The February Revolution Reconsidered: Part 1, A Violent Revolution

In my last post, I challenged two myths of Russia’s 1917 February Revolution which removed Tsar Nicholas II from power: that it was “spontaneous” and “leaderless”.

Over the next two posts, I’ll put forward two rather different interpretations. Both are commonly overlooked when teaching the Russian Revolution. Both, however, deserve serious attention.

In this first post, I’ll examine the case for the February Revolution being a violent event. This directly challenges a common myth that February was peaceful, especially when compared the previous outbreaks of revolutionary unrest, such as 1905’s Bloody Sunday massacre or the 1912 Lena Goldfields massacre.

In fact, February 1917 witnessed considerable violence. This took several forms, including killings of protestors; bloody reprisals against military officers and police; public disorder and mob justice; and iconoclasm.

Problematising Pogroms: Reassessing Antisemitic Agency in Russia, c. 1881-1921

By the beginning of the 20^th century, Russia was the most antisemitic country in Europe. The hatred of Jews was manifested more violently and more frequently than anywhere else in the continent, through regular outbreaks of pogroms.

Why? While we might be tempted to blame an arch-reactionary, Jew-hating government under the last Tsars, we should also be wary of simplistic, monocausal explanations of Russian antisemitism and pogroms. On closer examination, the picture is much more complicated.

Russian Responses to the Great War: Reconsidering Textbook Narratives

In July 1914, Russia entered the First World War. It was a momentous decision, which would ultimately seal the fate of the Tsarist government and shape the revolutionary and Soviet regimes that succeeded it.

But how did the people of the Russian Empire respond?

This post provides an explanation and outline to teaching the question of the response of Russians (and non-ethnic “Russians” and non-Russians) to the outbreak of war. Lesson resources can be found in the link here.

Exploring the Symbolism of Protest in Tsarist and Soviet Russia

On 2 June 1962, workers at the Novocherkassk Electric Locomotive Works marked out of their factory workshops and set off to the party headquarters. Protesting against cuts to their wages (a result of Khrushchev’s policy of wage reforms) and rises to food prices, theirs was one of the boldest and clearest examples of worker unrest in the USSR since the 1920s.