There is a great deal to note down from today's Russian Revolution conference, and I will put notes from each of the lectures up here. Each of the lecturers had useful things to say, although delivery varied from the competent and listenable, to the convoluted and sleep inducing, without ever really hitting the excitement button! Nonetheless, use their insights in exam answers and you might well be able to pass yourself off as a student who knows something - not a skill to be sniffed at. To start, then, a quick summary of the main points.
Robert Service's overview was a helpful guide to where historical debate on the Revolution has been going, and helped to place the subsequent lectures in context. Broadly, the post-war consensus focused on the seminal importance of Lenin and the pre-programmed aims and subsequent success of the Bolshevik Party. The so-called revisionists, from the 1970s onwards, then moved the debate away from Lenin and towards social and more localised factors. They also deconstructed the idea of the Bolsheviks as a pre-ordained party of power, with a clear, unitary plan of action.
As Service went on to make clear, the present position of historians is a little more subtle. Lenin's central importance in the culminating events of 1917 cannot be doubted, but the social research, or 'low' history, that has been undertaken undoubtedly fills in our view of the different forces at work, and the often autonomous actions taken around the country.
What was fascinating about the subsequent lectures was the relative consensus about the significance of Lenin's absence from the scene for much of the revolutionary period; his genius as an opportunist; the fractured nature of socialist and Bolshevik thought; the diverse centres of revolutionary activity (Petrograd's revolution didn't particularly touch the revolution going on in the villages for example); the leadership vacuum which is only eventually filled by Lenin; and the importance of the minority Bolshevik Party as a ruthless, determined organising force.
I have to say that the more I listened, the more I felt that Orlando Figes had cover
ed pretty well all these bases in his 'People's Tragedy', and done so very effectively, which made the rather sniffy attitude of the lecturers towards him all the more extraordinary. He didn't get a name check until the final lecture (Dr. Ian Thatcher, who really didn't seem quite sure of himself at all), and even then Thatcher glanced over to chairman Chris Read and commented how Read hadn't liked Figes. I'm not sure he was quite right though. Read has indeed written a fascinating article (here) comparing his own and Figes' approach to writing about the Revolution. While he points up the differences between the two approaches, and is honest enough to admit that Figes has had a much more popular appeal, he is not so much condemning of Figes as simply clear about where the differences between them lie. In crude terms, Figes appeals more to centre-right thinking, while Read prefers to idealise the worker-soldier contribution more.Anyway, plenty of food for thought from the lectures, write-ups of each to follow, and your comments most welcome.
