Course info

The Russian Revolution was one of the most important events in the 20th Century. It brought an end to Tsarist rule and gave birth to the first socialist state. Very often, the Russian Revolution is identified with the events of 1917, when the Tsar abdicated in February and the Bolsheviks seized power in October. As a matter of fact there had been several Russian Revolutions or stages of a larger revolutionary process. This process has its roots in the second half of the 19th Century and resulted in the first Russian Revolution of 1905. Eventually Tsarist rule was restored, but only in the framework of a semi-constitutional government. It collapsed under the burdens of World War I, leading to the abdication of Emperor Nicolas II in February 1917. In October 1917, the Bolsheviks were finally able to seize power, but it took them more than three years to consolidate their rule and to build the Soviet state. Bolshevik power was challenged by counter-revolutionary forces (the "Whites") and several other parties (Allied and Central powers, Poland, Ukrainian nationalists, "green" Warlord armies) in the Russian Civil War, which had a deep impact on the Bolshevik party, on the Soviet state and society. 1921 is often accepted as the end of the Russian Revolution, but now the Bolsheviks had to find answers to the problems of multi-ethnicity and diversity of the former Tsarist territories they had conquered in the course of Civil War. They also had to transform an imperial structure into a revolutionary form of Statehood. Much more, the revolutionary process had been restricted to the urban centres. The Bolsheviks had not succeeded in "revolutionising" the village. Thus the overwhelming majority of the Russian population lived outside of the new revolutionary order. Soviet state-building, the creation of the Soviet multi-national state during the 1920s and the Sovietization of the village during collectivization (1928-1932) can be considered as the final stages of a revolutionary process that completed the political, social and cultural transformation of the former Tsarist Empire, leading to the emergence of the Soviet Union.

The module aims to give students a deeper understanding of the Russian Revolution as a larger process that started long before 1917 and did not end in 1917 or even in 1921. It thereby will delve into the questions of periodization and conceptualization of historical events or processes in general, and discuss this problem in the context of the Russian Revolution. The module will also put emphasis on different methodological approaches to history and to the Russian Revolution in particular. It will give an overview of different interpretations of the Russian Revolution, and of former and current scholarly debates. The students shall be enabled to discuss different historical positions and to interpret primary sources of the Russian Revolution.