Bourgeois-democratic Revolution Research Articles

The Russian Idea and the Ideology of Russian Great-Power Chauvinism and Imperialism

"The paper analyses the concept of Russian Idea used by Russian nationalists. A concept that is at the core of the identity of the Russian people. Accordingly, the analysis is based on a theoretical framework that draws attention to the controversial concept of the Russian idea that is reviewed considering changes in the history of the Russian state. Whether formulated by church hierarchs, statesmen, philosophers, ethnologists, or contemporary politicians, various stages in its conceptualization have helped build patriotism in the country. Moreover, in addition to the theoretical framework, the paper focus on a case study: the February Revolution, known as February Bourgeois Democratic Revolution or the March Revolution (8-16 March 1917). Keywords: Russian Idea, ideology, post-Soviet, chauvinism, imperialism"

LEGISLATION AND PUBLIC THOUGHT OF THE RUSSIAN EMPIRE ON THE RIGHT OF WOMEN’S JUDICIAL REPRESENTATION AT THE TURN OF THE XIX–XX CENTURIES

The legislation of the Russian Empire, which regulated the right of judicial representation for all subjects, including women, developed at the turn of the XIX–XX centuries in accordance with the principles that were characteristic of that time. The issue of the right of women’s judicial representation came to the fore in the context of women’s access to higher legal education. However, due to the outbreak of the First World War and rapidly developing revolutionary events, it was possible to solve it only after the February bourgeois-democratic revolution. Purpose: to study the reaction of the scientific community and legal practitioners in Russia to changes in the legislation in this matter, in their opinion, which were detrimental to the rights of women and were «lessons of legality», and to analyze the specifics of solving the problem of women’s advocacy at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries. Methods: historical, description, dialectical logic, formal-legal, interpretation of legal norms, system-functional methods are applied. Results: the study concludes that all the efforts of the scientific community and legal practitioners were not in vain: as a result of the events that were associated with the beginning of the February bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia, Article 4061 of the Establishment of court orders, which infringed on the right of women to litigate in courts was finally abolished.

Building a Continental Policy: The South American Secretariat of the Communist International (1925–34)

Abstract This paper analyses the history of the South American Secretariat of the Communist International. The objective is to carry out a critical study of the policies and strategy of the Secretariat, considering how its relationship with the Comintern and the South American Communist Parties changed over time. Our hypothesis is that during its first years of existence (1925–8) the Secretariat developed a policy based on the United Front. This changed during a transition period (July 1928–July 1929) in which it developed a stagist programme of bourgeois-democratic revolution, and the implementation of its front tactics was increasingly questioned. From 1929 to 1934, the organisation abandoned all concrete alliance tactics in the workers’ movement and electoral politics while nevertheless proclaiming its advocacy of the ‘United Front from below’. This paper is based on an analysis of primary sources, including the Secretariat’s publications, correspondence, and internal documents.

The origins of parliamentarism in Russia

The article is devoted to the analysis of the origins of domestic constitutionalism – the most important attribute of such starting indicators, for example, as a legal, constitutional state, separation of powers, constitutionalism. Its concise definition and characteristics are presented. There are three main periods of the emergence and development of Russian parliamentarism. The first - until October 1917. The most important result here is the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Russia of 1905 - 1907. It was the creation of the parliament for the first time in our country. This is the beginning of domestic practical parliamentarism. The second period - 1917 - 1991, characterized by the rejection of parliamentarism and its criticism in capitalist states. The third is the modern period, from 1992 to the present day.

The congresses of the tatar teachers in 1917-1918

The Urgency Of This Problem Is Conditioned By Several Factors. The Need To comprehend the historical continuity and comprehensive presentation of the Tatar social and political movement's efforts after the February Revolution to modernize the traditional Muslim society. Weak development of the problem of teachers' organized movement during the period between the February bourgeois-democratic revolution and the first months of the Bolsheviks' power in Kazan. The need to refer to the origins and experience of Russian education organization to focus on teachers' social role in education quality improvement. The 100th anniversary of the TASSR also makes the topic especially relevant. The purpose of this article is an attempt to elucidate the role and significance of teachers' congresses in the fate of public education of the Muslim Tatars of the Volga-Ural region after the February Revolution of 1917. The leading method for the study of this problem is a systematic approach and system analysis, which allow considering teachers' congresses as one of the manifestations of the social development of Tatar society in regional and national events. The article traced the main stages of the movement of Tatar teachers. It concluded that the socio-cultural modernization of the national school, the elimination of national discrimination in school construction and the inclusion of Tatar schools in the state network should be perceived as the result of the social and political movement of the advanced intellectual part of Tatar society.

Nelson Werneck Sodré: um historiador militar no Iseb e a gênese da teoria da revolução brasileira

The aim of this paper is to make public the preliminary results of an ongoing investigation for doctoral thesis in Social Sciences. We intend to discuss Nelson Werneck Sodre’s concept of “Brazilian revolution”, as well as the core of his theory on Brazil when politically and intellectually active inside the Higher Institute of Brazilian Studies (Iseb). To localize the nucleus of Sodreian argumentation is to shed light into categories connected to the ideas of “social change” and “bourgeois democratic-revolution”, both poorly understood in the present day, which are: Nation, people, nationalism and the national, anti-feudal and anti-imperialistic revolution. The results, although introductory, were obtained not only by the study of Sodre’s main works, but also analyzing the core of his production: the Iseb. Trying a critical recovery through a rearrangement of focus, we aim to define all the elements of Werneck Sodre’s commonly known “consecrated theory” as well as the product of historiographical strands that were too hasty in judging both the work and the acting of the author inside Iseb.

TO THE DISCUSSION OF THE PROSPECTS FOR THE EVOLUTION OF THE RUSSIAN AUTOCRACY INTO A BOURGEOIS MONARCHY (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE JUDICIAL REFORM OF 1864)

The article deals with the problem of opportunities for reforming the social and state system of the Russian autocracy. The example of the Judicial reform of 1864 shows the limits of the tsarism's ability to reform. The author considers the preservation of the class system in the Russian Empire as the main reason for incomplete reforms. The desire to preserve the privileges of the nobility by any means did not allow the government to realize the real needs of society. Without seeing the emergence of new social classes, the government could not protect their interests. At the same time, the autocracy imposed on society its understanding of its interests. This policy has led to a distortion of the ideological development of the Russian bourgeoisie, making it unable to independently protect even the most important of its own interests. Therefore, the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution had to be solved by other, anti-bourgeois forces in the course of the socialist revolution.

Tragic 1905 on the Pages of “Kubanskie Oblastnye Vedomosti” Newspaper: Battles in China and the Revolution in Russia

Introduction. The article describes the events of 1905: the final stage of the Russo-Japanese War and the initial stage of the First Russian Bourgeois-Democratic Revolution. Methods and materials. The Author uses “Kubanskie Oblastnye Vedomosti” newspaper publications, which were published in Ekaterinodar, as a historical source. The articles, touching upon the events of the Russo-Japanese War and the revolution in varying degrees, were subjected to analysis. The author uses the dialectical method of scientific knowledge and the principle of historicism. For in-depth studying publications in periodicals, the method of “sampling” was used, with the help of which groups of publications of a single thematic focus were formed. To study the factors that influenced the activities of the editorial board (the choice of publications of certain content, the frequency of publishing information increasing or decreasing the volume of publications), the historical and typological analysis was used. Analysis. The article highlights the role of the Cossacks in these two historical events. It shows the role of this newspaper in shaping the ideas of Kuban region inhabitants, especially the Cossacks, about the events of the Russo-Japanese War and the Revolution. Reporting the battles in Manchuria and revolutionary demonstrations in Russia (strikes, rallies, demonstrations) “Kubanskie Oblastnye Vedomosti” newspaper protected the autocracy and supported the domestic and foreign policy of the Russian government. Results. The analysis of the publications shows that authors of the articles established a close connection between the internal and foreign political events of 1905. Readers were convinced that the reason for the defeat in the war with Japan was the revolutionary movement in Russia. Loyalty to the oath, protecting the imperial power even in the tragic years of wars and revolutions remained the basis of the Cossacks’ spiritual power. The Cossacks demonstrated heroism in the fight against the Japanese and the honghuzi in China. In the same period, the Cossacks took part in suppressing revolutionary uprisings in the Kuban region and Black Sea province. The Russo-Japanese War and the Bourgeois-Democratic Revolution had a great influence on forming both positive and negative image of the Cossacks in the eyes of compatriots.

THE PEASANT REVOLUTION IN THEORETICAL VIEWS AND POLITICAL PRACTICE OF ULYANOV-LENIN

The purpose of the proposed article is to analyze the theoretical views of V. I. Ulyanov-Lenin on the social peasantry ability to an independent revolutionary struggle and their implementation during the practical revolutionary and state-political activities of Bolshevik leader. The methodology of the study is the principle of historicism, which consistently allowed to reveal the origins of Lenin's vision of the peasantry ability to the revolutionary struggle, forecast its results and then show its development of the concept of peasant revolution as a type of bourgeois transformation, the statement of this revolution as a reality in the period 1905–1907 and 1917–1918, and the recognition of the revolutionary achievements of the peasantry and the introduction in its social interests of the NEP policy. The scientific novelty consists in elucidating the type of bourgeois transformations that the leader of the Bolshevik Party was expecting and considered them feasible in the practice of political struggle in the Russian Empire and the stages of the peasant revolution identified by Lenin as a kind of bourgeois revolution, which, from his point of view, took place in reality in 1917 and subsequent years. Conclusions. Among modern approaches to the scientific comprehension of the revolutionary events of the early twentieth century the concept of peasant revolution takes an outstanding place. The presented article tackles the problem of perceiving of the peasantry’s ability for an independent revolutionary struggle. The article analyses the views of of the Bolshevik Party leader, V. I. Ulyanov (Lenin), and their influence on political practice in the process of the Soviet state creation. In particular: 1. The article clarifies that for V. I. Lenin, the ability of the peasantry for an independent revolutionary struggle was quite obvious. As a consequence of the political behavior of the peasantry during the period of the revolution during 1905–1907, he concluded that there was a special type of bourgeois revolution – the peasant agrarian revolution. According to his views, the peasant revolution opens the way for a farmer type of agrarian capitalism. 2. Firstly, Lenin believed that by mid-1918 a bourgeois peasant revolution had taken place in the village, which was replaced by socialist transformations. However, over time, he declined to state the socialist revolution in the countryside, a testimony to why the policy of the NEP became. 3. All the components of Lenin's revolutionary transformation program envisaged taking into account the fact of the peasant revolution. Thus, the possibility of the bourgeois-democratic revolution was assumed only in the form of a peasant revolution, the Bolsheviks’ seizure of power was planned through the use of the peasant revolution, the restoration of the acquired power – through the resolute satisfaction of the interests of the peasant revolution, the construction of socialism – through the adaptation of the results of the peasant revolution to socialist progress. Given Lenin’s correct definition of the peasant revolution nature, the claim about the bourgeois component of socio-economic transformations carried out by the Bolsheviks in October 1917 finds its confirmation.

Aspects from the Parliamentary Elections’ Campaign of 1925 in the Prefecture of Elbasan

The first parliamentary election campaign in Albania was held in March – April 1921. This constituted innovation for Albania, since it was considered as a country with a fragile democracy and parliamentarism. The second experience was in December 1923, in the framework of the elections of the Constitutional Assamble, as the institution that would determine the kind of regime in Albania. In January 1924, after the Konstitutional Assamble fulfilled its mission, it changed into Parliament, which executed its activity in two periods 21 January – 2 June; December 1924 – 2 March 1925. The bourgeois-democratic revolution that prevailed in june 1924, continued up to the end of the same year. On 21 January 1925, the constitutional assamble declared the Parliamentary Republic of Albania, with president Ahmet Zogu; on 31 of January there were enacted the first articles of the Republican Status. The new Parliament consisted of two rooms, the Senate and the chamber of deputies. This new system lasted for a short period of time, and it constituted a unique experience in the history of Albanian parliamemtarism. The law concerning the parliamentary elections was enacted on 14 of March 1925. According to the law the elections would be realized at two levels. The opposition and the independent deputies were missing. The parliamentary election campaign in Elbasan, local characteristics, candidates, th two levels of voting, the results and its importance constitute the topic of this paper. The paper is based on archived and media documents, as well as the memorial one.

1945~1946년 북한의 부르주아민주주의혁명과 혁명동력의 설정ㆍ배제

1945~1946년 북한의 부르주아민주주의혁명과 혁명동력의 설정ㆍ배제

Book Review: Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy by Jerry Harris

Jerry Harris Global Capitalism and the Crisis of Democracy, Atlanta, GA: Clarity Press, 2016; 286 pp.: ISBN 0986085324, 16.62 [pounds sterling] Jerry Harris has written a powerful book for our times. We live in a period of multiple crises: a neoliberal globalization that is undermining national economies and delegitimizing nation-states, the global displacement of millions by capitalism that has produced mass migrations worldwide, terrorist blowback from imperial wars, unstoppable capitalocentric climate change and an unresolved financial crisis that still looms over our heads. And on top of all this is the inability of the state to find a fix for any of these crises due to the crisis of democracy that Harris analyses in this sweeping study. That crisis of democracy is not due to political gridlock. It goes deeper. Political elites are no longer so much in the service of national capital. With globalization, they have become beholden to a transnational capitalist class (TCC) rooted in transnational corporations. Unlike the era of national capitalism where the system enjoyed hegemonic legitimacy due to political democracy and growing economic well-being, global capitalism is facing a worldwide crisis of legitimacy in the face of spreading austerity and the naked political power of the 1% (p. 98). That delegitimization of political elites is expressed in the current US electoral campaign, in the Brexit vote in the United Kingdom, in the sweeping unpopularity of Mexico's president and in so many other countries that have been drawn into global capitalism. This is because, as Harris shows, 'the new transnational capitalist class has little use for democracy, the social contract, or any sense of national responsibility' (p. 19). The hegemonic bloc that the ruling class had constructed around Keynesianism in the post-World War II (WWII) period has now dissolved as capital has leaped over national borders, in effect expelling the working class from its benefits. As Harris perceptively points out, 'neo-Keynesianism has been unable to mount an effective alternative, trapped by its own belief in a more just globalization' (p. 50). As social tensions mount, coercion tends to replace consent as the main form of control. Neoliberal corporate globalization has transformed the working class worldwide into a precariat. Production has been restructured into global assembly lines. Investment has shifted away from production towards financial speculation. These changes have enabled the formation of the TCC. Harris argues the TCC is a self-conscious class that knows no national identity, moving between global cities, conferring in places like Davos, presiding over a global system of endless accumulation of capital. Governance of this system is through the market and the beginnings of a transnational state' (p. 96) being constructed in trade deals that establish a judicial apparatus independent of national states in investor-state resolution panels. In effect, these give sovereign power to transnational corporations in the new world order of global capital. Here, we can see most vividly the crisis of democracy. Harris postulates that a stable social order requires a balance between state, market and civil society. The market fundamentalism of neoliberalism gives all weight to the market. Today, neoliberalism is the dominant ideology embraced not only by the ruling class but also by the subject classes. Thus, the state is not seen as the instrument of a popular will serving its interest. Rather, its aim is to widen the market in service to individual 'freedom'. In practice, this amounts to the freedom of corporate capital in the market and the freedom of consumers to buy what they offer. It is a freedom without political content. Social solidarity and collective action are seen as interfering with freedom. It is thus that Harris says 'We may be facing a time in which the bourgeois democratic revolution has run its course' (p. …

Influence of zemstvo self-government on process of national constitutionalism development in late XIX – early XX centuries

Problem Setting . The article describes the activities of the zemstvo self-government which had a significant impact on the process of national constitutionalism development in the late XIX – early XX centuries. The actuality of the topic. Zemstvo self-government got significant practical experience of legal oppositional activity, which is an important element of constitutionalism. Within the territory of ethnicUkraine, zemstvo constitutionalism combined two components: All-Russian and national. The purpose of the article. All-Russian zemstvo constitutionalism had features of legal, semi-legal and illegal activities, which were represented by liberal and radical wing of zemstvo liberal-democratic movement respectively. In the All-Russian context, zemstvo radicals advocated the idea of establishing constitutional order in the Russian Empire, which involved constitutional recognition of democratic rights and freedoms, equality, parliamentary system and establishment of a constitutional monarchy, decentralization of power, political pluralism. The national component of zemstvo constitutionalism, which was formed at the beginning of the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1905–1907, had illegal character and its essence can be described by the fact that some zemstvo liberals insisted on the need to restore the Ukrainian state in the form of autonomy within democratic Russia. Representatives of both components of zemstvo constitutionalism aimed to implement their constitutional ideas through reforms. Zemstvo constitutionalism reached its highest peak at the beginning of the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1905–1907. In early XX century zemstvo liberals took active part in activities of bourgeois-democratic political parties. Development of Russian and Ukrainian political parties led to a split in the radical wing of zemstvo liberal-democratic movement on the national basis. Some zemstvo leaders joined the All-Russian Party of Octobrists and Constitutional Democrats. Head of Poltava provincial board F. A. Lyzohub was a well-known figure in the Party of Octobrists. P. Chyzhevskyi and M. Rusov became active participants of the Ukrainian Democratic-Radical Party and the Revolutionary Ukrainian Party respectively. The Sheremet brothers were members of the Ukrainian People’s Party. Conclusions. Some liberal zemstvo-constitutionalists who adhered to the moderate position raised the question of democratization of zemstvo self-government without changing the foundations of autocratic regime. They took shape of the moderate wing of zemstvo liberal-democratic movement. To democratize zemstvo self-government, the main course of zemstvo-constitutionalists’ activities consisted of the claims to the government to change the system of zemstvo bodies, reform of the electoral system, expand powers of zemstvo bodies, limit powers of local administration concerning control of zemstvo bodies’ activities.

A MAN AND HIS RIGHTS IN THE CONCEPTS OF ANCIENT REPRESENTATIVES OF PHILOSOPHICAL AND LEGAL THOUGHT

Emergence of the idea of human rights in V— VI centuries BC in ancient policies and emergence of the principle of citizenship became a major step on the way of humanity towards freedom and progress. The idea and practice of freedom and human rights was given to the world by the most famous of all ancient civilizations — Athens in the views of Heraclitus, Democritus, Protagoras, Antiphont, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Epicurus, etc. Ancient Greek ideas about human rights formed as a part of mythological views that the polis or the citystate and its laws are of divine origin and are based on divine justice. Further development of sociophilosophical and political-legal concepts of human rights in Ancient Greece occurred in search and substantiation, along with the divine origin, of objective natural-legal basis for the existence of the polis, its laws and social existence of people. Natural-legal ideas of ancient Greek thinkers about freedom and equality of all human beings further developed in Ancient Rome, and especially in the philosophical and legal views of the Stoics Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Cicero, the ancient Roman thinker, philosopher and orator. In their teaching on human rights, the natural-legal idea of freedom and equality was extended beyond the narrow polis and ethnic framework and was expanded to all members of the humankind as fellow citizens of a single cosmopolitan state. According to the results of the conducted research, the author notes that the ancient thinkers, prominent representatives of philosophical, legal, and political thought of that time laid the foundations of the doctrine of human rights, which was further developed in the medieval beliefs of medieval representatives, especially in the views of the authors of the liberal world outlook of the New times. The English and American Age of Enlightenment, French bourgeoisdemocratic revolution have become a new important milestone and a new stage in theoretical development and practical realization of the centuries-old aspirations of people about their rights, freedom and equality of all people on the Earth.

Book review: Gramsci’s Political Thought, by Carlos Nelson Coutinho

Carlos Nelson Coutinho Gramsci's Political Thought, trans. Pedro Sette-Camara Brill: Leiden, 2012; xvi+198 pp: 9789004228665, 102 [euro] (hbk) Brill's 'Historical Materialism Series' has been providing regular insights into Marxist theory developed in non-Anglophone settings, including two by Brazilian authors. This latest text, volume 38 in the series, complements Ricardo Amtunes's contribution, The Meanings ofWork (2012), and casts light upon the roots of the Gramscian tradition in Brazil. Carlos Nelson Coutinho is recognised alongside Marco Aurelio Nogueira as one of the first to translate Antonio Gramsci's works into Portuguese. Working with the publishing house Civilizacao Brasileira, Coutino led the dissemination of Gramsci's thought in Brazil from 1966 onwards, in the process becoming the most renowned interpreter of his thought in the Lusophone world. Brazilian Marxism seized upon the categories offered by Gramscian analysis, not least due to the need to re-assess the strategies of the left following the military coup of 1964. Prior to the coup, Brazilian Marxism had been consumed by the debate concerning the origins and development of Brazil's mode of production. The two sides of this conflict were crystallised in the texts Formafdo Historica do Brasil (1968 [1963]) by Nelson Werneck Sodre, and A Revolugao Brasileira (1966) by Caio Prado Junior. The Brazilian Communist Party (PCB) ultimately followed the line set out by Sodre, acknowledging the pre-capitalist state of the Brazilian countryside and asserting the need for an etapist (stagist) strategic alliance between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. This Stalinist pact for bourgeois-democratic revolution was to precede a socialist revolution at the proper stage of capitalist development. When subsequently defeated and cast into disarray by the 1964 coup, Brazil's Marxists acknowledged the increasingly industrialised capitalist character of the national economy. The questions of the left therefore came to mirror Gramsci's own: namely, how to formulate a leftist strategy when frontal assault was no longer possible, and how to understand the role of the state in capitalist development. As a consequence, Coutinho's work has formed as much a part of the intellectual heritage of Brazil's modern Marxism as did the more widely recognised dependency theory which has A Revolufdo Brasileira as its forebear. It would be unjust to relegate Coutinho to the role of mere translator or interpreter of Gramsci. Indeed, Coutinho not only provided tools for the renovation of Brazilian Marxism, but actively participated in its reshaping. This engagement with Gramscian thought formed the basis for an analysis of the specific conditions of Brazil's social struggles, and a political practice dedicated to the formation of a socialist alternative. With regard to the latter, Coutinho was one of the main theorists behind the formation of the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Workers' Party), which has held the presidency since 2003. Accordingly, the essays collected in Gramsci's Political Thought reflect both Coutinho's philological tracings of Gramsci's concepts and his application of this analysis to Brazilian politics. The text can be divided into two parts, with the initial eight chapters devoted to diagramming Gramsci's thought, and much of the remainder of the book directed towards applying Gramscian analysis to the Brazilian context. Chapters 1 to 3 offer a biography of Antonio Gramsci, tracing the development of his thought from 1910-1926, with a particular focus on his gradual assimilation of Leninism. Subsequently, Coutinho attempts a thematic reading of Gramsci's ouevre, lucidly drawing out the concepts of the extended state, hegemony, passive revolution, the role of intellectuals, and the war of manoeuvre and war of position. In this aspect, the text sits well alongside works such as Peter Thomas's (2010) The Gramscian Moment. The author's reading is often insightful, and makes great use of comparison between the differing developments of classical Marxism offered by Gramsci, Georg Lukacs and Jurgen Habermas. …

Women and "the alternative public sphere": Toward a new definition of women's activism and the separate spheres in East-Central Europe

In the years following the end of the cold war in 1989, Western feminist scholars and activists expressed disappointment in the failure of the newly democratic Eastern and Central European countries to sustain mainstream women's rights movements and achieve a marked increase in women's participation within the new political parties and political life in general. The authors, historians of Hungarian women's movements with a broad East-West perspective, offer a novel explanation for this phenomenon. Following an outline of the main stages of Hungarian women's movements and women's political participation, they focus on two instances in twentieth-century Hungarian history that resulted in a rapid transition from anti-democratic regimes to liberal, parliamentary systems: the 1918 bourgeois democratic revolution and the 1990 re-introduction of free parliamentary elections. Examining these two turning points in recent Hungarian history, separated by 70 years, as case studies of women's activism, the authors propose a new, critical re-evaluation of the notion of separate spheres, offering a timely if co-incidental comment on the recent debate in the Journal of Women's History.2 Research for this article had been completed by the time of the publication of the Spring 2003 issue of the Journal of Women's History, 15 (1), devoted to "Rethinking Public and Private".

Leninism: What It Was and What It Was Not

laws of development which made it inevitable that a country must move from feudalism to capitalism from capitalism to socialism, with each stage introduced by a revolutionary explosion at the point of maximum development and maximum tension generated by the contradictions inherent in its very maturation. In the Marxist scenario, capitalism builds the economic foundations necessary for socialism, but it cruelly denies the benefits to the people because it can achieve that economic development only by exploiting the labor of the people. The bourgeois democratic revolution, which ushers in capitalism, begins with promises of freedom but then, inevitably, puts all power in the hands of a smaller and smaller ruling class. The people must, therefore, rise up, smash the capitalist regime, and take all political and economic power under socialism. With exploitation and oppression no longer necessary, the state will wither away, and full freedom and abundance will come with the final stage which came to be called communism.

"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 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.”

Prisoners of the American Dream: Politics and Economy in the History of the US Working Class

Prisoners of the American Dream is Mike Davis's brilliant exegesis of a persistent and major analytical problem for Marxist historians and political economists: Why has the world's most industrially advanced nation never spawned a mass party of the working class? This series of essays surveys the history of the American bourgeois democratic revolution from its Jacksonian beginnings to the rise of the New Right and the re-election of Ronal Reagan, concluding with some bracing thoughts on the prospects for progressive politics in the United States.

Writing of Women: Essays in a Renaissance , and: With Fondest Regards (review)

Reviewed by: Writing of Women: Essays in a Renaissance, and: With Fondest Regards Elizabeth Boyd Jordan Phyllis Rose . Writing of Women: Essays in a Renaissance. Middletown: Wesleyan UP, 1985. 176 pp. $14.95. Françoise Sagan . With Fondest Regards. Trans. Christine Donougher. New York: Dutton, 1985. 176 pp. $14.95. Phyllis Rose has established herself as a contemporary woman of letters by writing lucidly, intelligently, and insightfully of women in Woman of Letters: A Life of Virginia Woolf, Parallel Lives: Five Victorian Marriages, and numerous book reviews and articles. Some of the latter are collected in her most recent book, Writing of Women: Essays in a Renaissance. Rose claims this collection is "united by two enthusiasms," an enthusiasm for the feminist "revolution in literary history" and an "enthusiasm for biography" in what she describes as a "golden age." It is not her "enthusiasm," however, but her measured assessment of the various women writers who come within her purview that draws our attention to the potentially valuable distinction between canon formation and canonization. Some of Rose's critical acumen may be attributable to her freedom from ideological constraints and compulsions. By her own admission, Rose is a classical rather than a radical feminist: "Classical feminism is integrationist. It aims at giving women equal access to power with men. Radical feminism today is separatist." The critical essays in the present volume represent a significant contribution to the creation of equal access to power in the literary world. Although Rose concludes her introduction by apologizing, with conventional female modesty, for a "collection of previously published essays," both the apology and the modesty are inappropriate. Far from "a dinner of leftovers," Writing of Women makes some of the best of Rose's shorter critical pieces available to a wider audience than before. The essays are divided into two sections: "Lives" and "Works." The reviews in "Lives" focus our attention on several literary and artistic women far outside the canon; those in "Works" refocus our critical perspectives on a number of better-known writers. Among the more interesting essays on biographical works are those on Frida Kahlo, Helen Bannerman, and Alma Mahler. The review of Hayden Herrera's Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo emphasizes Kahlo's part in Mexican cultural and political life at the beginning of the twentieth century in concert and in conflict with her husband Diego Rivera. Rose's review of Elizabeth Hay's Sambo Sahib may be more convincing than the biography itself as an attempt to rescue the author of Little Black Sambo from literary limbo. The review of Karen Monson's biography of Alma Mahler, Alma Mahler: Muse to Genius, raises a number of questions avoided by the biography itself. Was there a connection between Alma's "compulsive romancing" and "the frustration of her talent"? "Was there a talent worth cultivating"? Perhaps the most important question, however, is the one [End Page 361] raised by Mahler's life: "Her life was the reductio ad absurdum of one sort of female calling: the attracting, securing, and nurturing of creative men. How many women justify their lives by the men they have married or bedded?" An essay on "Fact and Fiction in Biography" provides a natural transition to the "Works" section of Rose's collection. Citing Henry James's comment that "the novel is of its very nature an ado," Rose asserts that "a biography is as much or more of an ado" and asks, "what does a person have to do or be to merit one?" Rose answers her own question by pointing out that, at least until recently, biography, as a genre, "is much more elitist than the novel" because it "ignores almost everyone." "To write about women," Rose argues, "it was necessary to write about compromise and failure." This necessity has prompted a "bourgeois-democratic revolution" because to write about failed or minor authors is to increase their visibility and enhance their reputations. The intrinsic unity of "Works" and "Lives" is implied by Rose's belief that "life is as much a work of fiction—of guiding narrative structures—as novels and poems are" and that "good biography, like good art, depends upon a subversive effect: showing...