Revolutionary Social Democracy: Working-Class Politics Across the Russian Empire (1882-1917)

Eric Blanc

Author: Eric Blanc
This groundbreaking study rediscovers the socialists of Tsarist Russia’s imperial borderlands, upending conventional interpretations of working-class politics, the Russian Revolution, and Second International socialism. Based on archival research in eight languages, Revolutionary Social Democracy is the first comparative account of the numerous socialist parties that fought for democracy and workers’ power across the entire span of the Russian Empire, from the factories of Warsaw, to the oil fields of Baku, to the autonomous parliament of Finland. By demonstrating that the Russian Revolution was far less Russian than commonly assumed, Eric Blanc challenges long-held assumptions of historians, sociologists, and activists about the dynamics of revolutionary change under autocratic and democratic conditions.

Biographical Note

Eric Blanc is a doctoral student in sociology at New York University and the author of Red State Revolt: The Teachers’ Strike Wave and Working-Class Politics (Verso 2019).

Readership

All interested in labour movements, comparative political sociology, the Russian Revolution, political parties, democratic socialism, imperial borderlands, working-class history, and Marxism.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
List of Tables

Introduction
1 Bringing in the Borderlands
2 Strategic Continuities and Ruptures
3 Method, Structure, Sources

The Social Context
1 The Workers’ Movement
2 The Unique Impact of Orthodox Marxism
3 Socialist Political Cultures

Revolutionary Social Democracy: An Overview
1 The ABC s of Revolutionary Social Democracy
2 Strategy and Tactics in Germany and Russia

Intellectuals and Workers
1 Intellectuals and the Tensions of Class Formation
2 Intellectuals and Workers (1905–17)

Organisation, Mass Action, and Electoral Work
1 Socialist Organisation in Finland
2 Illegal Organising in Tsarist Russia
3 The Bolshevik-Menshevik Split
4 The First Mass Strike Debates (1903–04)
5 Mass Action and Organisation in 1905
6 Party Organisation and Mass Action (1906–14)
7 War and Revolution
8 Mass Organisation and Action in Finland: 1917–18

Working-Class Hegemony
1 Analysing Liberalism
2 Tactics Towards Liberals
3 The Bund versus Zionism (1897–1904)
4 The PPS and the National Democrats Before 1905
5 Class Independence in Finland
6 Early Russian Marxism and Liberals
7 Working-Class Hegemony (1905–16)
8 Proletarian Hegemony and Liberals (1906–16)

Working-Class Unity
1 United Front Practices Before 1905
2 Workers’ Unity and the 1905 Revolution
3 Implementing the United Front (1906–18)
4 Disunity in Europe and Poland

The Party Question
1 The German SPD Model
2 Finland’s Social Democracy
3 The Normalcy of Splits in Underground Russia
4 The Split of Polish Socialism
5 The Bolshevik-Menshevik Split

Democracy, the State, and the Finnish Revolution
1 Critique of Bourgeois Democracy
2 The Socialist Revolution
3 The State and Revolution in Finland (1917–18)

The Autocratic State and Revolution: 1905
1 State Power and Marxist Strategy in 1905
2 The Practice of Revolutionary Government in 1905
3 Socialist Transformation in Russia
4 International Revolution

10 The State and Revolution in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland: 1917–19
1 Moderate Socialists and Dual Power in 1917
2 Moderates Join the Government
3 Russian Moderate Socialists in the October Revolution
4 Moderate Socialists in Ukraine: 1917–18
5 Moderate Socialism in Poland: 1918–19
6 Bolsheviks and State Power: February–March 1917
7 Breaking with the Bourgeoisie: April–October

Epilogue: An International Revolution Defeated
1 Civil War and Authoritarianism
2 International Revolution
3 Impasse in the Imperial Periphery

Bibliography
Index