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Following the Russian Revolution, the cultural and political
landscape of Russia was strewn with contradictions. The
dictatorship, censorship and repression of the Communist party
existed alongside private enterprise, the black market and open
debates on Socialism. In Russian Society and politics 1921-1929
Vladimir Brovkin offers a comprehensive cultural, political,
economic and social history of developments in Russia in the
1920's. By examining the contrast between Bolshevik propaganda
claims and social reality, the author explains how Communist
representations were variously received and resisted by workers,
peasants, students, women, teachers and party officials. He
presents a picture of cultural diversity and rejection of Communist
constraints through many means including unauthorised protest,
religion, jazz music and poetry. In Russian Society and Politics
1921-1929 Vladimir Brovkin argues that these trends, if left
unchecked, endangered the Communist Party's monopoly on political
power. The Stalinist revolution can thus be seen as a pre-emptive
strike against this independent and vibrant society as well as a
product of Stalin's personality and communist ideology.
In this major contribution to our understanding of the Russian
Revolution, Vladimir Brovkin provides the fullest account to date
of the Menshevik party during the first year of Soviet rule.
Focusing on the period from October 1917 through October
1918-months when the Soviet political system still permitted a
degree of electoral competition among political parties-he explores
the moderate socialists' opposition to the Bolsheviks. Why, he
asks, did the competition between the Bolsheviks and their
socialist opponents lead to a violent confrontation? And how did
their struggle shape the increasingly repressive political system
that emerged during this period? Brovkin examines several major
aspects of Menshevik party history in an effort to discover the
organization's place in the revolutionary upheavals that rocked
Russian society. He analyzes the debates within the party over the
best policy for opposing the Bolsheviks and describes the
Mensheviks' attempt to undermine their rivals by winning the
support of the working class. He depicts too the struggle for party
leadership and the changing composition of the membership. Finally,
Brovkin explores the Mensheviks' interactions with their sometime
ally the Socialist Revolutionary (SR) party and other opposition
groups and traces the increasingly confrontational competition
between the moderate socialists and the Bolsheviks, concluding his
account with the onslaught of the Red Terror and the first stage of
the civil war. Drawing on an impressive array of primary sources,
Brovkin convincingly shows that as the political struggle
progressed, the Mensheviks, together with the SRs, were seen as a
serious challenge to the Bolsheviks. He argues, further, that the
Bolsheviks' determination to counter this perceived threat led them
to undertake the repressive actions that both crushed their
opposition and transformed the Soviet government into a
dictatorship.
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