RUS - Revista de Literatura e Cultura Russa

17

Authors: Arlete Cavaliere

The formation of the first socialist state in Russia in 1917 generated an extraordinary atmosphere of restlessness and renewal in the social, political and cultural spheres, whose effects were felt throughout the 20th century. In 2017 marks the centenary of this stormy historical moment that gave rise to one of the most surprising and multifaceted cultural and artistic movements in the history of modern art, called the Russian avant-garde. Many Russian artists presented themselves as genuine representatives of the new proletarian era, combining extremism in form with marked political propaganda, producing a bold symbiosis of varied aesthetic and artistic tendencies that thrived during the revolutionary years. This new conception of art and culture and the profusion of aesthetic experiences of that period is a subject of great interest.

18

Authors: Lars T. Lih

I propose a new category to describe the Russian revolution of 1917: the “anti-bourgeois democratic revolution.” “Soviet power” was actually proclaimed in during the February revolution in 1917. The basic force behind this new power or sovereign authority—the workers, soldiers and peasant who made up the constituency of the soviets—was hostile to the burzhui both in its narrow meaning of industrial owners and in its wider meaning of the tsenzoviki (an abusive term for the educated elite that derived from property requirements or “census” for voters). The central aim of this revolution was to carry out the vast program of reforms earlier denoted by the term “democratic revolution”—first and foremost, land to the peasants and liquidation of the pomeshchiki (gentry landowners) as a class. Commitment in a positive way to socialist institutions was much less powerful than a negative attitude toward the bourgeois as individuals as well as toward bourgeois values.

28

Authors: Kevin Murphy

This article investigates strike activity in the early Soviet Union period. Using monthly OGPU (political police) reports to Stalin, the essay provides statistical evidence on the frequency, participants, and resolution of workers' strike activity. It argues that rather than repression, workers and state reached a 'compromise' during the New Economic Policy era that was later undermined by Stalin's draconian measures against the working class during rapid industrialization. It shows workers unrest during this later period and explains why some workers fought back while the overwhelming majority did not.