Teaching & Learning Guide for: Men, Women and an Integrated History of the Russian Revolutionary Movement

This guide accompanies the following article: Katy Turton, ‘Men, Women and an Integrated History of the Russian Revolutionary Movement’, History Compass 9/2 (2011): 119–133, DOI: 10.1111/j.1478‐0542.2011.00755.x. Author’s Introduction Scholarship on women’s experiences of and contributions to the Russian revolutionary movement has increased exponentially since the publication of a number of biographies of Aleksandra Kollontai in the 1970s and 1980s and a comprehensive picture has emerged of women’s involvement in all the major revolutionary parties, as leading figures as well as rank and file activists. Despite this wealth of historical discovery, remarkably little has found its way into so‐called ‘general’ histories of the revolution. The integrated history, which is the ultimate aim of women’s history, has yet to be produced for the Russian revolutionary movement. This module is designed to help students interrogate this state of affairs and to build their own integrated understanding of the ways in which men and women cooperated and interacted on a daily basis in their campaigns to reform Russia. Author Recommends The following texts are useful starting points from which to explore the absence of women from the grand narrative of the Russian revolutionary movement and to gain an understanding of the roles women did play. They are listed in chronological order to give a sense of the development of the history of women in the Russian revolution. Cathy Porter, Fathers and Daughters: Russian Women in Revolution (London: Virago, 1976). This is an early English‐language history of revolutionary women in Russia. Porter explores women’s position in Russia until the 1850s, takes in the development of feminist ideas, and then focuses on the activities of the radical women of the 1870s, from the peaceful populists to the terrorists. Like Barbara Engel’s 1983 book Mothers and Daughters: Women of the Intelligentsia in Nineteenth Century Russia (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), Porter’s work at times discusses these women as a special case, separate and perhaps even superior to their male comrades. Nonetheless, this book represents an important contribution in the history of Russian radical women. R. Stites, The Women’s Liberation Movement in Russia: Feminism, Nihilism and Bolshevism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1978). This is a critical work by another of the pioneers of Russian women’s history. It introduces readers to the full spectrum of activities women engaged in to improve their situation in Russia from the 1850s onwards. It is a useful monograph, for not only does it interrogate the historiography surrounding the women’s liberation movement, but it also sets the various strands of revolutionary campaign in a wider social and political context. Stites also takes the narrative beyond the revolution and discusses the achievements and disappointments of the Soviet regime’s attempts to emancipate women. M. Donald, ‘ “What did you do in the Revolution, Mother?” Image, Myth and Prejudice in Western Writing on the Russian Revolution’, Gender and History , 7/1 (1995): 85–99. A useful article to begin this module with, it offers an analysis of the way in which women are treated with a gender bias in both the primary literature of the revolution and in the historiography relating to it. Using a case study of the treatment of Trotsky and Alexandra Kollontai, arguably two of the most prominent revolutionary figures of 1917, Donald highlights how commentators of the time and historians used gendered language to praise Trotsky and dismiss Kollontai. She also exposes the way in which Kollontai was written out of the historiography between the 1920s and 1980s. Donald’s methodological approach can be used to explore the treatment of other revolutionary women or, indeed, revolutionary women as a group. B. E. Clements, Bolshevik Women (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). This monograph is the definitive work on the roles women played in the Bolshevik Party both in the underground period and during the Soviet regime. Based on the statistical analysis of a database of Bolshevik women, which is compared with a similar database on Bolshevik men, the book offers a clear indication of how women’s participation in the Party matched, and diverged from, men’s. This quantitative analysis is interwoven with an engaging narrative which traces individual examples and, in particular, six case studies of key Bolshevik women: Evgeniia Bosh, Konkordiia Samoilova, Rozaliia Zemliachka, Alexandra Artiukhina, Klavdiia Nikolaeva and Elena Stasova. A. Hillyar, and J. McDermid, Revolutionary Women in Russia, 1870–1917 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000). This is an excellent overview of the roles of revolutionary women in Russia. A collective biography of female revolutionaries of all political persuasions, this book offers a general picture of the various activities in which these women engaged but also numerous case studies of individuals who made a particular contribution to the movement. While less driven by statistics then Clements’ work, the tables of personal data on groups of revolutionary women are a useful addition to the text, as is the introduction, which includes a close analysis of the historiography of the Russian revolution as well as a discussion of the sources available to illuminate women’s role in the movement. Online Materials An integrated history of the Russian Revolution is yet to be written and Russian and Soviet women’s history has yet to be given an equal place on the web in terms of resources. I would recommend two websites, though neither offer in depth coverage of women’s involvement in the Russian revolutionary movement. Seventeen Moments in Soviet History http://www.soviethistory.org This website contains essays, documents, photographs, art, posters, film clips and music related to the Soviet Union, organised around 17 key years of the regime. The first year is 1917 and this section includes details of women’s involvement in the February revolution, as well as information about the Bolshevik government’s agenda for the transformation of women’s lives in the new regime. Marxists Internet Archive http://www.marxists.org This website contains the biographies and writings of numerous key Marxists, including Russian women. For some individuals, photographs, recordings of speeches and film clips are also available. Again this website does not offer an integrated history of the Russian revolution, indeed the Russian revolution is not the focus of the website at all, but it does offer insights into the lives of some prominent women in the movement. Sample Syllabus Modules on the history of the Russian revolution tend to deal with the revolutionary movement as one element in a range of factors that brought about the seismic events of February and October 1917, thus the six classes suggested here might necessarily be conflated into one or perhaps two sessions. If, however, the module was centred on the revolutionary movement alone, each week might be expanded to cover two sessions. I have provided suggested primary readings, but students should also read relevant secondary literature as well. Week 1: The History of the Russian Revolutionary Movement This session involves engaging with the established historiography of the Russian revolutionary movement. The discussion should centre on students’ own understanding of the key figures, parties and events of

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