Book Reviews
Interpreting the Russian Revolution:
The Language and Symbols of 1917
Orlando Figes and Boris Kolonitskii, Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language
and Symbols of 1917. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999. 198 pp. US$24.95.
Analysis of nonverbal communications is a tricky business, especially when such communications
took place 80 years ago and are recorded only in written (hence verbal) sources. Signs and
symbols have ambiguous meanings, as do catchphrases and rumors, and people with diverse
convictions can appropriate them as their own. The flexibility of symbols increases their
effectiveness and power, and it leaves plenty of room for interpretation.
A good example of the flexibility of symbols is found in the red flag: How did Russians understand
the red flag and whom did it represent in 1917? In the 1905 and March 1917 revolutions,
demonstrators often tore off the white and blue stripes of the Russian flag, leaving only the red
portion. After March 1917, Petrograd was festooned with red banners. Is it then possible to claim
that the red flag connoted vast popular support for the Bolsheviks?
In Interpreting the Russian Revolution, Orlando Figes and Boris Kolonitskii analyze the role of
flags, symbols, and songs in 1917. They demonstrate that the red flag had a "polyvalent nature"-it was a universal symbol of the revolution and a general call for change rather than a symbol of
Bolshevik power. It was thus a symbol with [End Page 122] 122which all disaffected people
could identify. To support this claim, the authors note that those flying the red flag often sang the
Marseillaise, which was not Lenin's favorite song (he preferred the Internationale). When the
Bolsheviks took power later in the year, they usurped the symbol, which the authors believe was
a crucial advantage for the Bolshevik side during the civil war. The flag, as a well-known symbol,
might have won the support of people who would never have approved of Bolshevik manifestos.
Presumably, very few people study pamphlets during revolutionary events. Why should they?
They assume that they already understand the situation in the streets. They piece together
information from rumors; they read meaning into banners, songs, and slogans; and they try to
interpret the gestures and phrases of the revolutionaries. Symbols are not merely evidence of the
mood of a crowd; they also can assume an active role, serving "to sanction and legitimize the
actions of the crowd" (p. 3). As Figes and Kolonitskii explain: "People were prepared to die for
these symbols. They would literally risk their lives to attach a red flag to a Tsarist building" (p. 32).
In societies undergoing rapid transformation, the meanings of signs, symbols, and even words
can change quickly. Russia's recent history provides us with many examples. For instance,
displaying a Soviet republic's pre-Soviet flag was forbidden before 1988. Even the mention of
such a flag could incur the risk of punishment, and anyone who tried to fly a republic's national
colors was considered a fool (though perhaps a heroic fool). After 1989, such flags could be seen
at demonstrations everywhere, in the republics as well as in Moscow. Communists and
nationalists, Russians and non-Russians, all rallied behind old pre-Soviet flags, which had
become the symbols of democracy and change. Then, after the collapse of the Soviet Union,
these same national flags antagonized the Russians who remained in the former Soviet republics.
For Russian speakers, the flags became a symbol of deprivation rather than liberation. Words
such as "glasnost," "democratization," and "market" underwent similarly dramatic transformations.
"Perestroika" was at first a widely welcomed call for renewal, but it soon became the label for a
hated policy of failure and missed opportunities. It is now difficult to know what the Russians
mean when they say "perestroika."
The situation was very similar in 1917. Figes and Kolonitskii show that the term "democracy" was
as much an open catchphrase then as it was in 1991: "Democracy was politically correct--and
obligatory for all politicians--in 1917" (p. 98). The word rarely was intended to describe an actual
political system; it merely stood for the rejection of the monarchy. As Figes and Kolonitskii argue,
democracy "was almost universally understood to mean 'the common people'--and its opposite
was not 'dictatorship' but the 'bourgeoisie' or indeed the whole privileged society" (p. 122).
Average people used "demokratiya" and "narod" (the people) interchangeably. After November
1917, the Russian Tsarist flag often reappeared as a symbol of protest against the Bolshevik
regime.
Personalities can become symbols in their own right. In 1917, Russians had very few
opportunities to see or hear the political leaders who would determine the fate of their country.
Nonetheless, popular sentiment portrayed the Russian Empress Aleksandra as a symbol of
Russian decline and leaders such as Aleksandr Kerensky as a symbol of hope for the future. The
authors point out that Kerensky encouraged this [End Page 123] perception of himself as the
symbol of the democratic revolution. But in times of turmoil, perceptions of leading figures can
change as rapidly as the meanings of flags and words. Thus Kerensky went from being the "first
love of the revolution" (p. 91) to a symbol of disillusionment. What was once welcomed as
Kerensky's originality was later ridiculed.
Throughout 1917, all of the major revolutionary parties shared such symbols as the Marseillaise
and the red flag. The authors suggest that the widespread acceptance of these symbols meant
that they could become "de facto state symbols" (p. 69). Moreover, according to the authors, the
"February [March] Revolution's greatest strength" was the "appeal of its symbols," though this
ironically was also "its main weakness" (p. 70). The universality of the symbols hid the cracks in
the revolutionary coalition, permitting a vacuum of power to develop, which the Bolsheviks
exploited to seize power in November.
Any revolution contains carnivalesque elements, and political events become highly theatricalized.
In the introduction, Figes and Kolonitskii reprimand their fellow historians for failing to
acknowledge this. Figes himself, however, is not beyond reproach. Although Figes's earlier
monumental account of the Russian Revolution, A People's Tragedy (New York: Viking, 1997),
mentioned allegations of sexual scandals and rumors accusing Empress Aleksandra of spying,
Figes did not treat these as causes of the March 1917 revolution. Instead, he stated succinctly: "It
all began with bread." But in Interpreting the Russian Revolution, Figes magically transforms the
bread shortages and the malicious rumors into symbols--symbols that allow him to draw parallels
to the French Revolution.
At times, the authors seem startled by their own findings. For example, they apparently have just
discovered that "most urban workers had not read their Marx" (p. 107). At other times, they seek
to resurrect interpretations that long ago lost their novelty. They claim that revolutionary symbols
and slogans allowed the widely illiterate peasantry to become "for the first time in its history . . .
aware of its power" to shape historical events (p. 145), and that the provisional government was
thus a "government of national confidence," which had encouraged popular support through
"propaganda, cults and festivals" (p. 127).
History is a construction, and as such it is open to reconstruction. Figes and Kolonitskii have
attempted what can be compared to a Moscow-style remont (remodeling) of Russian
Revolutionary history, one that is perhaps long overdue. But their work bears all the
characteristics of a Russian remont--it is quick and superficial, it brusquely dismisses what has
been done before, and it often falls into old habits and reverts to old methods.
If one considers the book's narrow focus on 1917, then perhaps the authors can claim that they
are the "first in any language" to investigate the nonverbal codes of the Russian Revolution. But
they seem to have conveniently forgotten that other authors have analyzed the Bolshevik use of
signs, symbols, and words. Notable examples include Andrei Sinyavskii's Soviet Civilization,
trans. by Joanne Turnbull (New York: Arcade, 1990) and René Fülöp-Miller's The Mind and Face
of Bolshevism (New York: A.A. Knopf, 1928). The authors of these earlier works were too modest
to claim that [End Page 124] they were revolutionizing historiography. Perhaps that is why Figes
and Kolonitskii neglected to cite them.
Christoph Neidhart
Harvard University