Abstract
The subjects of the October Revolution and Civil War could not be investigated adequately without some analysis of the activities and failure of the democratic political forces which took power after the revolution of February 1917. Before Gorbachev’s accession the activities of Lenin and the October Revolution had been the main focus of academic study; very little had been known about the personalities involved in the February Revolution and Provisional Government, and the reasons for their failure. The fact that the Provisional Government was one of the last historical subjects to receive attention after the introduction of glasnost suggests that it was one of the most sensitive issues, not only for the Communists, who were not particularly eager for Russians to become aware of the plurality of views represented in their political heritage, but also, when by 1990 the Communist. Party began to lose its grip on power, for the new democratic political leaders, who did not wish to confront the reasons for the failure of democracy in 1917. This subject has been touched upon in fiction and press debates, and is beginning to be investigated by historians in the 1990s, but has still not been fully or objectively researched in Russia. There is still a significant degree of public ignorance about these events.
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Notes and References
E. Anisimov, ‘Glubokii ekskurs’, Luc with iteration, no. 1 (1988), p. 83 states that the Provisional Government had formerly been known in the USSR largely through Kukryniksov’s cartoons.
R. W. Davies, Soviet History in the Gorbachev Revolution (London, 1989 ), p. 134.
On Lenin’s cordial relations with the Anarchist Kropotkin, see Yu. Gal’perin, ‘Pervyi glavkom’, Ogonek, no. 44 (1987), p. 11;
E. Starostin, Yunost’, no. 5 (1988), p. 65;
see also B. Oleinik, LG (4 May 1988 ).
Yu. V. Aksyutin, Vestnik vysshei shkoly, no. 4 (1988), p. 65; Lenin’s note in Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, vol. XLIV, pp. 205, 396–7.
N. Andreyeva, SR (13 March 1988); the reference is to B. Souvarine, Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism, trans. C. L. R. James (London, 1939 ).
B. Pasternak, Russkaya revolyutsiya. Neizvestnye stikhi Borisa Pasternaka, NM, no. 4 (1989).
See, for example, V. Kostikov, ‘Sapogi iz shagrenovoi kozhi’, Ogonek, no. 32 (August 1989), pp. 12–16.
S. V. Tyutyukin and V. V. Shelokhaev, ‘Revolyutsiya i nraystvennost’, VI, no. 6 (1990), pp. 3–20.
See, for example, L. Khass, ‘Eshche raz o masonstve v Rossii nachala XX veka’, VI, no. 1 (1990).
A. Nemzer, ‘Prozrevaya Rossiyu’, LO, no. 12 (1990), pp. 19–27.
I. Zaslayskii, ‘Chto chitayut nashi parlamentarii’, LG (24 January 1990 ).
R. G. Abdulatipov, ‘Mozhno byt’ levym, no ne levee serdtsa’, Rabochaya tribuna (13 February 199 ).
J. Glad (ed.), Conversations in Exile: Russian Writers Abroad (Durham and London, 1993), p. 254.
L. Radzhikhovskii, ‘Revolyutsiya — szadi’, Ogonek, no. 9 (1992), p. 4.
D. Shturman, ‘U kraya bezdny. Kornilovskii myatezh glazami istorika i sovremennikov’, NM, no. 7 (1993), pp. 213–32;
V. Clark, ‘When 1917 Lives, History is Dangerous’, Observer (5 September 1993 ), p. 18.
A. Solzhenitsyn, ‘Revolyutsii ne vypriyamlyayut khod Istorii, a tol’ko delayayut ego ukhabistym’, LG (22 September 1992), pp. 1, 3.
G. Melikyants, Izvestiya (31 August 1992), pp. 1, 3. For different responses to the film, see Lyubimov op. cit.;
G. Orekhanova, SR (3 September 1992), p. 2;
D. Kazennov, LR (4 September 1992 ), p. 6.
See, for example, P. Basinskii, ‘Normal’naya russkaya literatura’, LG, no. 1–2 (1993), pp. 4–5.
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© 1995 Rosalind Marsh
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Marsh, R. (1995). The February Revolution and the Provisional Government. In: History and Literature in Contemporary Russia. St Antony’s Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377790_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230377790_11
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