Spartacus's Rebellion In Soviet Historiography

Abstract

The slave insurrection led by Spartacus, which occurred over 2,000 years ago, does not cease to interest and excite progressively thinking people. Soviet scholars have paid a great deal of attention to this outstanding event in the history of ancient Rome. The slave rebellion and selfless struggle for freedom led by Spartacus, which could not be more in harmony with the revolutionary epoch whose opening was marked by the triumph of the Great October Socialist Revolution, evoked a lively response in the literature of the first post-October years. (1) However, at that time the leading role in the history of antiquity still belonged to scholars of the old prerevolutionary school, who for the most part regarded ancient Roman society as capitalist. R. Iu. Vipper held, however, that the characteristic phenomenon of "Roman capitalism" was mass slavery, particularly in the second and first centuries B.C. In Vipper's opinion Spartacus's rebellion, which held the Roman state in fear for three years, expressed the high point of the political and revolutionary consciousness of the slaves. (2) V. S. Sergeev wrote about the great importance of slavery and the struggle of the slaves in antiquity. Regarding Rome as a society of "speculative-usury ancient capital with elements of feudalism," and therefore of complex makeup, he at the same time referred to it as slave-holding ("ancient society rested totally on slavery"). He saw in the slave rebellions one of the causes "that placed the economy and ruling Roman society in a state of permanent economic crisis and eternal social ferment and disorders." (3) The slave movement attained its apogee, he emphasized, during "the insurrection of the slaves led by the Thracian gladiator Spartacus." (4) Examining the reasons for his defeat, Sergeev was one of the first to make such arguments as the lack of a unified plan, poorly expressed consciousness of their general goal, lack of organization, and differences among the leaders. On the results of the revolutionary struggle in antiquity as a whole, he wrote: "No matter how weak the people's movements of antiquity were in terms of their results for their participants and organizers, nonetheless their significance for the life of the entire social organism must not in any way be underestimated." (5) S. A. Zhebelev and S.I. Kovalev (6) wrote about the major role of slavery in the ancient world and the significance of the slave insurrection led by Spartacus in their first major studies on the history of ancient Rome.