"Democracy" in the Political Consciousness of the February Revolution

Historians of quite diverging orientations have interpreted the February revolution of 1917 in Russia as a “democratic” revolution. Several generations of Marxists of various stripes (tolk) have called it a “bourgeois-democratic revolution.” In the years of perestroika, the contrast between democrat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Slavic review 1998-04, Vol.57 (1), p.95-106
Main Author: Kolonitskii, Boris Ivanovich
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bourgeois
Countries
Democracy
Democratization
Family names
History
Political consciousness
Political history
Political revolutions
Politics
Revolutions
Russia
Russian politics
Russian Revolution
Socialism
Soldiers
Tsars
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Summary:Historians of quite diverging orientations have interpreted the February revolution of 1917 in Russia as a “democratic” revolution. Several generations of Marxists of various stripes (tolk) have called it a “bourgeois-democratic revolution.” In the years of perestroika, the contrast between democratic February and Bolshevik October became an important part of the historical argument of the anticommunist movement. The February revolution was regarded as a dramatic, unsuccessful attempt at the modernization and westernization of Russia, as its democratization. Such a point of view was expressed even earlier in some historical works and in the memoirs of participants in the events—liberals and moderate socialists. For example, just such a description of the revolution is given by Aleksandr Kerenskii, whose last reminiscences are especially significant. Kerenskii thought that “the overwhelming majority of the Russian population…were wholeheartedly democratic in their beliefs.”
ISSN:0037-6779
2325-7784
DOI:10.2307/2502054