• Students’ knowledge of historians was better with China
and students were able to draw upon contrasting views in a
meaningful way. A number of responses listed a large
number of historians’ views as if they were trying to list as
many names as possible; this was not a valuable way to
respond and the discussion of views must relate to the
events of the period.
• (SOURCE: VCAA examiner’s report 2010)
2010 ‘Historiography’ Question
• d. Evaluate to what extent this extract is
useful in explaining the methods the
Bolsheviks used to consolidate power. In your
response quote parts of the extract and refer
to different views of the Revolution.
How does Historiography fit into the VCAA exam
expectations?
Many students did not understand the term ‘institution’; a large number of
students wrote ‘Kaledin’ as an institution.
Too many answers to Question 3c. quoted from Lenin’s speech but did not
show understanding of the reasons why Lenin dismissed the Constituent
Assembly. The most successful answers were able to grasp the desperate
justification revealed by Lenin in the speech. Many saw it as a bid for
power . . . The importance of learning chronologies was evident. In
Question 3d., most answers did not challenge Lenin’s claim that the
Assembly ‘did not represent the power of the people’. Instead they
merely agreed with Lenin that the Assembly was ‘malignant’,
‘treacherous’ and ‘whining’. Students should challenge the claims made in
speeches when undertaking historiography and explain the agenda
underpinning such documents. Strong answers showed that the
Bolsheviks actively sought civil war and that the speech was propaganda
by Lenin.
• (SOURCE: VCAA examiner’s report 2010)
• It was concerning that some students referred to historians
instead of factual knowledge in Question 3c. Students
should be advised that the question called for a
demonstration of their own detailed factual knowledge, not
quotations from historians. They should look carefully at
the dates given in the question, which are there to trigger
recall of specific events.
• In Question 3d., the skill of placing the representation
within historical debate was challenging and helped to
discern the excellent students.
• The best approach was one where a historian’s viewpoint
was explained and the student was able to show how it
differed from or confirmed the ideas expressed in the
representation. Many students confused historians
between revolutions. Some students cited a historian of the
French Revolution in a question on Russia and vice versa.
• (SOURCE: VCAA examiner’s report 2010)
•
Significance of the Russian Revolution
• “The Russian Revolution of 1917 is, beyond
question, one of the most important events
of the modern era.” (Wade)
• The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991
altered the prism through which we view the
Russian Revolution but did not change the
basic reality of its events or the fact the
revolution profoundly shaped the history of
the twentieth century.
Tradition and Revisionist
• “ . . . the revolution’s importance was recognized
immediately and although there scattered scholarly
publications in the first half of the half-century after
the revolution, significant historical research in the
form of a major body of scholarly writing emerged long
afterwards, beginning only at the end of the 1960s.”
• “Since the 1960s . . . .scholarship on the revolution
has expanded rapidly, producing a rich body of
historical literature. Moreover the collapse of the
Society Union has made it easier to put the revolution
into a better historical perspective . . . “
Early and ‘Traditional’ Interpretations
• “Traditionally the Russian revolution was described in
mainly political terms, and primarily as the history of
political parties and the individual leaders, Vladimir
Lenin and the Bolshevik Party most of all.” (Wade)
• Competing interpretations existed early on in the post
political struggle of the revolution . . . Indeed
competing versions of the events of 1917 were a part
of post-revolutionary political struggle both within the
Bolshevik Party and the between the Bolsheviks and
their opponents, both Russians and foreign.
• Even the accounts foreigners usually reflected an
identification with one political faction or another.
1920s Historiography
• Both Western and Soviet Histories, different as they
were in their assessment of events, were
overwhelmingly political and concerned with political
ideologies and the Bolshevik Party in particular.
• The basic interpretation of the revolution took the
form in the early 1920s. Especially important in this
was Lenin’s 1920s essay “Left-Wing Communism” –
developed in the same year was an official Party
institution, the Commission on the History of the
Russian Communist Party and the October Revolution
(Istpart).” “
• Most historians agree that the account of the
revolution that emerged during the 1920s “emphasized
the leading and directing role of the Bolshevik Party
and of Lenin in particular”.
Chamberlin – History of the Russian
Revolution (1931)
• “Particularly important in shaping Western
interpretations were the works of Leon Trotsky and
William Henry Chamberlin in the 1930s. Trotsky, who
had played a part in creating the basic Society
interpretation in the 1920s, for reasons of his ongoing
polemic with Stalin developed it further in his highly
influential History of the Russian Revolution (1931).”
• Chamberlin work “remained the most authoritative
history of the revolution in the West through most of
the rest of the twentieth century, drew heavily on
Trotsksy and the by now standardised ‘sources’
produced in the Soviet Union
Chamberlin – History of the Russian
Revolution (1931)
• Where Chamberlin differed from official
Bolshevik accounts is that he “did give more
space to workers, peasants, and other social
groups than most historians”.
From 1917 to the 1960s
• From the long period from the revolution itself
until the 1960s, or even later, both Western and
Soviet historians saw the revolution in similar
political terms, with the focus on a disciplined
and monolithic Bolshevik Party under Lenin’s
unquestionable leadership. The October (or
Bolshevik) Revolution in particular was seen as a
political seizure of power (often termed a coup
d’etat) planned and engineered by Lenin, largely
divorced from its broader political, social, and
cultural context.”
Rex Wade
• In either approach up until about the 1930s the
masses were what Rex Wade terms: “largely
absent or inert, manipulated (or led) by
unscrupulous (or far sighted) political figures
most importantly Lenin and the Bolsheviks.”
• As the earlier part of the century wore on the
distinction seemed to be according to Wade
“that Soviet histories saw that revolution as
good and most Western historians saw it as
bad.”
Rex Wade
• What is one fact you have learned about the revolution that you
wish other people would recognize? I would have people realize
what a complex event the revolution was, really a set of
overlapping revolutions — political, social, cultural, economic,
gender, ethno-national — taking place in a very compressed time
period. Then, from that, look for complexity in every historical
event and contemporary situation. I’d ask them to accept what
happened, whether we can reconstruct it or not, and to accept
that there really are “facts” of past events, but that asking
different questions of them can produce very different, but
legitimate, results . . . History is complex and multilayered, and
the questions that you ask of it shape your results and your
understanding of its “importance.”
• (SOURCE: The Mason Gazette,
http://gazette.gmu.edu/articles/12371)
1960s
• In the years following the late 1960s an early
collection of books and essay started to
emerge from Western authors (Rabinovich,
Daniels, Ferro, Pipes and Wade) – “Although
they still focussed mainly on politics, these
studies raised important questions about
some of the traditional portrayals of the
monolithic Bolshevik Party” and the Party in
Russian politics.
Richard Pipes
• “Three Ways of the Russian Revolution”
Introduction….
1970s and 1980s
• In the 1970s and 1980s scholarly studies of the
revolution expanded rapidly, as a number of
historians, mostly but not entirely younger
historians . . . .turned to examining the revolution
‘from below’ . . . they introduced a ‘social history’
. . . They looked especially at industrial workers
but examined other social groups as well . . .
These included major new histories of the
political parties, producing a better
understanding of the complexity of the internal
conflicts and structures of the parties including
the Bolsheviks.
Revisionism
• This period of study of the 1980 and 1990 saw
the emergence of the study of the revolution
“in the provinces”.
• In the 1990s there started to appear ‘revise’
the picture of the October Revolution that had
occurred during some earlier accounts.
• Historians adopting ‘linguistic’ interpretations.
• Historians adopting ‘provincial’
interpretations.
Richard Malone
The Collapse of the Soviet Union
• “The collapse of the Soviet Union contributed to
two other trends, one that added little and one
that probably over time will add much to the
study of the revolution. The latter is ne archival
access; the former was a ‘triumphalist’ mentality
among some Western historians that led to an
attempt to resurrect old historiography thjat told
the revolution in purely political terms, focused
on Lenin and the Bolsheviks (and the evilness
thereof).
Russian Revolutionary Historiography
post Cold War
• Writing about the revolution no longer
involves an implied judgement on an existing
regime or on Cold War issues, as it often did
during the era of the Soviet Union’s existence.
At the same time the renewed struggle over
democracy and independence of the nonRussian peoples, Russia’s great power status,
importance of the Russian revolution of 1917,
when these very issues were fought out but,
as we now see, not settled.
Eyewitness accounts
• Russia in War and Revolution, 1914-1922 – A
documentary History
Concluding thoughts
• Historiographically there have been trends
that have included: gender, post-modernism,
and some other approaches, especially the
more theoretically based one that have been
popular in West European and American
history, they have played a minor role in the
study of Russian Revolution. They have been
less present than in studies of the French
Revolution.