Year 7 & 8 Teacher CD s2

Chapter 12 Consolidating power: The first six months

Reading more deeply

Easy

Kowalski, R 1997, The Russian Revolution 1917–1921, Routledge. Chapter 7, ‘The origins of the Bolshevik dictatorship’, pp. 99–113.

Kowalski is a Senior Lecturer in Russian History in England and the strength of his book lies in its examination of fresh perspectives of the communist era revealed in 1991 after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This chapter provides some excellent alternative documentary evidence that suggests that a Bolshevik dictatorship ‘was not quite the forgone conclusion that it appears in retrospect’.

Moderate

Anweiler, O 1974, The Soviets, Pantheon Books. Chapter, ‘The Soviets during the October Revolution’, pp. 192–207.

This is an extremely valuable source as the word ‘soviet’ is widely used, but rarely examined in detail. Who exactly made up the soviets? How were they organised? What political and social inﬂuence did they really have? This chapter describes the uneven and difficult spread of the Bolshevik takeover throughout the country. Interestingly, Anweiler describes the lessening impact of the soviet system as they were gradually reduced to being a tool of the Bolsheviks. The crux of the chapter is the political wrestle between the Bolsheviks and the other revolutionary parties at the Second All Russian Congress of Soviets.

Challenging

Thébaud, F (Ed.) 1994, A History of Women in the West: Toward a Cultural Identity in the Twentieth Century, vol. 5, Harvard University Press. ‘The Soviet model’ by Françoise Navailh, pp. 226–44.

Navailh rereads the Soviet Union in the 1920s and 1930s from a feminist perspective. The most intriguing and valuable aspect of the chapter is the analysis of the sexual revolution in the 1920s where the laws on divorce, abortion, de facto relationships and children were liberalised in a sweeping move to oppose the social regulations of the old regime. The chapter also provides a case study of Alexandra Kollontai’s political achievements under Lenin and her definitions of the new woman being one who ‘let men know what she wanted and refused to be dependent’. Another good general source for examining the role of women in the revolution is Cathy Porter’s Women in Revolutionary Russia. Porter also wrote Alexandra Kollontai: A Biography (Virago, London, 1980), which retells the events and emotions of Kollontai’s life. Chapter 13 discusses Kollontai’s involvement immediately after the revolution.