The February Revolution of 1917 and the Russian Army
"Soviet Studies". Glasgow. 1970, N 1.
The article by the American historian A. Wildman covers a short period: March-early April 1917, but, as noted in the editorial note, it is the initial section of the monograph on the history of the Russian army throughout 1917. In fact, this is the first work in American bourgeois literature specifically devoted to the revolutionary movement in the Russian army. Until now, this topic has been considered only in general works on the history of the revolutions of 1917, and its interpretation was based mainly on the memoirs of White emigrants and foreign eyewitnesses of the events. A. Wildman used a much wider range of sources, including Soviet documentary publications, the press (the newspapers Pravda, Izvestia, etc.), and also works of Soviet historians. This allowed the author to move away from some of the provisions that are firmly rooted in Western historiography. Thus, he resolutely rejects the thesis that tsardom in 1917 was not overthrown by the revolutionary masses, but "fell" due to "internal rottenness". "a revolution has taken place, and all attempts to fit it into the framework of a dynastic upheaval or constitutional transformation are meaningless" (p.3).
However, the author sees in the February Revolution only the action of spontaneous elements, which leads him to erroneous conclusions. He asserts that until February there were no signs of the revolutionary nature of the soldiers ' masses at the front. A. Wildman characterizes their mood as "a vague expectation of changes that were supposed to come from the outside" (p. 6).Therefore, the February revolution, in his opinion, turned out to be "completely sudden" for the front (p. 7). These claims are untenable. The facts of revolutionary ferment and revolutionary actions in the army were already noted a year and a half before the overthrow of tsarism. Typical in this sense is the summary of information about the mood in the army prepared for the Chairman of the Council of Ministers N. D. Golitsyn at the beginning of 1917, which stated: "The possibility that the troops will be on the side of the coup and the overthrow of the dynasty is acceptable, because ... they are still too dissatisfied with the entire administration of the country" 1 . The activity of Bolshevik organizations in the army and navy, which A. Wildman completely ignores, was of exceptional importance for the growth of revolutionary sentiments among the soldier masses.
Drawing, further, a picture of the development of the revolution at the front (the displacement of the reactionary command, the creation of soldiers ' Komi-
1 See Byloye, 1918, vol. 1 (29), p. 157.
page 195
A. Wildman tries to portray this process only as spontaneous, not connected, as he claims, with "the influence of the Petrograd Soviet or any other organized group of agitators" (p.13). The only event that had a definite impact on the army, A. Wildman considers "Order No. 1 "(pp. 14-16). However, even if we speak only of it, we must admit that the very fact of its rapid spread and implementation by the masses of soldiers cannot be explained without taking into account the revolutionary traditions of 1905 - 1907 and, again, the activities of Bolshevik organizations in the army and navy.
Speaking about the defencist mood in the army and the influence of compromisers in the soldiers ' committees in March and early April 1917, A. Wildman avoids a social analysis of this phenomenon, and without this it is impossible to understand the process of liberating the soldier masses from defencist illusions. The author reduces the question mainly to "psychological" reasons, bypassing the fact that the Provisional Government was losing influence over the soldiers primarily because of the anti-people, reactionary orientation of its policy. "The educated and propertied elements that made up the Duma circles and from which the Provisional Government emerged," he writes, "were emotionally more connected with the successful continuation of the war and the maintenance of Russia's status as a great power than with radical social and political changes" (p. 23). A. Wildman argues that overcoming defencist sentiments among the population of the Soviet Union was not a problem. everything happened spontaneously. He seeks to prove that even here the influence of the Bolsheviks did not play a significant role. Meanwhile, from the very beginning, when the mood of defencism still prevailed, a consciously revolutionary, Bolshevik tendency steadily grew and strengthened among the soldier masses. And even though in March 1917 she wasn't the host yet, the future belonged to her.
A. Wildman's thesis that the Provisional Government probably had a chance "to become a revolutionary power to which the committees would submit" (p.23) actually returns him to the traditional concept of American bourgeois historiography, according to which the development of the revolution from February to October could have been prevented by pursuing a more "flexible" course. It should be noted that this point of view has recently been rejected even by some bourgeois historians (L. Heimson, T. von Laue, etc.).
Article A. Wildman's work is symptomatic of recent American historiography, which is trying (especially in the face of the younger generation of historians) to develop new, more "elastic" and "balanced" interpretations of the Russian revolutions of 1917.
G. Z. Ioffe
American "Sovietologist" about NEP
"Soviet Studies". Glasgow. 1970, N 1.
Bourgeois historiography has been trying for fifty years to distort the essence of Lenin's new economic policy. The forms and methods that it uses change, but the continuity of concepts remains. At first, reactionary bourgeois historians had hoped for an early revival of the capitalist order in the Soviet country, but life has refuted all these calculations. This forced them to resort to more sophisticated falsification techniques .1 The latest concepts are characterized by combining a perversion of the essence of NEP with an equally false interpretation of the economic reforms implemented in the USSR and other socialist countries in recent years. This line was most sharply expressed in the works of American "Sovietologists" 2 . As already noted in the Soviet press, " the arguments about NEP serve American experts as a kind of prologue to the interpretation of the current day of the Soviet economy. They make a "subtle" ideological move-they throw a bridge between nep and osu-
1 Criticism of the falsifying "theories" of NEP, which were in use in the 30-50s, is given in the works of: T. S. Alexandrova, G. L. Sobolev. Questions of the history of socialist construction in the USSR in American bourgeois literature. "Critique of the latest bourgeois historiography". Collection of articles, Moscow-L. 1961; A. Z. Vaxer, L. F. Sklyarov. Against the perversions of the history of the class struggle in the USSR during the transition to NEP. Ibid.; V. A. Shishkin. The problem of transition to a new economic policy in the coverage of modern Anglo-American bourgeois historiography. "The workers of Leningrad in the struggle for the victory of Socialism." Collection of articles, Moscow-L. 1963; Yu. A. Polyakov. Transition to NEP and the Soviet Peasantry, Moscow, 1967, pp. 35-45.
2 См., например, "New Directions in the Soviet Economy". Pt. I. Washington. 1966, p. 17.
page 196
the current economic reform in the USSR, describing both as a "return to capitalism", or rather, as a steady movement towards "market socialism"3 .
This trend is also very clearly seen in the article "Market orientation of state-owned enterprises during the NEP years"by V. N. Bandera, an employee of the University of California (Berkeley) and Boston College. This is not the first time that the author has attempted to present NEP 4 in a distorted light .
It is well known that the NEP was introduced as a temporary, transitional system designed to consistently oust capitalism from the country's economy and ensure the undivided rule of the socialist system. V. N. Bandera, based on the false premise of "stabilizing" the private sector, asserts that the NEP "was not a transitional policy, but a clearly defined functional system" (p. 110). Repeating the speculations of bourgeois propaganda that modern economic reforms in socialist countries mean the introduction of" market socialism", he transfers this characteristic to the NEP, which he calls" the Soviet experiment of market socialism " (ibid.).
However, this statement is easily refuted by historical facts. The fact that with the transition to NEP, the state-owned trust industry was transferred to self-financing, subordinated to the principle of profitability, and was assigned the task of profitable farming, does not mean at all, as V. N. Bandera assures, that the purpose of the trusts 'activities, like private capitalist enterprises, was to "extract maximum profit" and to achieve this goal again, like private capitalist enterprises, the trusts operated ostensibly " in accordance with the rules of the market game." It is enough to recall at least how resolutely the party eliminated the "price scissors" in 1923-1924 by lowering the prices of state - owned industrial products. The most important thing is the qualitatively new nature of the category "profit" in the conditions of the Soviet economy.
V. N. Bandera's attempts to belittle the role of planning in the activities of state industry during the NEP years are equally untenable. "The new economic policy," V. I. Lenin emphasized, "does not change the unified state economic plan and does not go beyond its framework, but changes the approach to its implementation." 5 "It is by no means a historical accident," noted G. M. Krzhizhanovsky, " that the famous turn from the surplus-tax system to the food tax system... the time just coincides with the organization of Gosplan " 6 . Openly anti-Soviet are the claims of V. N. Bandera, who repeats the arguments of bourgeois science and propaganda, that with the adoption of five-year plans, the NEP, which is supposedly based on "market socialism", gave way to the system of"command economy" 7 .
Source studies and historiographical base," opusov " V. N. Bandera is very poor. He ignores numerous Soviet studies of recent years on industrial management, on the activities of trusts and syndicates, and on other aspects of NEP.
I. Z. Romanov
The role of propaganda in Nazi Germany
"Zeitschrift fur Geschichtswissenschaft". Berlin. 1969, N 10.
The progressive public of the world is seriously concerned about the activation of neo-fascist forces, which are increasingly turning to the" experience " of the Nazis, in particular, in the field of propaganda. This fact, writes the GDR historian Klaus Scheel in his article, reflects the growing reactionary nature of modern imperialism. Considering in this connection the methods of fascist propaganda used in Hitler's Germany, the author emphasizes such features as " militant anti-communism and anti-Sovietism, fanatical racism based on the idea of domination
3 V. Smolyansky. Soviet economy and American "experts". Pravda, 26. V. 1967.
4 See V. N. Bandera. The New Economic Policy (NEP) as an Economic System. "Journal of Political Economy", 1963, vol. LXXI, N 3, pp. 265 - 279.
5 V. I. Lenin. PSS. Vol. 54, p. 101.
6 G. M. Krzhizhanovsky. Soch. Vol. II. Moscow, 1934, p. 162.
7 For criticism of such "theories", see A. Lobunets, N. Yankilevskaya. Criticism of bourgeois" theories "of" command economy". "Economy of Soviet Ukraine". 1970, N 7, pp. 61-66.
page 197
"Aryans' superiority over other peoples, unrestrained chauvinism, the desire for world domination, the cult of the geopolitical and social-Darwinian thesis 'blood and land', the mystified idea of the motherland and military honor, the legend of 'German socialism' that rejects class struggle "(p.1286). These ideas, says K. Scheel, the Nazis planted with the help of various propaganda institutions, headed by the propaganda department of the NSDAP and Goebbels ' Ministry of Propaganda, behind which were monopolists. Mass media were put in the service of propaganda: the press, radio, cinema, and 200 thousand publicists, publishers, artists, and journalists were attracted to work in them. The propaganda department of the NSDAP included the departments of "active propaganda", radio, films, culture, and the press. Certain areas of propaganda were also in charge of the Foreign policy department, the department of colonial policy, foreign organizations, etc. All of them directed and controlled ideological activities in the Wehrmacht, in assault and security detachments, in the "Hitler Youth" and Nazi " unions "("Workers ' Front"," Strength through Joy", teachers, students, women), in educational institutions, scientific and any other institutions. Both collective and individual processing of the population was carried out. In 1939, the fascist propaganda machine had at its disposal 3,500 daily newspapers and 15,000 magazines, 15 radio stations (with 10.82 million receivers in the country), and 9.48 thousand movie installations (serving 447 million viewers). In 1939 alone, more than 3,000 publishers published 20,000 book titles (p. 1289).
The extensive network of propaganda institutions absorbed the huge funds that the German monopolists provided to the Fascist dictatorship. From 1933 to 1945, 700 million marks were transferred to the Nazis in the form of "donations to Hitler from the German economy" alone, in addition, 84 million marks were received from the owners of IG Farben, Krupp - 12 million, and the Flick concern - 7.65 million marks (p. 1295). A significant part of these allocations was intended to finance fascist propaganda. With the help of a powerful propaganda machine, backed up by brutal terror, fascism sought ideologically and politically to subordinate broad sections of the people to the interests of the financial oligarchy.
A. A. Anikeev
On the question of the German occupation of Ukraine in 1918
"Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht". Stuttgart. 1970, N 6.
West German historian W. Baumgart, who works at the University of Bonn, specializes in the problems of "Eastern politics" in Germany during the First World War1 . At present, he has undertaken the publication of the diary and correspondence of V. Groener, who in 1918 was Chief of Staff of the Kiev group of German occupation forces in Ukraine. These documents are the basis of the article "General Groener and the German occupation policy in Ukraine in 1918". The significance of the materials introduced by V. Baumgart into scientific circulation is determined primarily by the fact that in Groener's hands all the threads of the German occupation policy in Ukraine converged. The goals and nature of the occupation, the alignment of political forces, the relationship of the occupation authorities with the puppet" governments " of Ukrainian nationalists - all these and other issues are reflected in these materials. However, so far we have only excerpts from Groener's diary entries and letters given in the article, as well as a small publication of these letters .2
Considering the events in Ukraine, as well as the" Eastern policy " of Germany in general in the last year of the war, V. Baumgart cannot ignore Marxist historiography. It is characteristic in this connection that he recognizes the complete collapse of the" Ukrainian policy " of Germany, as well as the far-sightedness of V. I. Lenin, who insisted on the conclusion of the Brest Peace. The author rejects the primitive apologetic arguments about the" cooperation " of the German occupiers and the Ukrainian people "in the political, economic and cultural fields" - motives that have become widespread in the works of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists and in German imperialist propaganda. He admits that this was a real occupation, that Ukraine was "not an independent, sovereign state, but a German occupied region, a German general government" (p. 328).
1 See W. Baumgart. Deutsche Ostpolitik 1918. Von Brest-Litowsk bis zum Ende des Ersten Weltkrieges. Wien-Munchen. 1966.
2 См. "Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte" (Bonn), 26.X.1968.
page 198
Groener's diary contains eloquent assessments of Ukrainian bourgeois nationalists, whose "governments" were held solely by the force of German bayonets. Groener wrote, for example, that the "sovereign" Central Rada is a "fiction", that its power extends no further than the occupied territory. In the second half of April 1918, Groener, on Ludendorff's instructions, set out to replace the Central Rada with another "government" capable of ensuring the supply of raw materials and food to Germany and more effectively fighting the growing liberation movement of the Ukrainian people. The documents cited by V. Baumgart do not contain direct indications of Groener's participation in the transfer of power to P. Skoropadsky on April 29. However, it is known that the latter had already given the occupiers a written commitment to comply with all their demands .3 There is direct evidence that Groener, while remaining in the shadows, was the initiator of a number of political actions. This was the case in October 1918, when a number of Skoropadsky's ministers resigned. "Groener wants a new cabinet," they said in Kiev on this occasion. Groener's description of the "social democrat" V. K. Vinnichenko, who together with Petliura headed the Directory, is interesting: "Not a trace of a truly socialist tinge. Both in appearance and in views - a real bourgeois " 4 .
V. Baumgart's position on the goals of the occupation of Ukraine deserves special consideration. The thesis that Germany had no definite plans to capture it either before or during the First World War runs through the whole article. The author claims that the occupation policy in Ukraine was "improvisation". Groener, he writes, repeatedly asked Berlin about what Germany wants to do with Ukraine, and did not receive a clear answer. On this basis, V. Baumgart declares his disagreement with Marxist historiography, which quite reasonably links the occupation of Ukraine in 1918 with the long-standing expansionist goals of German "Eastern policy". Meanwhile, in the materials of Groener, you can find indications of what role was assigned to Ukraine in the future. The general believed that creating favorable conditions for the use of its rich resources would require maintaining the occupation regime for many years after the end of the war. For the same purpose, he considered it necessary to invest German capital in the Ukrainian economy (p. 333). Baumgart cites Groener's reasoning about the opportunities that could open up for Germany in the event of a victory in the war: "The Ukraine and still more the Caucasus could, with a favorable outcome of the war in the West, be used as a springboard for a flank attack against the British Empire in Baghdad and India and for the expansion of German economic space" (p.329). Baumgart himself mentions German plans to create an "independent" state in Crimea with a German military base in Sevastopol, as well as the so-called "South-Eastern Union" on the Don. Ludendorff and Wilhelm II also discussed the possibility of creating a "Caucasian bloc" centered in Tiflis under German auspices. Groener, whom the author portrays as an opponent of extensive expansion, stated that Germany needed Baku oil and Turkestan cotton (p. 329). But Germany's forces were running out in 1918. Groener repeatedly complained that he did not have enough troops even to "maintain order" (that is, to fight the growing revolutionary movement). Moreover, they were not enough to implement extensive expansion plans.
V. N. Vinogradov
American historian on Paul I's foreign policy
"The Journal of Modern History". Chicago. 1970, N 1.
Hugh Ragsdale, a lecturer in history at the University of Alabama, USA, has been working for several years on one of the most complex and poorly understood topics - Paul I's foreign policy. His attention is primarily drawn to the question of the reasons for the Franco-Russian rapprochement in late 1799 and early 1801. X's articles. Ragsdale is of interest in several ways. First of all, they testify to the increased attention of American historiography to the problems of Russian foreign policy, in particular to the period of 1796-1825, when tsarist diplomacy, actively participating in European international affairs, went beyond the borders of the Soviet Union.
3 See N. I. Suprunenko. Essays on the history of the Civil War and foreign military intervention in Ukraine, Moscow, 1966, p. 44.
4 "Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte", 26.X.1968, S. 33.
page 199
the limits of the Polish and Eastern questions, traditional under Catherine II. Then, for X's works. Ragsdale (as well as P. Kennedy-Grimstead 1 and some other young American historians) is characterized by the rejection of the old-fashioned anti-scientific analogies and parallels with the foreign policy of the USSR, which are common for historians of the older generation. Knowledge of the Russian language and the help of Soviet scientists allowed some representatives of this new generation of specialists to study quite productively the literature and manuscript collections of libraries in Moscow and Leningrad, as well as partially the archives of the USSR (mainly TSGADA). H. Ragsdale used both well-known pre-revolutionary Russian publications of diplomatic documents and Soviet publications. He refers to the research of Soviet historians. Remaining generally in the position of American bourgeois historiography, for example, in an effort to exaggerate the degree of economic backwardness of Russia at the beginning of the XIX century (this is to some extent due to the fact that the author relied on outdated data from Soviet publications of the 20s), H. Ragsdale at the same time not only borrows the rich factual material contained in He also often accepts the concepts of Soviet historians regarding the foreign policy of Paul I. In contrast to the common view in Anglo-American historiography of the reasons for the Franco-Russian rapprochement, which was allegedly caused solely by Paul I's dissatisfaction with the capture of Malta by England, the author gives almost verbatim counterargument of the Soviet specialist A.M. Stanislavskaya 2 . Following her, he rightly argues that this was not the case at all, but in the general sharp deterioration of Russian-English relations, which was outlined even before the Maltese conflict and was associated with the unwillingness of Paul I to fight for English interests. Unfortunately, this conclusion is not supported by a reference to the monograph of A. M. Stanislavskaya, which, by the way, is not mentioned at all in the article.
Interesting information based on English sources about the economic consequences for England of the termination on the initiative of Paul I in October - November 1800.
Russian trade with this country. Supplemented in December of the same year by the naval blockade of the Baltic Sea by the members of the League of Armed Neutrality (Russia, Denmark, Sweden, Prussia) and Bonaparte's measures (closing not only the ports of France, but also Italy to the British), the rupture of trade relations caused, in the author's opinion, a serious crisis in England's import trade. The food situation became so serious that in November 1801 a special session of Parliament had to be called to decide on the importation of grain to England. The situation was complicated by the threat of a social explosion in the country due to food shortages. According to X. The economic consequences of the "continental system" of 1801 were at first even more serious for England than the results of the continental blockade of 1806-1813, because the English bourgeoisie in 1801 was taken by surprise and did not immediately find new markets that later opened up to it revolutions in the Spanish possessions in Latin America. The author's conclusions about the consequences of the Anglo-Russian trade gap in late 1800 and early 1801 for Russia are less convincing. His claim that these consequences were even more serious for Russia than for England is not supported by actual material. In general, we can agree with the opinion of X. According to Ragsdale, the continental system of 1801 was "improvised." His conclusion that for Napoleon the events of 1801 were a "dress rehearsal" for the continental blockade of 1806-1813 is also open to argument.
V. G. Sirotkin
The city of Nin under the rule of Venice
"Radovi Instituta Jugoslavenske Akademije znanosti i umjetnosti u Zadru". Zadar. 1969, sv. XVI - XVII.
For several centuries in the history of the Croatian people, a prominent role was played by the city of Nin - a fortress, port, residence of bishops and seat of kings, located in the north-west of Dalmatia. In the IX - X centuries, it was an outpost of the spread of Christianity, and then the center of worship in the Slavic language. The" Church of Nino " led by Bishop Gregory actively opposed Rome. Later
1 See Voprosy Istorii, 1971, No. 3, pp. 191-193.
2 See A. M. Stanislavskaya. Russo-English relations and problems of the Mediterranean (1798-1807). Moscow, 1962, ch. III.
page 200
Nin became the seat of Croatian sovereigns, and in 1069 King Kresimir issued one of his diplomas attesting to Nin's place in the growing Croatian feudal state. The 900th anniversary of this event was marked by the publication of a collection of studies on the history, archeology and culture of Nina. The article published in it by M. Novak - Sambrailo highlights the most dramatic stage in the city's history, when, once under the rule of Venice, it gradually lost its autonomy, and then went bankrupt and died during the ongoing wars.
Until now, relatively large cities usually came to the attention of researchers, while small ones remained in the shadows. Meanwhile, there were many more of them, and their history is instructive in that it allows us to get closer to the answer to the question: what was the difference between a small town of the medieval era and a large village?
According to M. Novak-Sambrailo, by the time of the transition under the rule of Venice, that is, by 1420, Nin had a communal organization similar to other Dalmatian centers: an elected prince, a permanent patrician corporation - a Grand Council and autonomy in the most important matters. At least such pressing foreign policy issues as the transition to the rule of Venice, the Nina commune decided on its own. In the XIII-XV centuries. Ning was the commercial center of the rural district. It had its own characteristics. Thus, its Grand Council often consisted of only 8 people (whereas in one of the smallest communes, in Trogir, the council included from 40 to 80 members). The city's population was heavily affected by the Venetian - Turkish wars. After the war of 1553, only 150 inhabitants remained in Nina. For 1560-1580, the number of them varies between 340, 814, and 525 people, and the percentage of combat-ready men in the city's population remained at the same level (about 20%).
In 1570, when the Venetians decided to destroy Nin under the influence of the defeats inflicted by the Turks, officials sent there reported that the city had almost no stone buildings, it consisted of huts covered with straw, and its inhabitants were almost entirely engaged in agriculture. It is not surprising that a Venetian official - a city prince-forced citizens to perform corvee duties and tried to introduce a hunting and fishing ban: he did not see the difference between citizens and dependent people, colonists. The economy of the city was also of a corresponding nature - the princes of Nina did not charge the usual duties for other cities - market, ship, port: there was no one to tax them, trade and craft practically ceased to exist in Nina.
Of course, the agrarian development of the city was greatly accelerated by the military ravages of the XVI century. But it would not have been so decisive and irrevocable if it had not been prepared by the presence of a large agricultural population, which has always been characteristic of the Balkan (including Dalmatian) city. In large coastal centers, the role of the agricultural population was felt much less. In Zadar or Split, the proportion of inhabitants who were engaged in agriculture was not so large, since they knew the transit trade and the craft that worked for export. Small towns (Nin, Vrana) had a different character: they were rather fairground centers, their "urban" character was determined by the existence of a permanent market on the city square. As soon as the surrounding population went bankrupt, and consequently the market disappeared, such a city turned into a village. That is why even after the Turks were driven away and Nin was restored to its communal structure (in the 17th century, the Venetians even tried to revive the Grand Council), and attempts were made to artificially restore the patriciate, Nin could not become a city again, because the economic need for this disappeared.
Thus, the history of this small urban center of Dalmatia, studied by M. Novak-Sambrailo, allows us to learn its internal structure and understand how uncertain the line between city and village was in relation to such settlements.
M. M. Freudenberg
page 201
New publications: |
Popular with readers: |
News from other countries: |
![]() |
Editorial Contacts |
About · News · For Advertisers |
![]() 2014-2025, LIBMONSTER.COM is a part of Libmonster, international library network (open map) Keeping the heritage of the United States of America |