#russian revolution

[hyperions-fate]

The totalitarian regimes of today appear solid. They have beautiful decorative facades, splendid uniforms, infinite resources, countless admirers. The Russian autocracy had had all of this for centuries on the first days of March 1917. A week later it all belonged to a past dead and gone forever. Because, in fact, it had the masses against it. A good subject for contemplation, indeed.

Victor Serge, 'Twenty Years Ago' (1937)

[elizabethan-memes]

Best history books about Rasputin, GO.

[averagecamusfan]

“The feminine section of the proletarian army is of particularly great significance. The success of a revolution depends on the extent to which women take part of it„

-Vladimir Lenin

[theworldofwars]

Officer of the Russian Armoured Car Division talking to a wounded Russian soldier while his servicemen trying to recover their Lanchester armoured car bogged down in mud in Galicia (the Austro-Hungarian partition of Poland) while retreating during the Kerensky Offensive, summer 1917.

[deadpresidents]

Vladimir Putin has been the leading political figure in Russia for most of my adult life -- basically this entire century -- and I've never seen or heard him more shook than he was in the short address he just delivered.

This shit is real.

[probablyasocialecologist]

If capitalism is a world system, it follows that the working class is an international class. Workers are divided by nation, but nationalism does not reflect their true interest. To take on the bosses, who operate globally, workers have to unite across national boundaries. To achieve emancipation, they have to destroy the bourgeois nation-state and create an alternative workers state based on direct democracy. To build a socialist economy, they have to take collective control of the workplaces, the transport system, and the global trade networks. To defend their gains and complete their revolution, they have to spread the struggle across the world.

There is no such thing, therefore, as socialism in one country. Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, and many other leading Marxist thinkers have all stressed that proletarian revolution has to be worldwide or it will fail. A socialist siege economy can only ever be temporary. Eventually, either poverty and insecurity will force the revolution to turn in on itself and create new forms of exploitation in order to survive. Or the workers state will succumb to hostile pressure some combination of economic boycott, internal civil war, and foreign military aggression.

Neil Faulkner, A People's History of the Russian Revolution

[deceptigoons-attack]

Valentin Serov | Lenin proclaims the victory of the revolution at the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets.

[oceancentury]

Ewan McGregor in A Gentleman in Moscow (2024)

[comradeupdog]

It’s Bolshevik Revolution Eve everyone! Remember to leave out your means of production and Communist Manifesto so Lenin can have a treat after he leaves you a Vanguard Party under your Soviet Tree.

[lachrimaeantiquae]

You must understand, the leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of human remorse. It cannot be overstated. Bolshevism committed the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant and uncaring about this enormous crime is proof that the global media is in the hands of the perpetrators. -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

[todaysdocument]

The New Peril

Record Group 46: Records of the U.S. SenateSeries: Berryman Political Cartoon Collection

Having just defeated German militarism in World War I, civilization was threatened by another peril, Bolshevism. The desolation and destruction throughout Europe caused by the war provided socialists and communists with audiences open to their cries for a better society. In-fighting between Menshevik and Bolshevik forces continued to mean a hard existence for the Russian people. Cartoonist Clifford Berryman shows a vigilant toga-garbed figure of civilization with shield and sword, ready to do battle with Bolshevism, represented by a wild-eyed, wild-haired terrorist while a defeated German military officer handcuffed to a ball and chain looks on from the other side of the room.

This political cartoon shows a female figure in classical dress, holding a sword and a round shield, labeled “Civilization.”  To the right is the defeated German officer in full military uniform.  His hands are chained to a large iron ball.  “Civilization” is turning to face the figure on the left, a wild-eyed Russian peasant labeled “Bolshevism.”  He is bearded, and his hair stands on end.  His stance is aggressive, but he is unarmed.  

[captain-price-unofficially]

The Bolshevik militia rises against the Provisional Government, St Petersburg. 1917

[krasivaa]

A letter signed by Sir George Buchanan, British ambassador to Russia during the Russian revolution, regarding offer of Asylum to Romanov family in England.

[dailytrotsky]

[deadpresidents]