Bolshevik Russia Research Articles

“Red Gold” by Upton Sinclair and Piotr Pavlenko: Unwritten Soviet-American Novel

On April 16, 1938 Upton Sinclair sent a letter to the editors of the Soviet magazine International Literature, in which he shared the idea of a new novel Red Gold and asked to find him a co-author among Soviet writers. In his letter U. Sinclair gave a detailed synopsis of the novel: the plot was to be based on the story of a young American engineer who in the mid-1920s goes to Siberia to provide Soviet gold mining with the American technology. There on the banks of the river Lena he meets a Russian Bolshevik girl and they fall in love. As an American “bourgeois specialist” he used to believe that capitalism is the most effective social and economic system; his belief, however, was shaken in the course of ideological disputes with his girl-friend, and the Great Depression of the 1930s increased his doubts. Soviet partners proposed Piotr Pavlenko as co-author, and the writers began to exchange letters, discussing their future work and various details of the planned novel. The project was supervised by the Foreign Commission of the Soviet Writers’ Union; its functionaries reported to party and government organs (the Central Committee of the Communist Party, the Peopleʼs Commissariat of Foreign Affairs). Letters signed by Pavlenko were read, edited and approved at several levels of Soviet bureaucracy, from the Writersʼ Union to the Press Department of the Central Party Committee. Thus, Upton Sinclair, in fact, negotiated and argued not just with his co-author, but with a hierarchial administrative body with a strict chain of command. Due to the obvious discrepancy between his own and Soviet attitudes, Sinclair soon decided to abandon the idea of a “collective novel”. The study is based on the materials from the funds of the Russian State Archive of Arts and Literature (RGALI).

Wartime Management of the Government of National Defense Headed by Wincenty Witos during the Polish-Bolshevik War of 1920

Wincenty Witos is one of the undisputed Fathers of Independence of Poland, reborn in November 1918 after 123 years of partition. An outstanding statesman, leader of the people’s movement. Three-time Prime Minister of the Polish government in 1920–1921, 1923, 1926. During the Polish-Soviet War, Witos headed the Government of National Defense, which lasted 433 days, including 254 during the war. When analyzing his management as Prime Minister, two stages should be distinguished. In the first one, he was absorbed in matters of war. He was in favor of concluding peace as soon as possible, which he expressed in his exposé in 1920. In his second exposé, he worked on the reconstruction of the country after the war and the further development of the Republic of Poland as a democratic state. During the war, Witos’s role in mobilizing peasants to participate in the defense of threatened borders, as well as defending independence in the war with Bolshevik Russia in 1920, was particularly important. The article discusses the decisions made regarding management during the war: mobilizing society to rally around the authorities of the reborn Poland and defend the country’s independence, to reject Bolshevik propaganda and fight for the future of the Polish nation and state. The practice of war management was manifested in frequent field trips, organizing support and supplies for the population. Witos paid particular attention to the Borderlands. He emphasized that the presence of the head of the government and this direct contact made it possible to learn about many difficult problems of the reborn state, and at the same time, direct contact with the authorities was an element that bound the population to this state, and the people did not feel alone in solving these problems.

Wokół układu Piłsudski-Petlura. Porozumienie w świetle publikacji wybranych tytułów polskiej prasy codziennej

The present study analyzes the reaction of the subjectively selected titles of the daily Polish press to the signing of the Pilsudski-Petlura agreement. The article examines the consequences of the pact for the concerned parties and the significance of the treaty for the formation of the relations between the Second Polish Republic and Bolshevik Russia, and thus for the Polish government’s Eastern policy. The article also explores the extent of the publicists’ knowledge of the course of the talks between Poland and the Ukrainian People’s Republic.

“White Coal” for Petrograd: Attempts at Energy Transition During First World War

This article examines the origins of Russian hydropower in the prerevolutionary period. From the 1880s, entrepreneurs in the Russian Empire began constructing small hydroelectric power stations for industrial purposes. Despite a lack of statelevel attention for these technologies for an extended period, they were studied by the Imperial Russian Technical Society. The First World War sparked interest in hydropower among government authorities as fuel and financial crises forced the government to seek cheaper energy sources. Legislative measures for regulating the use of water bodies and the practical application of hydropower, which were carried out by the government between 1915 and 1917, received further implementation in Bolshevik Russia. The author analyzes the process of transitioning from discussions about the potential uses of hydropower to the practical implementation of the first hydroelectric projects, emphasizing the key role of the war in accelerating this transition. The source base of the study consisted of administrative documents from the Council of Ministers, the Ministry of Transportation, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, official statistics, press materials, and scholarly literature.

Подолання суспільного страху як один із чинників боротьби за незалежність України

The article defines the concepts of „public fear” and „Russian Bolshevism”. After the Russian Bolsheviks seized power in Ukraine, the Ukrainian SSR was proclaimed with the aim of subduing the public space of Ukraine and penetrating the territories of neighbouring countries where Ukrainians lived, for subversive purposes. A criminal body, the All-Ukrainian Extraordinary Commission, was established to subdue the Ukrainian population and take over its economy. The main methods used in the struggle against the Ukrainian population were the introduction of the institution of ‘hostage-taking’; the institution of denunciation; extrajudicial executions; evictions from Ukrainian territory; the fragmentation of the population on social and national grounds; the physical destruction of opponents and those who resisted the regime; the use of a genocidal system of punishment such as the Holodomor against the Ukrainian peasantry, resulting in the deaths of millions of people. The systemic crisis in the USSR, access to education, the resistance of the Ukrainian intelligentsia to Russification and the fragmentation of society and access to information were the main factors in overcoming social fear. The combined efforts of internal opposition to the Soviet regime and Ukrainian political emigration led to the collapse of the USSR and the restoration of Ukrainian independence.

THE FINAL STAGE OF THE FIRST WORLD WAR AND THE POLITICAL SITUATION IN GEORGIA IN 1917

Nugzar Zosidze
 Email:n.zosidze@bsu.edu
 Associate Professor, Batumi Shota Rustaveli State University 
 Batumi, Georgia
 https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2613-3365
 Abstract. 1914-1921 is one of the most difficult periods in the history of Georgia. During this most difficult period, the country endured the stormy days of the Russian February Revolution of 1917 and the October revolutions. But with self-sacrificing battles and courageous actions of national forces, independence was restored. These years were even more painful from the point of view that certain regions of the country experienced the occupation of foreign countries several times.
 The topic of the history of the research period has become especially relevant since the beginning of the 90’s of the twentieth century. However, many details and features of these relationships have not yet been fully investigated, fully studied and scientifically substantiated.
 After the heavy political battles that developed in the Russian Empire in 1917, the social democrats became the vanguard of the national liberation struggle in Georgia, but at first they did not raise the issue of restoring national sovereignty. This could be due to the fact that at that time the political parties operating in Georgia had difficulty making independent decisions. It is true that the revolution forced Russia to give up active foreign policy, but it tried to interfere in the affairs of Transcaucasia.
 This is what led to the fact that social democrats and social federalists did not fight for national independence, but were satisfied only with broad autonomy, the legalization and practical implementation of which should be decided by the constituent assembly of the Russian Provisional Government. We share with the famous researcher of Georgian history historian Z. Avalishvili's opinion that at that stage, "no one thought of severing the state connection with Russia; Just as they didn't think about it in Estonia, Latvia and other parts of Russia. In this regard, it can be said that Georgia was on par with others’’.
 The small group of Georgian intellectuals, which was formed into the National Democratic Party in 1917, represented an important force in the national liberation struggle. They directly continued the program of the previous national liberation movement called „Tergdaleulebi“ and considered the 1783 treaty as the basis of the relationship. (G. Dekanozishvili, T. Sakhokia, P. Surguladze, L. Kereselidze, G. Machabeli and others).
 In connection with the mentioned issue, Professor Sh. Vadachkoria thinks that it is the correct political orientation of the social democrats that led to the restoration of Georgia's state independence. "Georgia's independence, renewal and perfection of its statehood and Georgian social democracy are inseparable from each other". We partially agree with the above-mentioned opinion and consider that it is wrong to ignore the contribution of the Social Democratic Party in this case.
 On October 25, 1917, the Bolsheviks overthrew the Provisional Government in the capital of the empire. On October 26, members of the Provisional Government, including Kerensky, were arrested in the Winter Palace. A Soviet government was established in Russia. After this coup d'état, the Transcaucasian de facto government, "Ozakom", lost its purpose. The missions of the Entente states wanted to create a government independent from Bolshevik Russia in Transcaucasia.
 We think that the creation of the Transcaucasian Commissariat was a politically correct step, since Transcaucasia was officially separated from Soviet Russia by the creation of a new regional body, but only until the restoration of the legal authority of Russia, which was an indication that Transcaucasia would not be declared an independent state. It was not favorable for Transcaucasia to remove the Caucasus Front, because otherwise it might lead to the strengthening of aggression from Turkey, and the forced occupation of Transcaucasia countries.

„Dziennik Poznański” i „Kurier Poznański” wobec kwestii polskiej granicy wschodniej w czasie rokowań preliminaryjnych w Rydze (21 września – 12 października 1920 r.)

The article presents the attitudes of the two most important Poznań newspapers to the problem of shaping the Polish eastern border during the truce negotiations with Bolshevik Russia in Riga at the turn of September and October 1920. Both newspapers, despite representing different political orientations (democratic-national and conservative), supported the so-called “incorporation programme”, the implementation of which left a massive Polish population behind the eastern border. The author of the article tries to answer the question of why the newspapers, always defending the cohesion and the whole of the Polish nation, acted differently in the case of Poles left in Riga on the Bolshevik side of the border.

Prvu glad u Ukrajini organizovao je Komunistički režim Rusije 1921-1923: Na 100. godišnjicu žrtava tragedije

The article presents a comprehensive analysis of the Ukrainian famine of 1921-1923, challenging the widely held view that it was a tragic consequence of the civil war, as claimed by Lenin. Instead, the authors argue that the famine was a deliberate result of the Russian Bolsheviks' establishment of a social system reminiscent of feudal Russia. Drawing on the insights of Russian philosopher A. Zinoviev in his seminal work "Communism as Reality," the authors shed light on the underlying causes and motivations behind this man-made disaster. During the brutal war of aggression, the Moscow Bolshevik regime employed various means of mass physical, political, and economic terror to suppress the national liberation movement of the Ukrainian people. One of the most insidious tactics was the imposition of a food dictatorship and the orchestration of the famine itself between 1921 and 1923. This deliberate policy was designed to crush any resistance and consolidate Bolshevik rule over Ukrainian lands. The famine served a dual purpose for the Moscow regime. On the one hand, it ensured a steady supply of vital resources such as food, coal, and metals from Ukraine to sustain the famine-stricken central regions of Russia, the North Caucasus, and Crimea. On the other hand, it enabled the Bolsheviks to establish their power on Ukrainian soil by subjugating and exploiting the population through the terror of famine. The consequences of this policy were catastrophic and far-reaching. The Ukrainian famine resulted in the destruction of the country's most productive agricultural resources, severely impairing the country's ability to feed its own population. In addition, a significant number of children, the future of the Ukrainian nation, died of starvation. Entire villages were devastated, and the subsequent influx of people from the Russian territories changed the ethnic composition of the affected regions, exacerbating the process of Russification. This demographic transformation further eroded Ukrainian cultural distinctiveness, including its scientific, educational, literary, and artistic sectors. The loss of cultural heritage and the erosion of national identity created long-lasting socio-psychological problems that continue to hinder the revival of Ukrainian statehood and its progress toward integration into the European community. The authors contend that the threat to the preservation of the Ukrainian nation and the restoration of an independent, united, and democratic Ukrainian state extends beyond the immediate Russian aggression. These acts of aggression include support for Transnistria, the wars with Chechnya and Georgia, the annexation of Crimea, the conflict in the Donbass, and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The authors argue that severely punishing Russia for its actions is essential to preventing the recurrence of such atrocities in the future. The responsibility to confront the aggressor does not lie with Ukraine alone; it requires the collective efforts of the international community. The article calls for a united front among nations and international organizations to hold Russia and other perpetrators accountable for their actions. It emphasizes the importance of implementing robust legal mechanisms, such as international tribunals, to punish those responsible for crimes against humanity, ensuring that they face the full force of justice. Moreover, the call for a united front extends beyond Russia, recognizing that crimes against humanity are not confined to a single nation or region. It highlights the necessity of addressing and preventing such atrocities on a global scale, emphasizing the shared responsibility of all nations to protect human rights and uphold international law.

The First Days of the Soviet Theatre: Stanislav Vinaver’s Dramatic Testimonies

Stanislav Vinaver witnessed October Revolution. In April 1917, he was sent to Russia on a diplomatic mission and stayed there until the autumn of 1919. After returning to Serbia, he published articles about Russia (ideology, revolution, war, life, theatre, art, music) in Politika and Republika, Belgrade daily newspapers, and in Kritika, a Zagreb magazine, which, in their form, resembled dramatic sketches, stories, reports, and travel essays. This paper discusses Vinaver’s articles on theatre issues in Bolshevik Russia, primarily the Kamerny Theatre and the Moscow Drama Theatre. Vinaver’s ideas about the repertoire and aesthetic searches of the two Moscow theatres are interpreted in the context of the time of their emergence, together with the context of artistic assessment, which is by no means inferior to today’s interpretations of the role of the Kamerny and Moscow Drama Theatres in the development of the Soviet experimental theatre.

ACTS OF GENOCIDE COMMITTED BY ARMENIANS AGAINST THE JEWS AND HISTORICAL CLAIMS TO THEM (1st half of the 20th century)

         In the article, the author highlights the tragic page in the history of the Armenian (Khaykan) political terror, ethnic “cleansing” and massacres committed by Armenians (Khaikans) and directed against the peaceful Jewish population, dating back to the 1st half of the 20th century. Based on archival materials from Azerbaijan, Turkey and Russia, the author presents new facts to the attention of readers and also highlights the bloody events that happened to the Jews in the shadow of the imperialist military operations of tsarist and Bolshevik Russia and sometimes the Entente against the Turkic peoples. We are talking about the genocide of the Jews, committed by the Armenian detachments, who joined the Russian army, during these operations. In another historical case, the Armenian groups in coalition with the anti-Turkic Assyrians had the support of the Entente. According to the historical facts of the author, these tragic events took place in the territory of the Ottoman Empire, Turkestan, Azerbaijan, Iran in 1916 and 1918. The next part of the tragic scenes in the article is the facts about the extermination of peaceful Jews in Hungary and Crimea by the Armenian Legion as part of the fascist army. The author, describing other atrocities and historical claims of the Armenians against the Jews, reveals deep links between the genocide of the Jews committed by the Armenians and the territorial, cultural claims of the Armenians against the Jews. The author of the article draws attention to a large number of different historical materials and reveals the behind-the-scenes facts of fake tears of Armenians about the Holocaust. Armenian nationalists, who historically consider themselves representatives of the cultural part of the world, in fact, in the light of historical evidence, their actions seem to be a society that "has the right" to trample on all values ​​for the mythical "Great Armenia".

Within Wars and Revolutions: Helena Antipoff activities in the Bolshevik Russia (1917-1924)

The article deals with the professional career of the Russian psychologist Helena Antipoff (1892-1974) in the Soviet Russia, between 1917 and 1924, after returning from her educational stay in Paris and Geneva, and before migrating to Brazil in 1929. During the brief Soviet period, Helena was a witness and an active participant in the grandiose and dramatic changes of the country. Her work, as well as the work of other Russian scientists who migrated to other countries during the years of war and social revolution, is now being extensively studied, and new knowledge reverse some established perceptions and stereotypes about the history of psychology in Russia. Antipoff start-up in the Russian psychological and educational communities was linked to the intensive scientific and social activities of the St. Petersburg school of scientists and psychologists at this period – Vladimir M. Bekhterev (1857-1927), Alexander F. Lazursky (1874-1917), Alexander P. Nechaev (1870-1948), Mikhail Y. Basov (1892-1931), Adrian S. Griboedov (1875-1948) and others. Helena`s professional self-realization in this six-year Russian period was developed in real hot spots of practical psychological problems of that time for the country (study of children in conditions of devastation, hunger and orphanhood; testing of enhancement/reduction of child intelligence in conditions of social cataclysm and war; comparison of intellectual abilities of children of different social groups and in different countries; social and psychological diagnostics and distribution of “street children” to different types of care and educational institutions).

The Bolshevik Expansion and Occupation of Ukraine (December 1917 – February 1918)

The article presents an overview of the background and course of the first of four Russian-Ukrainian wars during the Ukrainian Revolution of 1917–1921: the war unleashed by the Russian Bolsheviks in late 1917. The author shares the story of the Bolsheviks’ political manipulations which preceded the military invasion; he talks of the Bolsheviks’ public hypocrisy, which combined recognition of the right of nations to self-determination with unacceptable demands of Ukrainians. The Bolshevik strategy was to portray the attack on the Ukrainian People’s Republic as an internal Ukrainian conflict – the struggle of the “proletariat” against the “bourgeois Central Council”. It examines the process of creating a puppet Soviet government of Ukraine, under the cover of which troops from Russia led the occupation of the republic, with the emphasis put on the theme of “red terror” that was widely used by the Bolsheviks during the war. Then attention is drawn to the similarity of approaches to warfare in contemporary Russia of today and a century ago

Stosunki wojskowe między Rzecząpospolitą Polską a Związkiem Radzieckim w latach 1921-1939

The article presents the military relations between Poland and the Soviet Union in the years 1921-1939, from the end of the war between Poland and the Bolshevik Russia until the beginning of World War II. Its content has been divided into four subchapters, in the first of which the author analyzes the state of research on the topic in question and the state of preservation of sources in Polish and foreign archives. In the following subsections, the author presents the military relations between Poland and the USSR in three periods: in the years 1921-1926, 1926-1935 and 1935-1939. The last subsection is key to the undertaken research problem. It contains findings on the changes in the mutual military relations to the disadvantage of Poland, in connection with the rapid expansion and modernization of the Red Army and the difficulties of the Polish military intelligence in their assessment and difficulties in recognizing the reconstructed cooperation between the USSR and Germany.

«Красная ржавчина» vs «Желтая ржавчина»: метаморфозы текста советской пьесы на Бродвее

The study focuses on the adaptation of a politically engaged dramaturgical work from Bolshevik Russia — Vladimir Kirshon’s and Andrey Uspensky’s play Konstantin Terekhin (Rust) — to the specific requirements of Broadway, the commercial theater of the USA, and the textual changes of the Soviet original associated with it. The basic principles of the Broadway theater creative and organizational model, drastically different from the repertory theater of post-revolutionary Russia, are defined — the primacy of commerce over artistry, the absence of state support and censorship, a respectable audience that does not accept radical political ideas. On the American stage the Soviet play was produced in 1929, with the changed title (Red Rust), and the text subjected to changes and distortions. The paper considers these changes in the context of American socio–economic life of the Red Thirties. The discrepancy between the original dramaturgical material and the specific requirements of the American commercial theater is analyzed. The free handling of the text from Bolshevik Russia in the US theater is due to the absence of copyright regulations between the two countries. The process of exporting the play to the United States — via Paris and London — is being reconstructed. Three sources that have carried out the textual transformation of the Soviet original are characterized: the authors of the French-language adaptation from Russian (Fernand Nozière and Vladimir Bienstock), British translators from French into English (Virginia and Frank Vernon) and Broadway stage director who previously visited Moscow and sought to introduce into the text what, in his opinion, Soviet censorship would not allow (Herbert Biberman). The study is based on the materials from the Beinecke Library of Rare Books and Manuscripts collections (Yale University), as well as documents from the Houghton Library (Harvard University), the New York Public Library for Performing Arts, the Russian State Archive of Literature and Art (Moscow), and the museum of the Mossovet State Academic Theater (Moscow). The study is aimed at expanding the understanding of the stage history of the Russian drama in America.

UKRAINE AS AN OBJECT OF GLOBAL GEOPOLITICS: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND LESSONS OF THE RESOLUTION OF THE CONFERENCE OF AMBASSADORS IN MARCH 14, 1923

The report reconstructs how one hundred years ago the world's largest powers, primarily France, Great Britain, Japan, the Kingdom of Italy, and the United States, began to build a new Versailles-Washington system of international relations, which consolidated territorial changes as a result of the First World War and the collapse of the German, Ottoman, and Austrian-Hungarian and Russian empires. The geopolitical prerequisites and consequences of the Resolution of the Council of Ambassadors of March 14, 1923 regarding Eastern Galicia are analyzed. It has been proven that the principle of self-determination of peoples, proclaimed by world leaders, did not become the basis of post-war national-state demarcation, in particular in Central and Eastern Europe. Therefore, with the support of the Entente, the Ukrainian ethnic territory (conciliar Ukrainian People's Republic) was redistributed by Poland, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Bolshevik Russia, which concluded the Peace of Brest with defeated Germany and was in international isolation for some time. The countries of the West did not believe in the state efforts of the disunited political elite of the Ukrainian People's Republic of Ukraine and the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, as well as in the monarchical plans of the Hetmanate, which manoeuvre between German and White Guard post-war strategies. The Entente countries assigned the role of a sanitary border against the possible expansion of Bolshevik Russia (later the USSR) to the revived Poland in 1918, with which France concluded a political agreement and a military convention in 1921. The postwar Eastern European borders, in particular between Poland and the USSR along the Zbruch River, were «legitimized» by the Peace of Riga in 1921, as well as by the resolution of the Entente Council of Ambassadors in 1923, which marked the foreign policy defeat of both the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Western Ukrainian People's Republic, as well as the end of the Ukrainian Revolution of 1914–1923 It was established that Warsaw ignored the international demand to grant national-territorial autonomy to Ukrainians, instead dividing the region into three voivodships even before the specified resolution. Keywords: Ukraine, East Galicia, Poland, countries of the Entente, geopolitics, military occupation, political parties.

Polskie zagony pancerno-motorowe w czasie wojny 1920 roku

During the war with Bolshevik Russia, the Polish Army carried out raids by armored and motorized units three times, in which infantry units transported by trucks and supported by armored cars took part. In the first two raids, which were directed at Zhytomyr and Kovel, complete success was achieved. However, the last incursion, aimed at Lutsk, failed.

АЛГОРИТМИ СОВЄТСЬКО-РОСІЙСЬКОГО ГЕНОЦИДУ ДО 70-ЛІТТЯ ДОПОВІДІ Р. ЛЕМКІНА «SОVIET GENOCIDE IN UKRAINE»

The article is devoted to the actual theoretical and practical issues related to the factor of genocide in the being of the Ukrainian nation in the 20th and 21st centuries. The author of the article aims to study the impact of the genocide committed by the Russian Bolsheviks in the 1930s on the character traits of Ukrainians, outline the relationships between Soviet totalitarianism and Russian colonialism. The current genocidal practice of the Rashists is shown as a direct continuation and development of the "classic Soviet genocide", as it was characterized in 1953 by a prominent international lawyer, the author of the concept of genocide, Raphael Lemkin. The article presents the key points of Lemkin's text "Soviet Genocide in Ukraine", shows their significance for understanding the events of the past and present. According to Lemkin, the four main components of the Russian-Soviet genocide are: large-scale destruction of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, attempts to liquidate the Ukrainian Church, purposeful depopulation of the Ukrainian peasantry and elimination of its subject features, settlement of Ukraine with foreign ethnic elements for a radical change in the composition of the population. All these components, in a slightly transformed form, are also relevant in 2022-23, during the Russian large-scale invasion. They are peculiar algorithms of genocide - with the difference that in the 1930s the goal of Russian Bolshevism was the destruction of millions of the most active and conscious Ukrainians and the lowering of the Ukrainian nation to the level of a Moscoworiented ethnographic community, while today it is about the complete denial of the separate existence of Ukrainians, their transformation into a stateless object component of the Russian people, on the element of the "Russian world". The author of the article emphasizes that there is only one way of "recovery" for Ukrainians as a post-genocide nation. Such a nation can be cured of the fear of living a full-blooded national life only by a mass heroic act, in all forms and manifestations. Only in this way will the Ukrainian nation fully restore its subjectivity and become a real geopolitical and geocultural actor.

The Bolsheviks and Britain during the Russian Revolution and Civil War, 1917–24 by Evgeny Sergeev (review)

Reviewed by: The Bolsheviks and Britain during the Russian Revolution and Civil War, 1917–24 by Evgeny Sergeev Murray Frame Sergeev, Evgeny. The Bolsheviks and Britain during the Russian Revolution and Civil War, 1917–24. Bloomsbury Academic, London, New York and Dublin, 2022. xxi + 270 pp. Maps. Illustrations. Select chronology. Notes. Select bibliography. Index. £85.00. This interesting book by Evgeny Sergeev — Chief Research Fellow at the Institute of General History, Russian Academy of Sciences, and Professor of International and British History at the Russian State University for the Humanities — explores a brief but turbulent period in British-Russian relations, 1917–24, charting the transformation from wartime cooperation to open hostility and economic blockade, followed by gradual resumption of trade and diplomatic recognition of the USSR by Britain. Compared to many earlier studies of the topic, the book is notable for the author's extensive use of archives in both Russia and Britain, including previously inaccessible material such as recently declassified intelligence reports. Sergeev therefore adds much detail to a relatively familiar story, and in a manner which carefully balances primary material and perspectives from both sides of the relationship. The questions which Sergeev sets out to answer are clearly stated at the beginning: 'How did the revolutionary events of 1917 affect the military alliance between Petrograd and London? What were the origins of a dramatic transition from friendly cooperation to outright animosity in the later years? Why did the British armed intervention fail, and what are the reasons for the recognition of the Bolshevik dictatorship by the UK government?' (p. 2). Although the main conclusions will not surprise historians of the period — the revolution sundered the military alliance; the outright animosity stemmed from 'competing geopolitical interests' (p. 167); Britain formally recognized the USSR because there was growing appetite for stable relations and resumption of trade — they are grounded in considerable detail, and readers will admire the author's encyclopaedic knowledge of this complex and multi-layered subject. Sergeev succeeds in conveying a tangible sense of the international uncertainties of the period and how they divided officials in both London [End Page 177] and Petrograd/Moscow. On the British side, for example, George Lansbury, Alfred Milner and Lloyd-George — whose assistants, we learn, nicknamed him the 'Kerensky of the West' (p. 12) — favoured early diplomatic recognition of Bolshevik Russia, but most government officials did not, concerned that the Bolsheviks would sign a separate peace with the Central Powers and then seek to undermine the British empire. During 1917–18, this question dominated political deliberations about Russia, especially after the Russian-German armistice in December 1917, and it partly lay behind Robert Bruce Lockhart's well-known mission to Moscow in 1918. On the Russian side, Lenin was anxious about the fate of the revolution as the Germans advanced again in February 1918, and so he remained open to Allied support if necessary, at least until the Brest-Litovsk Treaty was signed in the face of opposition from many within the Soviet leadership. The 'Lockhart Plot' — or 'complot of ambassadors' — to overthrow the Bolsheviks ended any prospect of collaboration between Britain and Russia for the next two years. Steps towards coexistence were possible only after the cessation of the Allied intervention, the main purpose of which — to protect the eastern front, support the White counter-revolutionaries, or prevent revolutionary contagion — never seemed consistent. A strength of Sergeev's book is that he gives considerable attention to British-Russian relations in the Middle East, often side-lined at the expense of a Eurocentric focus. While Britain sought to contain Bolshevik expansion — and to counter German moves towards Transcaucasia and beyond — the Soviets deployed a variety of diplomatic and political tools aimed at forestalling British encroachments on surrounding territories, such as signing agreements with Persia and Afghanistan in 1921. Sergeev emphasizes that the landmark agreements of the period failed to improve relations quickly. Following the Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement of 1921, mutual suspicion remained. British officials remained concerned by Soviet efforts to spread revolutionary propaganda across the empire, while the Soviets objected to British funding of White Russians in neighbouring countries. Yet the economic imperative for cooperation was strong: by late 1921...

ПРОБЛЕМА ДЕРЖАВНОЇ ПРИНАЛЕЖНОСТІ ЗАХІДНОЇ ВОЛИНІ У КОНЦЕПЦІЯХ ТА ПРАКТИКАХ ПОЛЬСЬКОГО ПОЛІТИКУМУ (КІНЕЦЬ ХІХ СТ.– ПЕРША ЧВЕРТЬ ХХ СТ.)

The article reveals the study of the state affiliation issue of the Western Volyn territory in the concepts and practices of Polish political groups of the 19th‒20th century and their prominent ideologues. The revival of the Polish state was the only common political aim of the conceptual grounds of the leading Polish doctrines of incorporation and federalism. Nevertheless, practical methods and ways of realising the set objectives of the concepts mentioned above in the geopolitical dimension differed significantly. The nationalist views of the Polish politician R. Dmowski formed the basis of an incorporative political program, which stipulated the restoration of an independent Polish state within the borders of 1772 with the inclusion of Ukrainian lands – Volyn territory. The political beliefs of the Polish national leader J. Piłsudski were based on the concept of a federal union of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus, and Ukraine, which in turn considered the revival of the historical tradition of state‒building. According to this concept, Western Volyn should have belonged to Poland. Analysing the evolution of the concepts mentioned above in terms of historical events of the 19th and 20th centuries and their content related to Ukrainian issues, the author highlights that the western Ukrainian lands, in particular, Western Volyn, were accepted exclusively as Polish and a priori should have been the territory of the restored Polish state. The formation of the “illusory image” of Volyn as a Polish territory directly impacted the region’s further development. In particular, it influenced the relations between the neighbouring peoples ‒ Poles and Ukrainians. The establishment of official diplomatic relations between Poland and soviet russia, outlined in the Treaty Riga 1921, marked the victory of “incorporated” views over federal ideas. Meanwhile, the threat of expansion from the russian Bolsheviks contributed to the emergence of the Promethean political doctrine. Creating an independent Ukrainian state was one of the crucial elements aimed at functioning as a buffer zone between Poland and the Soviet Union. At the same time, the territory of Western Volyn was supposed to belong to Poland.

Stjepan Radić and Nikola Pašić as Heralds of Liberal Democracy in Croatia and Serbia: Historiographical Myths and Reality

Historians from the former Yugoslav republics traditionally participate in ongoing political discussions about the ways in which their homelands should progress. Referring to their knowledge of the past, scholars indicate certain historic phenomena and time periods that should serve as ideal models that should be “reproduced” by modern societies in the near future. With regard to the Serbian historiography, the late Belgrade professor Miroslav Jovanović detected several “restoration ideas,” the implementation of which, according to their adherents, would allow modern society to “revise the mistakes of history.” In today’s Serbia and Croatia, certain historical figures, with real and imaginary virtues, are presented as role models and heralds of everything progressive in the field of politics and state building. In particular, in the works of many authors, Nikola Pašić, the head of the Serbian People’s Radical Party (PRP), and Stjepan Radić, the chairman of the Croatian (Republican) Peasant Party (C(R)PP), appear as the “founding fathers” of liberal democratic traditions in the late nineteenth century and the first three decades of the twentieth. The “golden era of Serbian parliamentarism” (1903–1914), which was characterized by the dominance of the PRP and the virtual “Croatian Neutral Peasant Republic,” a program that allowed the C(R)PP to consolidate the Croatian people in the 1920s, are worthy candidates of “restoration.” In this article, I consider whether there is any substantial historical truth to these images. I conclude that neither the PRP nor the C(R)PP (and neither Pašić nor Radić) espoused liberalist tendencies, which would have favored individualist ethics and respect for the rights of minorities. Both leaders and their parties adhered to the principle of majority dominance and were intolerant of anyone who did not belong to this majority, whether for ethnic, social, or other reasons. The PRP and C(R)PP could be described as the patterns of the same socio-political phenomenon, separated by several decades. They shared and made use of common ideological roots, social bases, organizational structures, self-perceptions among the leadership, slogans, and other strategies and tools of mass manipulation. These factors and also the influence of the nineteenth-century Russian narodnik movement on both parties during their formative periods make them typologically more related to the Russian Bolsheviks than they ever were to Western liberal trends.