RAS PresidiumОбщественные науки и современность Obshchestvennye nauki i sovremennost

  • ISSN (Print) 0869-0499
  • ISSN (Online) 2712-9101

Revolution and Violence. Defense of Historical Approach to Russian Revolution Appraisal

PII
S086904990011568-6-1
DOI
10.31857/S086904990011568-6
Publication type
Article
Status
Published
Authors
Volume/ Edition
Volume / Issue 1
Pages
140-155
Abstract

The paper discusses the role of violence in revolution in general and in Russian revolution, in particular. The author shows inability of rationalistic tradition to adequately estimate revolution as far as it insists that reason is incompatible with violence. The problem of revolution can be really grasped only if it is treated politically, that is, viewed as a historical phenomenon. In this case political violence may be presented as a unique way of interrupting the former historical logic – an act which forecloses determination of the future by the past. The violence intensivity and scope, being the function of a singular social situation, depends on many factors: sharpness of contradictions, polarization of political forces, the degree of grass-root revolutionaries involvement, people mentality, etc. The range of violence triggered by October revolution was determined, inter alia, by the fact that grass-roots revolution has mutated into a “revolution from above” as soon as the “party state” attempted to attain economic and social progress through total suppression of the way of life which was enjoyed as normal by millions of people. Thus, the violence exercised by the political power structures over the people at large gave rise to a totalitarian regime.

Keywords
Capitalism, socialism, civilization, revolution, state, Bolshevism, political parties, proletariat, peasantry, terror, political regime, the catching-up development, contingency, necessity, culture, way of life, totalitarianism, historical choice
Date of publication
17.02.2017
Year of publication
2017
Number of purchasers
4
Views
1022

References

  1. 1. Alekseeva T., Kapustin B., Pantin I. (1997) National’naya ideya: illjuziya ili neponyataya potrebnost’? [National Idea: an illusion or a misunderstood need?]. October, no. 1, pp. 137–153.
  2. 2. Gerzen A. (1955) Sharlotta Korday [Charlotte Corday]. Gerzen A.I. Sobr. soch.v. 30 t., t. 6. Moscow: Publishing House of the USSR Academy of Sciences, pp. 243–246.
  3. 3. Gefter M. (1991) Ya Iz tekh I etikh let [I am from these years]. Moscow: Progress.
  4. 4. Gefter M. (1972) Mnogoukladnost’ – kharakhteristika tselogo. Voprosy istorii kapitalizma. Problema mnogoukladnosti [The stratification is a characteristic of the whole. Questions of history of capitalism. The problem of multiculturalism]. Sverdlovsk: Gosizdat.
  5. 5. Gefter M. (2004) Tam gde soznaniyu uzko i bol’no. [There where consciousness feels tight and hurts…] Moscow: Knizhniy Dom Universitet.
  6. 6. Kapustin B. (2010) O predmete i upotreblenii ponyatiya “revoliutsiya”. Kritika politicheskoy filosofii. Izbrannye esse [On essence and the use of the notion “revolution”. Critique of political philosophy. Selected essays]. Moscow: Territoriya budushego.
  7. 7. Lenin V. K chetirekhletney godovshine oktiabr’skoy revoliutsii [To the fourth anniversary of the October Revolution]. Lenin V. Poln. sobr. soch., t. 44.
  8. 8. Lenin V. Politicheskiy otchet TsKVKP. [Political Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU]. Lenin V. Poln. sobr. soch., t. 45a, pp. 69–116.
  9. 9. Lenin V. O kooperatsii [On Cooperation]. Lenin V. Poln. sobr. soch., t. 45b, pp. 369–377.
  10. 10. Marx K., Engels F. (1955) Nemetskaya ideologiya [German ideology]. Marx K., Engels F. Soch., vol. 3. Moscow: Gos. izdatelstvo politicheskoi literatury, pp. 7–544.
  11. 11. Ortega-i-Gasset Kh. (1997) Izbranniye trudi [Selected Works]. Moscow: Moscow.
  12. 12. Pantin I. (2015) Russkaya revolutsia. Idei, ideologiya, politicheskaya praktika [Russia Revolution. Ideas, ideology, political practice]. Moscow: Letniy sad.
  13. 13. Shanin T. (1997) Revoliutsiya kak moment istini. 1905–1907–1917–1922 [Revolution as a moment of truth. 1905–1907–1917–1922]. Moscow: Ves’ mir.
  14. 14. Stalin I. (1933) Voprosi Leninizma [Problems of Leninism]. Moscow: Partizdat.
QR
Translate

Индексирование

Scopus

Scopus

Scopus

Crossref

Scopus

Higher Attestation Commission

At the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation

Scopus

Scientific Electronic Library