"This international, multiauthor collection of essays examines Russian and early Soviet international relations from the Great War's outbreak in August 1914 through the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War, ending with the Peace of Riga in 1921. Taking a broad definition of international relations, the chapters range from state-to-state diplomacy to NGOs, civil society, commerce and culture"--
Historians devote a great deal of attention to the diplomacy that led Russia into the Great War, but have tended to neglect the course of this diplomacy once the fighting erupted. This volume addresses that lacuna with a broad range of essays examining the foreign relations of the empire, as well as its republican and early Soviet successors, from the July 1914 Crisis to the end of the Civil War in 1922.Written by distinguished and emerging scholars from North America, Europe, Russia, and Japan, the essays make abundant use of Russian archival collections, largely inaccessible until the 1990s, to reassess the conjectures and conclusions previously drawn from other sources. While some chapters focus on traditional "diplomatic" history, others adopt new "international history" by placing Russia's relations with the world in their social, intellectual, economic, and cultural contexts.Arranged in roughly chronological order, the first volume covers the late imperial period, from 1914 through mid-1916, while the second proceeds through the revolutions of 1917 and the Civil War, up to the end of that conflict in 1922. Together, these books' comments should foster a renewed appreciation for international relations as a central element of Russia's Great War and Revolution.
Historians devote a great deal of attention to the diplomacy that led Russia into the Great War, but have tended to neglect the course of this diplomacy once the fighting erupted. This volume addresses that lacuna with a broad range of essays examining the foreign relations of the empire, as well as its republican and early Soviet successors, from the July 1914 Crisis to the end of the Civil War in 1922. Written by distinguished and emerging scholars from North America, Europe, Russia, and Japan, the essays make abundant use of Russian archival collections, largely inaccessible until the 1990s, to reassess the conjectures and conclusions previously drawn from other sources. While some chapters focus on traditional "diplomatic" history, others adopt new "international history" by placing Russia's relations with the world in their social, intellectual, economic, and cultural contexts. Arranged in roughly chronological order, the first volume covers the late imperial period, from 1914 through mid-1916, while the second proceedsthrough the revolutions of 1917 and the Civil War, up to the end of that conflict in 1922. Together, these books' comments should foster a renewed appreciation for international relations as a central element of Russia's Great War and Revolution.
This book-one of two covering the Russian Civil War in a volume on military affairs during Russia's Great War and Revolution-explores institutions, social groups, and social conflict amid the chaos of the war that followed the Russian Revolution. Drawing on an international cohort of authors and wide range of newly available sources, the book provides insights into the experience of civil war for those living in the ruins of the Russian Empire. In addition to studies of intelligence and the officer corps of the Red and White armies, it also traces the complicated history of Russia's Cossacks through the war. Explorations of the role of ideology and propaganda along with the problem of desertion from the fighting armies give insight into the motivations of the war's soldiers. A series of chapters on peasant insurgency and the anarchic conflicts in Ukraine provide a clearer understanding of often-neglected aspects of the Civil War.
This essential introduction synthesises the wealth of new material available on the Russian Revolution into a clear overview which is ideal for beginners. Leading expert Christopher Read treats the period 1914-22 as a whole in order to contextualise and better understand the events of 1917 and their impact.
This volume features new research on the critical effects of World War I and the Russian Revolution and Civil War in Northeast Asia, a broad region that has historically included the Russian Far East, Mongolia, China, Korea, and Japan. Drawing together noted international specialists, the chapters break new ground, bringing unused or understudied sources into the historical record and posing new questions about the causes, consequences, and dynamics of the war and revolutionary upheavals in the region. More than anything, the volume makes clear that our familiar habit of approaching Russia's Great War and Revolution from a predominantly European angle needs to be reconsidered. These titanic events convulsed the entire empire, including Russia's faraway world on the Pacific, reshaping Northeast Asia towards its central involvement in the twentieth century's bloodiest wars. The Northeast Asian theater was not peripheral to the developments of the era but rather an integral part of an unavoidably international and transnational history of conflict, destruction, and transformation. The essays in "Russia's Great War and Revolution in the Far East" help us appreciate a number of the lesser-known complexities of this story, offering scholars valuable newperspectives in the process.
This volume investigates how the revolutionary events of 1917-21 shaped biographies both in Russia and Western Europe and how people tried to make sense of the political developments during these years in self-testimonies like diaries and memoirs. What was the impact of individuals on the course of the revolution? What do we know about the personal experiences during 1917 of revolutionary activists, victims, and bystanders? What are the specific features of autobiographical texts and ego-documents from the time of Russia's Great War and Revolution? The essays of this volume examine a plurality of stories, perceptions, and interpretations. They analyze the trajectories of men and women with very different origins and social backgrounds. Among them are members of the "old elite" who personally experienced the Russian Revolution of 1917 and were forced into exile after the victory of the Bolsheviks in the October Revolution and the Civil War. Moreover, in this volume protagonists who actively supported the revolution and "ordinary people" who neither belonged to the old elite nor were politically committed stand in focus. Finally, the construction of revolutionary narratives and memories is addressed. The case studies presented here allow us to critically evaluate established master narratives about the Russian Revolution and the Civil War. They also enable us to point out the contrast between historical caesuras and the continuity of personal lives, to explore geographical mobility and developments beyond the political centers, to give a voice to historically marginal actors, and to juxtapose our concept of "history" with the many-voiced chorus of individual experiences.
Reinterpreting the emergence of the Soviet state, Holquist situates the Bolshevik Revolution within the continuum of mobilization and violence that began with World War I and extended through Russia's civil war, thereby providing a genealogy for Bolshevik political practices that places them clearly among Russian and European wartime measures.
Laura Engelstein, one of the greatest scholars of Russian history, has written a searing and defining account of the Russian Revolution, the fall of the old order, and the creation of the Soviet state.
