How Did the Russian Revolution Give Rise to Totalitarianism?
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Utopian Visions of Family Life in the Stalin-Era Soviet Union
Central European History 44 (2011), 63–91. © Conference Group for Central European History of the American Historical Association, 2011 doi:10.1017/S0008938910001184 Utopian Visions of Family Life in the Stalin-Era Soviet Union Lauren Kaminsky OVIET socialism shared with its utopian socialist predecessors a critique of the conventional family and its household economy.1 Marx and Engels asserted Sthat women’s emancipation would follow the abolition of private property, allowing the family to be a union of individuals within which relations between the sexes would be “a purely private affair.”2 Building on this legacy, Lenin imag- ined a future when unpaid housework and child care would be replaced by com- munal dining rooms, nurseries, kindergartens, and other industries. The issue was so central to the revolutionary program that the Bolsheviks published decrees establishing civil marriage and divorce soon after the October Revolution, in December 1917. These first steps were intended to replace Russia’s family laws with a new legal framework that would encourage more egalitarian sexual and social relations. A complete Code on Marriage, the Family, and Guardianship was ratified by the Central Executive Committee a year later, in October 1918.3 The code established a radical new doctrine based on individual rights and gender equality, but it also preserved marriage registration, alimony, child support, and other transitional provisions thought to be unnecessary after the triumph of socialism. Soviet debates about the relative merits of unfettered sexu- ality and the protection of women and children thus resonated with long-standing tensions in the history of socialism. I would like to thank Atina Grossmann, Carola Sachse, and Mary Nolan, as well as the anonymous reader for Central European History, for their comments and suggestions. -
Reassessing the Standard of Living in the Soviet Union: an Analysis Using Archival and Anthropometric Data
IZA DP No. 1958 Reassessing the Standard of Living in the Soviet Union: An Analysis Using Archival and Anthropometric Data Elizabeth Brainerd DISCUSSION PAPER SERIES DISCUSSION PAPER January 2006 Forschungsinstitut zur Zukunft der Arbeit Institute for the Study of Labor Reassessing the Standard of Living in the Soviet Union: An Analysis Using Archival and Anthropometric Data Elizabeth Brainerd Williams College, CEPR, WDI and IZA Bonn Discussion Paper No. 1958 January 2006 IZA P.O. Box 7240 53072 Bonn Germany Phone: +49-228-3894-0 Fax: +49-228-3894-180 Email: [email protected] Any opinions expressed here are those of the author(s) and not those of the institute. Research disseminated by IZA may include views on policy, but the institute itself takes no institutional policy positions. The Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn is a local and virtual international research center and a place of communication between science, politics and business. IZA is an independent nonprofit company supported by Deutsche Post World Net. The center is associated with the University of Bonn and offers a stimulating research environment through its research networks, research support, and visitors and doctoral programs. IZA engages in (i) original and internationally competitive research in all fields of labor economics, (ii) development of policy concepts, and (iii) dissemination of research results and concepts to the interested public. IZA Discussion Papers often represent preliminary work and are circulated to encourage discussion. Citation of such a paper should account for its provisional character. A revised version may be available directly from the author. IZA Discussion Paper No. -
The Russian Revolutions: the Impact and Limitations of Western Influence
Dickinson College Dickinson Scholar Faculty and Staff Publications By Year Faculty and Staff Publications 2003 The Russian Revolutions: The Impact and Limitations of Western Influence Karl D. Qualls Dickinson College Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.dickinson.edu/faculty_publications Part of the European History Commons Recommended Citation Qualls, Karl D., "The Russian Revolutions: The Impact and Limitations of Western Influence" (2003). Dickinson College Faculty Publications. Paper 8. https://scholar.dickinson.edu/faculty_publications/8 This article is brought to you for free and open access by Dickinson Scholar. It has been accepted for inclusion by an authorized administrator. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Karl D. Qualls The Russian Revolutions: The Impact and Limitations of Western Influence After the collapse of the Soviet Union, historians have again turned their attention to the birth of the first Communist state in hopes of understanding the place of the Soviet period in the longer sweep of Russian history. Was the USSR an aberration from or a consequence of Russian culture? Did the Soviet Union represent a retreat from westernizing trends in Russian history, or was the Bolshevik revolution a product of westernization? These are vexing questions that generate a great deal of debate. Some have argued that in the late nineteenth century Russia was developing a middle class, representative institutions, and an industrial economy that, while although not as advanced as those in Western Europe, were indications of potential movement in the direction of more open government, rule of law, free market capitalism. Only the Bolsheviks, influenced by an ideology imported, paradoxically, from the West, interrupted this path of Russian political and economic westernization. -
Russian History: a Brief Chronology (998-2000)
Russian History: A Brief Chronology (998-2000) 1721 Sweden cedes the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea to Russia (Treaty of Nystad). In celebration, Peter’s title Kievan Russia is changed from tsar to Emperor of All Russia Abolition of the Patrarchate of Moscow. Religious authority passes to the Holy Synod and its Ober- prokuror, appointed by the tsar. 988 Conversion to Christianity 1722 Table of Ranks 1237-1240 Mongol Invasion 1723-25 The Persian Campaign. Persia cedes western and southern shores of the Caspian to Russia Muscovite Russia 1724 Russia’s Academy of Sciences is established 1725 Peter I dies on February 8 1380 The Battle of Kulikovo 1725-1727 Catherine I 1480 End of Mongol Rule 1727-1730 Peter II 1462-1505 Ivan III 1730-1740 Anne 1505-1533 Basil III 1740-1741 Ivan VI 1533-1584 Ivan the Terrible 1741-1762 Elizabeth 1584-98 Theodore 1744 Sophie Friederike Auguste von Anhalt-Zerbst arrives in Russia and assumes the name of Grand Duchess 1598-1613 The Time of Troubles Catherine Alekseevna after her marriage to Grand Duke Peter (future Peter III) 1613-45 Michael Romanoff 1762 Peter III 1645-76 Alexis 1762 Following a successful coup d’etat in St. Petersburg 1672-82 Theodore during which Peter III is assassinated, Catherine is proclaimed Emress of All Russia Imperial Russia 1762-1796 Catherine the Great 1767 Nakaz (The Instruction) 1772-1795 Partitions of Poland 1682-1725 Peter I 1773-1774 Pugachev Rebellion 1689 The Streltsy Revolt and Suppression; End of Sophia’s Regency 1785 Charter to the Nobility 1695-96 The Azov Campaigns 1791 Establishment fo the Pale of Settlement (residential restrictions on Jews) in the parts of Poland with large 1697-98 Peter’s travels abroad (The Grand Embassy) Jewish populations, annexed to Russia in the partitions of Poland (1772, 1793, and 1795) and in the 1698 The revolt and the final suppression of the Streltsy Black Sea liitoral annexed from Turkey. -
Revolution in Real Time: the Russian Provisional Government, 1917
ODUMUNC 2020 Crisis Brief Revolution in Real Time: The Russian Provisional Government, 1917 ODU Model United Nations Society Introduction seventy-four years later. The legacy of the Russian Revolution continues to be keenly felt The Russian Revolution began on 8 March 1917 to this day. with a series of public protests in Petrograd, then the Winter Capital of Russia. These protests But could it have gone differently? Historians lasted for eight days and eventually resulted in emphasize the contingency of events. Although the collapse of the Russian monarchy, the rule of history often seems inventible afterwards, it Tsar Nicholas II. The number of killed and always was anything but certain. Changes in injured in clashes with the police and policy choices, in the outcome of events, government troops in the initial uprising in different players and different accidents, lead to Petrograd is estimated around 1,300 people. surprising outcomes. Something like the Russian Revolution was extremely likely in 1917—the The collapse of the Romanov dynasty ushered a Romanov Dynasty was unable to cope with the tumultuous and violent series of events, enormous stresses facing the country—but the culminating in the Bolshevik Party’s seizure of revolution itself could have ended very control in November 1917 and creation of the differently. Soviet Union. The revolution saw some of the most dramatic and dangerous political events the Major questions surround the Provisional world has ever known. It would affect much Government that struggled to manage the chaos more than Russia and the ethnic republics Russia after the Tsar’s abdication. -
Socialism in Europe and the Russian Revolution India and the Contemporary World Society Ofthefuture
Socialism in Europe and II the Russian Revolution Chapter 1 The Age of Social Change In the previous chapter you read about the powerful ideas of freedom and equality that circulated in Europe after the French Revolution. The French Revolution opened up the possibility of creating a dramatic change in the way in which society was structured. As you have read, before the eighteenth century society was broadly divided into estates and orders and it was the aristocracy and church which controlled economic and social power. Suddenly, after the revolution, it seemed possible to change this. In many parts of the world including Europe and Asia, new ideas about individual rights and who olution controlled social power began to be discussed. In India, Raja v Rammohan Roy and Derozio talked of the significance of the French Revolution, and many others debated the ideas of post-revolutionary Europe. The developments in the colonies, in turn, reshaped these ideas of societal change. ian Re ss Not everyone in Europe, however, wanted a complete transformation of society. Responses varied from those who accepted that some change was necessary but wished for a gradual shift, to those who wanted to restructure society radically. Some were ‘conservatives’, others were ‘liberals’ or ‘radicals’. What did these terms really mean in the context of the time? What separated these strands of politics and what linked them together? We must remember that these terms do not mean the same thing in all contexts or at all times. We will look briefly at some of the important political traditions of the nineteenth century, and see how they influenced change. -
The Arts in Russia Under Stalin
01_SOVMINDCH1. 12/19/03 11:23 AM Page 1 THE ARTS IN RUSSIA UNDER STALIN December 1945 The Soviet literary scene is a peculiar one, and in order to understand it few analogies from the West are of use. For a vari- ety of causes Russia has in historical times led a life to some degree isolated from the rest of the world, and never formed a genuine part of the Western tradition; indeed her literature has at all times provided evidence of a peculiarly ambivalent attitude with regard to the uneasy relationship between herself and the West, taking the form now of a violent and unsatisfied longing to enter and become part of the main stream of European life, now of a resentful (‘Scythian’) contempt for Western values, not by any means confined to professing Slavophils; but most often of an unresolved, self-conscious combination of these mutually opposed currents of feeling. This mingled emotion of love and of hate permeates the writing of virtually every well-known Russian author, sometimes rising to great vehemence in the protest against foreign influence which, in one form or another, colours the masterpieces of Griboedov, Pushkin, Gogol, Nekrasov, Dostoevsky, Herzen, Tolstoy, Chekhov, Blok. The October Revolution insulated Russia even more com- pletely, and her development became perforce still more self- regarding, self-conscious and incommensurable with that of its neighbours. It is not my purpose to trace the situation histori- cally, but the present is particularly unintelligible without at least a glance at previous events, and it would perhaps be convenient, and not too misleading, to divide its recent growth into three main stages – 1900–1928; 1928–1937; 1937 to the present – artifi- cial and over-simple though this can easily be shown to be. -
FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS in the SOVIET UNION: a COMPARATIVE APPROACH * T~Omas E
1967] FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS IN THE SOVIET UNION: A COMPARATIVE APPROACH * T~omAs E. TowE t INTRODUCTION The Soviet Constitution guarantees many of the same funda- mental rights as are guaranteed in the Constitution of the United States, plus several others as well. Indeed, these rights are described in greater detail and appear on their face to be safeguarded more emphatically in the Soviet Constitution. However, the mere existence of constitutional provisions for fundamental rights does not necessarily guarantee that those rights will be protected. Western scholars often point to discrepancies between rhetorical phrases in the Soviet Con- stitution and actual practices in the area of fundamental rights.' Soviet legal scholars insist, however, that such criticism should be aimed instead at Western constitutions. Andrei Vyshinsky has stated that it is precisely in the area of fundamental rights that "the contra- dictions between reality and the rights proclaimed by the bourgeois constitutions [are] particularly sharp." 2 Soviet legal scholars claim that bourgeois laws are replete with reservations and loopholes which largely negate their effectiveness in protecting fundamental rights generally, and those of the working man in particular.3 There is undoubtedly some truth in both claims, for, as Professor Berman has stated, "The striking fact is that in the protection of human rights, the Soviet system is strong where ours is weak, just as it is weak where ours is strong." 4 The full impact of this statement can only be understood by comparing the different approaches which * The author wishes to acknowledge the helpful comments and suggestions of Dr. Branko M. -
Cause One: Nicholas Ii, Czar of Russia
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION ILLUSTRATED TIMELINE CAUSE ONE: NICHOLAS II, CZAR OF RUSSIA 19TH CENTURY RUSSIA In the 19th century, Russia was a vast, multinational empire controlled by the Romanov Dynasty. A dynasty is when control of a country is passed from family member to family member. For centuries, Russia was relatively isolated from the affairs of Western Europe due to their cold climates and long distances. They were a strongly agricultural country who still relied on the principals of serfdom to plant crops. This policy of tying the peasants to the land had long since been abolished in the rest of Europe and prevented Russia from advancing. Serfdom was finally abolished in 1861. NICHOLAS II TAKES CONTROL - 1894 Nicholas II had ruled Russia as Czar since the death of his father in 1894. Like his father, Nicholas wanted an autocratic rule in which he alone made all the laws and determined all foreign policy. When he took control, Russia was very far behind the industrial production of the Western European countries such as Britain and Germany. Nicholas increased industrial production in Russia but at the same time created a larger class of urban poor. Most people in Russia, however, still lived on farms. BLOODY SUNDAY - JANUARY 9, 1905 The urban poor worked in factories for long hours, horrible conditions and little pay. In 1905, they asked the Czar for help by presenting a petition to the Winter palace. The Czar was not at home and his generals ordered the troops to open fire on the people. Over 500 unarmed people were killed in an incident that became known as Bloody Sunday. -
History of Azerbaijan (Textbook)
DILGAM ISMAILOV HISTORY OF AZERBAIJAN (TEXTBOOK) Azerbaijan Architecture and Construction University Methodological Council of the meeting dated July 7, 2017, was published at the direction of № 6 BAKU - 2017 Dilgam Yunis Ismailov. History of Azerbaijan, AzMİU NPM, Baku, 2017, p.p.352 Referents: Anar Jamal Iskenderov Konul Ramiq Aliyeva All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means. Electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner. In Azerbaijan University of Architecture and Construction, the book “History of Azerbaijan” is written on the basis of a syllabus covering all topics of the subject. Author paid special attention to the current events when analyzing the different periods of Azerbaijan. This book can be used by other high schools that also teach “History of Azerbaijan” in English to bachelor students, master students, teachers, as well as to the independent learners of our country’s history. 2 © Dilgam Ismailov, 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword…………………………………….……… 9 I Theme. Introduction to the history of Azerbaijan 10 II Theme: The Primitive Society in Azerbaijan…. 18 1.The Initial Residential Dwellings……….............… 18 2.The Stone Age in Azerbaijan……………………… 19 3.The Copper, Bronze and Iron Ages in Azerbaijan… 23 4.The Collapse of the Primitive Communal System in Azerbaijan………………………………………….... 28 III Theme: The Ancient and Early States in Azer- baijan. The Atropatena and Albanian Kingdoms.. 30 1.The First Tribal Alliances and Initial Public Institutions in Azerbaijan……………………………. 30 2.The Kingdom of Manna…………………………… 34 3.The Atropatena and Albanian Kingdoms…………. -
Water - Not a Drop to Drink How Baku Got Its Water-The British Link - William H
Water - Not a Drop to Drink How Baku Got Its Water-The British Link - William H. Lindley by Ryszard Zelichowski Oil was also behind Baku's effort to develop an infrastructure related to water distribution. By the late 19th century, Baku's city planners had long been faced with a dire issue: water shortage. They were desperate to find a reliable, healthy source of water. The problem reached critical proportions by the mid- 1800s and by the time the Oil Boom began in the 1870s, Baku had exhausted all known solutions, from channeling water Above and below: Vendors selling water in the streets of Baku. Early 1900s. from nearby rivers to building desalination plants. Finally, they sought international expertise and, after years of research and deliberation, the decision was made to bring water from the faraway foothills of the Caucasus Mountains. British civil engineer William Heerlein Lindley (1853-1917) coordinated the project for Baku's water supply system, working from 1899 up until his death in 1917. Having designed many of the water systems in Europe, he calculated that springs located high up in the Caucasus would provide a plentiful amount of water for Baku and its residents. He attempted something that had never been done before, not even in Europe. He constructed a pipeline, originating at the water source in the Caucasus mountains and extending 110 miles (177 km) south to Baku. It was the right decision. Even today, the Shollar pipeline remains vital to central Baku's water supply and is considered the most reliable, healthy source in the entire city. -
Russian Revolution of 1917 Was the A
Image BorisMikhailovich Kustodiev The BolshevikA.Nair- Dickerson A.Nair Dickerson The revolution in the Russian empire in 1917, in which the Russian monarchy (Czarist regime) was overthrown resulting in the formation of the world’s first communist government. A.Nair Dickerson Russia’ Romanov dynasty had lasted 300 years but Nicholas II, who ascended the throne in 1894, turned out to be the last Czar of Russia. How did such an ancient monarchy fall so quickly in 1917? A.Nair Dickerson Rewind -1905 A.Nair Dickerson A.Nair Dickerson Czar Nicholas II The Last Czar of Russia • Descendant of the Russian Romanovs. Absolute ruler with unlimited powers-Ruled alone and unquestioned. • Weak personality. • Ignored the needs of his people. • Czarina Alexandra, wife of Nicholas II was German. • BothA.Nair were Dickerson very unpopular. A.Nair Dickerson • Majority of the Russians were peasants or factory workers. • Most peasants did not own the land they farmed. • Factory workers had to endure long hours, low pay, and horrible working conditions. • About 80% of Russians were poor. A.Nair Dickerson • . • Economy was based on agriculture. • Russia was not as industrialized as the rest of Europe. • Russia’s war with Japan had devastated Russia’s economy. • Food prices went up, but the wages remained the same. • Many people were starving. A.Nair Dickerson A.Nair Dickerson Sunday, 22nd January, 1905 On a Sunday afternoon, a large group of over 200,000 unarmed workers, their families, and supporters along with Father Gapon, a Russian priest led a peaceful demonstration in St. Petersburg. • Demonstrators wanted to present a petition to the Czar regarding better working conditions, more wages, and freedom.