The Intelligentsia and the October Revolution

This article examines the attitude of the “democratic,” left-leaning intelligentsia to the revolutions of 1917. It documents and analyzes the latter’s growing alienation from the popular classes, the workers and peasants, over the course of 1917. That alienation is explained on the background of the...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: David Mandel
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Universidade de São Paulo (USP) 2017-06-01
Series:RUS (São Paulo)
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.revistas.usp.br/rus/article/view/128219
Description
Summary:This article examines the attitude of the “democratic,” left-leaning intelligentsia to the revolutions of 1917. It documents and analyzes the latter’s growing alienation from the popular classes, the workers and peasants, over the course of 1917. That alienation is explained on the background of the deepening class polarization of Russia society, a process that can be traced back to the Revolution of 1905 and even earlier, but which reached its apogee in 1917 in the October Revolution. That revolution is revealed as an exclusively plebeian affair to which the left-leaning intelligentsia was intensely hostile, a situation that deeply worried worker activists.
ISSN:2317-4765