The attitude of American/ British observers to the Russian Revolution 1917

The theme of this research is “The attitude of American/ British observers to the Russian Revolution 1917”. We try to reveal this question considering the Background of the Revolution 1917, social relations in Russia 1917, the level of life in Russia 1917 through the eyes of American/ British observers and the attitude of American/ British observers to the Russian revolutionaries and intelligency. It is not a simple task because of subjective views of American/ British historians in this question who are apart from the socio-cultural context of Russia.

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English-speaking authors among the factors which appeared in works of the historians and other researchers of historiography which determined the attitude of the intelligency to the October revolution, pointed out belonging of the intellegence to any party, trade, age, education, material standard of living, social origin [6].

“In the attitude of the intelligency to the revolution there is paramount dependence from its party belonging. That part of the intelligency which on the eve of October 1917 precisely has chosen " its own” party after the “work-country revolution”, as a rule, followed behind the given political party. The researches show strong aspiration of the members of October and Kadet parties to anti-bolshevist camp, their sharply negative attitude to the Soviet authority. And Russian intellegents who were in Esser and Menshevik parties had also anti-bolshevist tendency which was though weaker” [7].

Russian historians also considered the parameter of the influence of a party-political belonging of the intelligency on its attitude to the October. The following appropriateness is revealed: high well-to-do intellegents had very strongly negative perception «of the proletarian revolution». Middle well-to-do intellegents had the negative attitude to the revolution of Bolsheviks only of second order. And low well-to-do intellegents first of all were characterised by aspiration to the category of whose who hesitated [8].

Заключение:

E. Carr noted in his work: “Lenin spoke about the idea of Karl Marx about "permanent" or "continuous" revolution: " To try to put an artificial Chinese wall between that and the another, to separate them from each other, except of preparation of proletariat and a degree of unit it with the rural pour, is the greatest distortion of Marxism … "

This analysis was not at all scholastic. In it the difficulties of Social revolution were reflected, which, looking back on the scheme of Marxism, tried to fill in the empty place of bourgeois democracy and of bourgeois capitalism” [1].

In this research we tried to realise the way of revealing by American/ British observers the myth of proletarian October which is the myth of the triumph of the alienated and dehumanised masses over all their sufferings and deprivations. In this historically logical process, suffering is the criteria of authentic humanity. This was as true for Marx as it was for Dostoevsky. And since intense crisis makes suffering most acute, the war and the social collapse of 1917 conferred on the humiliated and offended of Russian life quintessential human status. For the suffering of 1917 was no myth, but a most cruel, physical and mental fact.