A groundbreaking study that shatters longstanding assumptions about the nature and origins of the Russian Revolution
Through extensive archival research in eight different languages, Revolutionary Social Democracy introduces readers to the politics and practices of socialists in Tsarist Russia's imperial borderlands. These parties 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. Eric Blanc's incisive study of these parties shows that the Russian Revolution was far less Russian than is commonly assumed. And the implications of this discovery challenge the long-held assumptions of historians, sociologists, and activists about the dynamics of revolutionary change under both autocratic and democratic conditions.
What People Are Saying
"Eric Blanc's remarkable new book should revolutionize the way scholars and activists think about the Russian Revolution. By looking not just at Petrograd or Russia but at the entire Russian Empire—including Finland, Ukraine, and Poland—Blanc's pathbreaking comparative analysis examines how and why revolutionary processes diverge under parliamentary and autocratic regimes. Drawing on far-flung sources in eight languages, Blanc breaks with the Russocentrism of earlier accounts and effectively deprovincializes the revolution. Among other things, he demonstrates that Lenin and the Bolsheviks were not nearly as exceptional as is often thought. This book is an extraordinary achievement." Jeff Goodwin, New York University
"Anyone interested in the Russian Revolution will need to read this outstanding contribution. Puncturing myths, cliches, and unsupported interpretations, Eric Blanc explores a forgotten historical reality—revolutionary social democracy—by vividly documenting the actual strategic outlooks and local practices of Second International Marxists across the Russian Empire, as well as Germany, the homeland of this political current. An impressively wide reading in sources from many languages allows Blanc to demonstrate the importance of borderland socialists in the revolutionary drama, bringing to life activists at all levels of party organizations throughout imperial Russia and challenging us to rethink long-held assumptions about major figures such as Lenin and Kautsky." Lars T. Lih, author Lenin Rediscovered
"Through impressive research and erudite argumentation, this monumental study of the broad array of 'revolutionary social democratic' parties that operated in the non-Russian borderlands of the Tsarist Empire in the decades leading to 1917 definitively shows why there was no 'one-size-fits-all' revolutionary practice and why there is no reason to overgeneralize the international relevance of the form taken by the October Revolution. A tour de force which provides strong historical foundations for all those today working to develop an anticapitalist, democratic socialist political strategy for renewed working-class formation and state transformation."—Leo Panitch, former editor Socialist Register
About the Author
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).