World Revolution Research Articles

Nikolay Gumilev’s The lost tram: literary-mythological and historical-biographical contexts of the tram route

The article discusses various interpretations of Nikolai Gumilev’s poem The Lost Tram. Attention is paid to the nuances of the use of ancient plots in the poem. Important questions about the date of writing the work are raised. Particular attention is paid to the mysterious route through three bridges. The three rivers mentioned in the poem – the Neva, the Nile, and the Seine – are usually regarded as symbols of radical transformations in the life of people and society (the October Revolution, the exodus of Jews from Egypt, and the Great French Revolution). The article suggests that the event associated with the Nile could not have been a page from the Jewish history, but rather the revolution in Egypt in the first half of the 20th century. Thus, the symbolism of the tram expands to the symbol of an abstract world revolution.

From the History of Soviet-French Literary Relations in the 1930s: An Unknown Letter from French Writers to A. M. Gorky about V. Serge (Based on Materials from the A. M. Gorky Archive)

The article examines Soviet-French literary contacts in the socio-political aspect on the basis of two unknown and not introduced into scientific circulation letters from the Archive of A.M. Gorky: a letter of five French writers dated June 28, 1932 A.M. Gorky and a letter from V. Serge dated September 28, 1932 to Gorky’s secretary P.P. Kryuchkov. French writers of leftist views (J.-R. Bloch, C. Vildrac, J. Guéhenno, L. Werth, F. Jourdain), who sympathized with the USSR, turned to Gorky with a request to help Serge leave the USSR. A month later, V. Serge himself turned to Kryuchkov with a request to respond to this letter. The son of Narodnaya Volya emigrants, Serge came to Soviet Russia in 1919 to participate in the revolutionary transformations of society and promote the world revolution. Sergeʼs connections with the anti-Stalinist opposition led to persecution by the GPU, two arrests (in 1928 and 1932) and exile to Orenburg for three years (in 1933). Thanks to an international campaign in the French and Belgian press launched by left-wing intellectuals, Serge left the USSR in April 1936. The still unknown first letter in his defense, sent by French writers to Gorky, is the most important evidence of the political strategies of leftist writers of the 1930s, attempts to influence socio-political processes within the leftist movement, as well as attempts to humanize the Stalinist regime.

ИЗ ИСТОРИИ СОВЕТСКО-ШВЕДСКИХ ВОЕННЫХ СВЯЗЕЙ В 1920-М – 1930-Е ГГ.

The article is devoted to Soviet-Swedish military relations in the 1920s - 1930s. It is based on sources from the Russian State Archive of Economics and the Archive of Foreign Policy. Most of them are being introduced into scientific circulation for the first time. The relevance of the article is due to its low level of study. As a result of the study, it was found that Soviet-Swedish military ties included transactions for the purchase of weapons, engines for warships, uniforms for military personnel and other goods for the Red Army. Especially impressive was the interaction with the Bofors company, where Soviet representatives ordered light and heavy weapons. Moreover, Turkey assisted in the transportation of goods from this company to the USSR. Some of the transactions with Swedish companies ("Husqvarna " and JSC "Atlas-Diesel") continued the contacts established before the revolution. The article also shows the dynamics of interaction. In 1920, the interest in Moscow and Stockholm in military relations was mutual – the Bolsheviks needed goods for the Red Army, and the Swedes wanted to make money selling them for gold. In subsequent years, the USSR took more initiative in military cooperation. Especially in 1923 and 1927, which was caused in the first case by preparations for the German and, consequently, the world revolution, in the second by the expectation of a military clash with Great Britain and, possibly, with the union of Western countries. Since 1929, the USSR and Sweden have been interested in cooperation to about the same extent. Moscow was interested in the latest weapons, and the Swedes wanted to minimize losses due to the global economic crisis.

The thought they had lost: Richard Bourke’s Hegel’s World Revolutions and the contested legacies of the global 1960s

The thought they had lost: Richard Bourke’s Hegel’s World Revolutions and the contested legacies of the global 1960s

“The Struggle of the Worlds”: the Representation of the Future War in the Soviet Science Fiction of the 1930s

In pre-revolutionary fiction, the struggle of the worlds was perceived mainly as a clash between earthlings and an extraterrestrial civilization. After the emergence of the Soviet state, the struggle between the Bolshevik and antiBolshevik worlds became one of the key themes in fiction. By the early 1930s, the formula “struggle of the worlds” existed in Russian literature both as fantastic and non-fantastic, reflecting a real social confrontation. However, the idea of a world revolution as the goal and result of the struggle of the worlds is actually eliminated from science fiction. The social struggle, which can transform into an interstate conflict, by the end of the 1930s turns into a war of the worlds, where the military clash between the USSR and a hostile state is the decisive factor. The changes taking place in the international arena led to the fact that in science fiction, too, England and France are replaced by Germany, Italy and Japan as the main opponents. In the war of the future the victory is determined not by heroism and national unity, but also by military and technical superiority. Along with the apparently fantastic weapons possessed by both the USSR and the enemies in the future, the writers described technical achievements, whose fantastic nature is not always noticeable even to a non-specialist contemporary, since some weapons that were fantastic in the late 1930s already became a reality during the Great Patriotic War. One of the distinctive features of the works of 1938–1939 about the future war is the minimal differentiation between the fantastic and non-fantastic. On the one hand, there is no war yet, on the other hand, the distance between the future and the present is practically absent, and the “effect of the future” is leveled due to image of reality that maximally corresponds to the present. This artistic technique helps to convey to the reader the confidence that victory is the logical conclusion of the present, and not a fantasy.

The Failed World Festival of Youth and Students in Algiers in 1965

In the wake of the anti-war student movement, it was decided to hold the next IX World Festival of Youth and Students in 1965 in Algeria. After a long civil war against French colonial rule, the state gained independence in 1962, choosing a “non-capitalist path of development”. Due to the military coup that took place, the festival had to be canceled. The history of the failed festival has not been reflected in historical research. However, the events that took place around this festival deserve attention, since they influenced the youth movement both in the Soviet Union and around the world. The article analyzes the events that accompanied the preparation of the festival. Ideological differences between the CPSU and the Communist Party of China, which served as the background of these events, had a decisive impact on the international relations of the Komsomol with youth organizations of other countries. Excessive guardianship on the part of the Soviet Union did not allow international and student organizations to agree on the terms of the festival in Algeria in 1965. Based on archival documents and declassified CIA materials, the author comes to the conclusion that by the mid-1960s the influence of the USSR in the world had weakened. Soviet foreign policy was no longer in line with the fermenting “world revolution… of small, poor people all over the world,” as Secretary of State John Marshall put it. New leftist centers were now emerging, often at odds with each other, and the USSR’s authority was no longer sufficient.

“Asiatic Black Man”: W. E. B. Du Bois and Langston Hughes in Soviet Asia--Part I—The Shifting “Double-consciousness” of Du Bois

Abstract This essay seeks to revisit the curious case of the “Asiatic Black Man” by demonstrating how this identity, inherent in the collective unconsciousness and shared by Muhammad Ali, W. E. B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, and Paul Robeson, could be consolidated as an “imagined community” through the microhistory of African Americans experiencing Soviet Asia. The essay proposes Afro-American Eurasianism as a transcontinental approach to converge the transnational, transatlantic, and transpacific perspectives in the Eurasian landmass, wherein the consilience of the Soviet overarching ambition of becoming the only world power as well as various themes that connected the micro-narrative of African Americans with the big history1 of Asia rendered Eurasianism as a shared political ideology, to be exploited by each side as a grand strategy in ending global racial politics. By positioning the twin cases of Du Bois and Hughes, this paper aims to show how the Soviet Union’s divergent endeavors of the “world revolution”—with Hungary and China as their primary targets for exporting revolutions in order to control the Eurasian “heartland”—and “socialism in one country”—with Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan as the in-the-making products of the Soviet nation-building experiments so as to convey the raceless image of Potemkin villages through Central Asia’s window to the world—could draw them away from their initial embrace of Black nationalism and shape their radical thoughts toward the Soviet cause. Moreover, this study posits that Soviet Asia functioned as a psychogeographical and geopolitical conduit that facilitated the elaboration of the Afro-American “Asiatic Black Man” fantasy and imagination of the communistic utopia as an alternative international order, while it unexpectedly resulted in a new “double-consciousness,” compelling Du Bois and Hughes to oscillate between Moscow and Beijing/Tashkent. (YZ)

Bogdanov's Tectology: Between the World Revolution and Science

This article is an analysis of A.A. Bogdanov's tectology. The author of the article tries to look at the genesis and essence of tectology from the point of view of socio-cultural methodology, that is, by attracting an idea of socio-cultural factors that can be considered to set the direction and nature of this theorist's thinking. The main content of the analysis is to show the contradiction between metaphysics and science, which is characteristic of the avant-garde theories-practices of the first half of the twentieth century and which is present in Bogdanov's teaching. On the one hand, Bogdanov's theory can be seen as an expression of the avant–garde pathos of world transformation, and on the other hand, an expression of the intention to assert one's knowledge and one's orientation as scientific, that is, corresponding to the essence of the reality to which it is directed, and is opposed to philosophy as a purely theoretical approach to understanding problems and not based on a single method. The specificity of Bogdanov's position is expressed in the statement of a single method — the “organizational point of view”. His world revolution is transformed by this point of view into a world organizational revolution. The “organizational point of view”, claimed in tectology, is containing the intention to bring harmony into a world filled with chaos. The desire to make his position scientific expresses Bogdanov's intention for the objectivity-practicality of his approach. Nevertheless, this does not negate the fact that Bogdanov was originally set by the magic of the world revolutionary transformation, which in modern interpretations of his tectology turns into nothing more than an anticipation of a scientific theory — the theory of systems.

Timeo danaos et dona ferentes, або як Кремль дружив з незалежною Литвою проти другої Речі Посполитої (1918–1940): історична та історико-правова розвідка

Soviet foreign policy in the interwar (1918–1939) period was carried out on the basis of the strategy and tactics of the "world revolution", which, in turn, provided for the rallying of all "anti-imperialist forces", including the so-called oppressed peoples. While supporting the struggle of the Hindus against the British colonialists or the Chinese Kuomintang against imperial Japan, the Kremlin manipulators did not let the European continent out of their sight. One of the powerful knots of contradictions at that time became the Polish-Lithuanian relations, caused by the forceful annexation of the Vilnius region by the Poles, even contrary to the decision of the Versailles Conference. From the very beginning of the conflict, the Union of the SSR sided with Kaunas under the Pharisaic slogan of the right of nations to self-determination. Explanations for this lay on the surface. First, the interwar Second Commonwealth in its then borders was a project of the Council of Ambassadors of the Versailles Conference (primarily of France), concerned about the Soviet threat. Secondly, Moscow did not have a territorial conflict with Lithuania, but it did with Poland. Thirdly, actual (non)intervention in the conflict, its intensification or, on the contrary, its weakening could be used as a bargaining chip in relations with third states (such as Germany). Kaunas also had its interest, which lay on the surface (Vilnius region). The Soviet invasion of Poland, carried out under the pretext of taking under the protection of the population, which the "unreasonable policy of the Polish authorities" allegedly put in an extremely dangerous situation, was accompanied by a "generous" act of restoration of historical justice for the Lithuanians offended by the Polish invaders. However, in less than a year, the Soviet Janus showed his true face to the until recently friendly Lithuania.

"A Component Part of the General Struggle of All the People of the World": Finally Got the News between Black Detroit and the World Revolution

Abstract: The documentary Finally Got the News (dir. Stewart Bird, Peter Gessner, and René Lichtman, 1970) remains a lasting and inspiring document of the League of Revolutionary Black Workers and the cycle of militant Black working-class struggle that gripped the Detroit auto industry during the Long Sixties. The conditions of the production process, however, suggest a League that was slowly breaking apart under the weight of contradictions both internal and external. For the Marxist-Leninist bloc in the League's leadership, the basis of this contradiction was ideological, between their own analysis of Black racialization and racial oppression as grounded in racialized super-exploitation and an amalgam of competing Black nationalist perspectives they viewed as insufficiently revolutionary. The Marxist-Leninists saw the documentary as an opportunity to consolidate their authority within the organization and build a communist hegemony in the Black working-class movement. This evaluation of the terms of struggle, unfortunately, was based on a flawed equivalence between theoretical perspective, ideological line, and practical political strategy and tactics. In pursuing this plan, they actually exacerbated existing tensions with other leaders and the rank-and-file membership, inadvertently contributing to the dissolution of the League soon after.

“All Say He is a Downright Methodist”: The Ministry and Evangelical Loyalism of the Rev. William Stringer

AbstractWilliam Stringer was at various times a cheesemonger, a Methodist lay preacher, a priest, and an American Loyalist exile. Originally from London, Stringer preached the Gospel for the early Methodist movement, but longed for priestly ordination in the Church of England. Unable to achieve this goal due to his humble background, he was instead ordained in 1764 by the controversial and ecumenically minded Greek Orthodox bishop, Gerasimos Avontilies (also known as Erasmus of Arcadia), who ordained several Methodists under Greek Orthodox rites in London. Having acquired illicit ordination, Stringer moved to Philadelphia where he ministered to a parish that had broken from the Church of England during the Great Awakening. The clergy of Philadelphia responded negatively and wrote to Archbishop Richard Terrick of London, who ordered Stringer to desist from his ministry. However, Stringer did such a remarkable job of bringing his congregation back into the Anglican fold that Terrick agreed to re-ordain him in London under Anglican rites in 1773. With the outbreak of the American Revolution in 1775, Stringer supported the British cause and rejected the revolt as inconsistent with Christian obedience. He was forced to leave America and return to England, where he lived out the rest of his life as a curate. Despite his initial transgressions, I argue that Stringer was a force for order, stability, and orthodoxy in a revolutionary world.

World Revolution Against Russia: the Factor of the Ukraine in the Cause of Russia Fragmentation for the Sake of World Soviet Republics (1923)

The history of Russia transforming into the USSR is the history of fragmentation of Russian into the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and other union republics of the USSR initiated by the Bolsheviks on the basis of their doctrine. In other words, the history of the Bolshevik project of world revolution, or the World Soviet Republics, that was supposed to be realized in the world mosaic of ethno national states. This concept was clearly evident in the process of USSR Constitution preparation in 1924 (it came into force in 1923)

The Role of Metaverse in Developing Soft Skills Among ESL Learners

Metaverse world revolution will occupy its place among other technology tools during the coming decades. Therefore, education has become one of the most important areas that try to reap the benefit from Metaverse. The purpose of this article is to review the literature in order to clarify the concept of "Metaverse", its origins, and the modern approach to its use in education. This article finds that Metaverse plays a crucial role in developing soft skills that ESL learners need; such as communication skills, creativity, innovation, and critical thinking.

The Image of the World Revolution in the Editorials of the Perm Newspaper “Krasny Ural” 1919–1920

The Image of the World Revolution in the Editorials of the Perm Newspaper “Krasny Ural” 1919–1920

Ukrainian Shield in Defense of European Civilization: Chronology and Periodization

This article demonstrates how the ‘Ukrainian Shield’ has protected European civilization for more than a thousand years of turbulence. The article also develops a periodization of this phenomenon.
 Scientific novelty. Despite a thorough study of some aspects of the topic, the Ukrainian Shield hypothesis as a unifying theme has not been adequately covered in Ukrainian historiography. The authors show the leading role of Ukraine in the struggle against various enemies who tried to conquer European countries, and we define the chronological boundaries and develop a periodization of this process.
 Methodology. The study uses a civilizational approach, methods of analogy and periodization, historical, chronological comparative and analytical methods.
 Conclusions. For more than 1155 years, the Ukrainian Crystal Shield has defended European civilization from various enemies, with the Ukrainian population bearing an enormous cost. This process began in 867, when the legendary Kyivan Princes Askold and Dir defeated the Pechenegs, and continues in 2023, when Ukrainians stopped the resurgent Moscow horde that threatens the whole world.
 The periodization of the Ukrainian Shield was developed on the basis of the stages of Ukrainian statehood. Stage I. Princely Statehood: wars with the Pechenegs (867-1036); with the Torks (1055-1060); with the Polovtsians (Cumans) (1060-1238); with the Mongol-Tatars (1223-1241). Stage II. Cossack Era: confrontation with the Turks and Tatars (1478-1775). Stage III. The Ukrainian National Revolution: the struggle of the Ukrainian insurgency against the march of the Bolsheviks’ World Revolution (1917-1923). Stage IV. The Modern Ukrainian Independent State: the Russian-Ukrainian war (2014-2023).
 The Ukrainian Shield protected European civilization from the Pechenegs, Torks, Polovtsians, Mongol-Tatars, Turks, Bolsheviks, and continues to protect it from Russian aggression since February 24, 2022. For 667 years out of the past 1155 years, Ukraine has been engaged in open conflict to repel invaders. Many of the “peaceful” years were spent preparing for the next onslaught. These long and bloody wars, often waged against superior opponents, has required enormous effort, along with material and human resources from Ukrainians. The principal beneficiaries of Ukrainian heroism have been the peoples of central and western Europe.
 Funding. The article is published within the international project Erasmus+ in the direction of Jean Monnet Module «Implementation of European values as a basis of democracy in Ukraine» (EVADEM – 101085843 – ERASMUS-JMO-2022-MODULE).

Factors that Shaped the Art of Turkish Painting in The Republic Period

The roots of current Turkish painting can be traced back to the early 20th century. Until the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, painting did not emerge as one of the most important and influential art forms in Turkish culture. However, as a result of the historical processes spanning from the late period of the Ottoman Empire to the establishment of the Republic of Turkey, the paradigm shift brought about by the Republic facilitated the formation and establishment of a unique art form known as Western style painting in the Turkish nation. The transformation from subjects of a monarchy to citizens of a nation, and from subjects to individual identities, which took place during the Republic era, enabled Turkish painting to acquire a national character through the influence of state patronage and the power of reforms. Although the Westernization movement and educational reforms that began during the Ottoman period led to a new formal direction influenced by the forms of the Western worldview, as well as the unique content of the Ottoman state’s worldview, it was during the Republic era that Turkish painting found its characteristic forms and expressions. While the formal patterns of painting were influenced by Western styles of the time, the subject matter and content reflected the intellectual and revolutionary world of modern Turkish society, allowing for the emergence of a distinctive form of painting art under these circumstances.

«Мировая революция» в русском анархизме

The purpose of this article is to identify the specifics of the theory of the "world revolution" in the ideological and political heritage of Russian anarchism. Historical, comparative, hermeneutic methods of scientific research were actively used to write the article. The ideologists of Russian anarchism in their interpretation of the "world revolution" competed with Marxist doctrine, with its popular dialectical theory of socio-economic formations and class struggle, where the final stage of historical progress was to be the achievement of global communism. Rejecting the Marxist concept of "dictatorship of the proletariat", the Russian anarchists proceeded from an alternative methodology that emphasizes the primacy of natural, biological factors of social processes. According to anarchists, the basic factor of progress is the natural inclination of people to solidarity and mutual assistance. Hence the Russian anarchists opposed the natural nature of the evolution of mankind to any "forced" forms of social organization. This applied, first of all, to the institution of the state, regardless of its external form – communist, liberal-democratic, despotic. The basic parameters of the social ideal in the theory of Russian anarchism were the principles of anarchy and freedom, the building of social existence on the basis of self-organization, self-government and a global decentralized confederation structured "from the bottom up". The former territorial and political borders were abolished, nations were abolished. The anarchists saw the achievement of this ideal as an exclusively revolutionary way, gradually embracing all new countries, regions, continents. The article emphasizes the constant appeal of Russian anarchists to the arguments of universal morality - "freedom", "justice", "brotherhood", "justice", "equality" in justifying the need for a world anarchist revolution, which in practice turned into political abstractions with destructive consequences for societies. At the same time, the "secondary" ideology of Russian anarchism as an intellectual product is noted in relation to Marxism and natural science theories of the XVIII-XIX centuries, as well as the tendency of anarchists to utopian thinking, to speculative building of their global social ideal.

How the first revolution affected the second: The setback of 1927 for the Chinese Communist Party Revolution in the 1920s

AbstractThe Bolsheviks’ world revolution encountered setbacks in the 1920s. Among the bloodiest of these was the massacre of 1927 when the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) entire central leadership was killed in the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (GMD) coup. Existing explanations highlight Moscow’s miscalculation, infighting within the Kremlin, Soviet advisers’ information dilemma, and the CCP leaders’ political inexperience. This article compares the opening stages of the Bolshevik (or Russian) and Chinese Communist Party revolutions to explain why the 1927 setback became a catastrophe. It argues that the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 caused fundamental changes, which thwarted any attempt to replicate the 1917 victory in the post-1917 world. The CCP in 1927 faced three disadvantages that the Bolshevik Revolution had engendered: a misleading myth about the October Revolution, a Bolshevized system of repression created by Soviet advisers to the GMD, and the ‘red scare’ in Japan and British Southeast Asia, which blocked members of the CCP from escaping overseas. This article draws on leaders’ biographical materials to compare the two parties’ learning from foreign revolutions, records in suffering repression, and experiences as overseas refugees. The comparison shows that the Bolsheviks did not face these three disadvantages before 1917.

War in World Society: Towards a new order of global constitutionalism?

AbstractIn world society, all wars are world wars and so is the present war in Ukraine even if the use of violence is broadly restricted to the Ukrainian area (a restriction imposed clearly imposed by global politics). World society emerged between 1750 and 1850 together with the first world wars and world revolutions that were fought on all continents and oceans (1). There is no society beyond world society any longer. The world society pushes (but by no means sufficiently) (a) law and politics to institutionalise a world constitution and (b) social actors to culturally symbolise global mindsets, world views and normativity (2). Yet, only a second wave of world revolutions and world wars between 1900 and 1950 caused the rise of autonomous world law that enabled a now interrupted but still lasting global process of fully inclusive democratisation (3). However, the rise of world law in 1945 was followed by its fall after 1989, and the present wars in Ukraine and beyond come close to a complete destruction of world law. There is only a small chance to end the use of violence in Ukraine that cannot and should not lead to sufficient victory of one of the warring parties but to a reconstruction and new foundation of world law and the constitutional order of the world. The alternative is not the national state but failed states and anomia (4).

Development of Website-Based E-LKPD to Train Students' Historical Thinking on the Material of the Great World Revolutions Class XI State High School 1 Koto Kampar Hulu

SMAN 1 Koto Kampar Hulu is one of the high schools located in the Koto Kampar Hulu sub-district, Kampar Regency. At SMAN 1 Koto Kampar Hulu there is a shortage of learning media, which makes the learning process boring, especially in history subjects. Teachers still use conventional methods and do not use media, so learning is less effective. The research was conducted with the aim of developing the enthusiasm of students at SMAN 1 Koto Kampar Hulu towards history subjects by developing website-based E-LKPD media and conducting E-LKPD feasibility tests for history learning at SMAN 1 Koto Kampar Hulu, and looking at students' responses regarding website-based E-LKPD media. The research method used is 4D. Based on research conducted by E-LKPD learning media (electronic student worksheets) it was declared suitable for use in the teaching and learning process after being analyzed by material experts, questions, media, and students. The results of the website-based E-LKPD validation on the material of world's great revolutions by material experts get an average result score of 4.7 with a very feasible category, question experts with an average score of 4.6 with a feasible category, media experts with a score an average of 4.2 with a very feasible category, and the results of student respondents in the small group test with an average score of 4.79 with a very feasible category. The results of student respondents in the large group test with an average score of 4.86 with a very decent category. In this study there are still research limitations, where the research produced is still at the beginner level, so the researchers hope that there will be research that can develop this E-LKPD learning media so that it can be applied to other schools.