Introduction to Modern History: The Russian Revolution (ten weeks)

An introduction to modern history through a case study of the Russian revolution and its aftermath. The emphasis is on examining different approaches to writing history.

Instructor:

Alan O'Connor

Course requirements:

To be discussed at first meeting

Suggested course book:

Isaac Deutscher, Stalin: A Political Biography (Penguin, 1966)

Optional books:

E. H. Carr, What is History? (Penguin, 1964) John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World (Penguin, 1966) Nestor Makhno, The Struggle Against the State (AK Press, 1996)

Time Frame:

Classes take place on Mondays at 8 pm to 9:45 pm between September 15 and November 24. There is no class on October 20 (reading break)

Week 1: Introduction

Introductions, discussion of writing history, workshop on a letter written by Russian soldiers in 1917 from Steinberg, Voices of Revolution, 1917 (Yale, 2001), 126-7.

Week 2: Just the Facts?

Discussion of E. H. Carr, What is History? (Penguin, 1964). Historical Interpretations of the Revolution in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of the Russian Revolution (1988) Ronald Grigor Suny, 'Toward a Social History of the October Revolution,' American Historical Review 88(1983): 31-52. Also in his The Structure of Soviet History (Oxford, 2003) and in D. H. Kaiser (ed.) The Workers' Revolution in Russia, 1917 (Cambridge, 1987).

Week 3: I was there

Discussion of John Reed, Ten Days That Shook the World (originally published 1919) Morgan Philips Price, Dispatches from the Revolution: Russia 1916-1918 (1998).

Week 4: Social history of the revolution

Examples of this approach include: Rex A. Wade, The Russian Revolution, 1917 (Cambridge 2000) D. H. Kaiser (ed.) The Workers' Revolution in Russia, 1917 (Cambridge, 1987). David Mandel, The Petrograd Workers and the Soviet Seizure of Power (Macmillan, 1984) Rex A. Wade, Red Guards and the Workers' Militias in the Russian Revolution (Stanford, 1984)

Week 5: Take me to your leader

Discussion of Deutscher, Stalin: A Political Biography

READING BREAK

Week 6: Russia in 1905

Social history and the first Russian revolution. Robert Edelman, Proletarian Peasants: The Revolution of 1905 in Russia's Southwest (Cornell, 1987)

Week 7: The Revolution of Feb 1917

An unorganized revolution? The role of women.

Week 8: October 1917

Including a discussion of the role of anarchists in the revolution Paul Avrich, The Russian Anarchists (Princeton, 1967) Paul Avrich (ed.) The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution (Thames and Hudson, 1973)

Week 9: The Left Opposition to the Bolsheviks:

From the Workers' Opposition to the Kronstadt rebellion Paul Avrich, Kronstadt 1921 (Princeton, 1970)

Week 10: The Civil War and Authoritarian Socialism in Power

Nestor Makhno, The Struggle Against the State (AK Press, 1996)

THE NESTOR MAKHNO ARCHIVE http://www.nestormakhno.info