Russia's Three Revolutions, 1917–1932

152 Part II The Era of Revolution and Wargovernment interfered more actively in the lives of the people than had the old tsaristgovernment. Collectivization, in particular, transformed patterns of work. The increaseduse of education and the media as instruments of propaganda and the use of terroralso made it increasingly difficult to ignore or oppose the desires of the authorities.In the immediate postwar years, the revolutionary nature of the government andits aggressive Marxist-Leninist ideas threatened international stability. By 1932, however,the government was more concerned with continuing the internal transformationof the Soviet Union than with causing Communist revolutions in other nations.Nevertheless, the transformations wrought by the three revolutions remainedsignificant for other countries. Lenin insisted that imperialism was an outgrowth ofcapitalism and that colonial peoples should rebel and throw off both colonial andcapitalist shackles. Soviet leaders also claimed that less advanced countries could copySoviet methods of rapid industrialization and modernization. Ironically, althoughMarxism and Marxist socialism began in western Europe, Marxist governments cameto power only in less developed regions, first in Russia and then, after World War II,in other countries such as China.To the colonial powers themselves, the U.S.S.R. was a menace partly becauseits leaders encouraged colonial peoples, as well as those living in capitalist countries,to rebel. Although Communist parties came into being in western Europe after 1917,they were generally weaker than Socialist parties, also indebted to Marx. The Socialistparties had gradually been moving away from Marxist radicalism, and the loss ofsome of their more radical members to the new Communist parties just furthered thistendency. Yet, by 1932, with the Great Depression discrediting capitalism in the eyesof many, the appeal of Communist parties and the anticapitalist Soviet Union was onthe rise. Thus, even before the beginning of the cold war in the late 1940s, the SovietUnion presented a major challenge to its future cold war enemies.SUGGESTED SOURCESConquest, Robert. The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine. 1986. Theappalling story of Stalin’s policies, which cost millions of Soviet lives.* (A 55-minutedocumentary on the same subject, called Harvest of Despair, is available on video.)Figes, Orlando. A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891–1924. 1996. A long but wellwrittenaccount.*Fitzpatrick, Sheila. The Russian Revolution, 1917–32. 2nd ed. 1994. A clear, brief, and objectiveaccount.*Foglesong, David S. America’s Secret War against Bolshevism: U.S. Intervention in the Russian CivilWar, 1917–1920. 1995. The author argues that anti-Bolshevik sentiments played a greaterrole in prompting U.S. intervention than most previous historians have stated.Goldman, Emma. My Disillusionment in Russia. 1970. Recounts the author’s experiences in Russiain 1920–1921 after she was deported from the United States.*Holquist, Peter. Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia’s Continuum of Crisis, 1914–1921. 2002.This work emphasizes the importance of World War I for understanding the 1917 revolutionsand subsequent civil war.Lincoln, W. Bruce. Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War. 1989. A comprehensiveoverview by a scholar who also writes excellent popular history.*