‘The Great Russian Revolution of 1917–21’ and Leninism

Bernard D’Mello writes:

We owe the part of the title in single-inverted commas to Alexander Rabinowitch, one of the world’s leading historians on the Bolsheviks, the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the Civil War. His piece appears in this “Russian Revolution Centenary Special.” Given the works of Rabinowitch, Rex A Wade (who also has a piece in our special issue), and others, the various false portrayals of the revolution appearing in the media need not be refuted. Predictably, even as a massive archive on the period 1917–21 has been accessible since 1991, the dominant interpretation of the revolution still persists inportraying it as a coup or a putsch followed by Red terror. A coup or a putsch is usually understood as an armed conflict for office (executive state power) between factions of the ruling class itself. And the violence of a revolution depends, among other things, on the level of violence unleashed by the counter-revolution. In the Russian case, this was strengthened by the intervention of the great powers like Britain, France, the United States, and others. A truthful history of a revolution cannot downplay the history of its inevitable accompaniment, counter-revolution, whose principal base in modern times has been in imperialism.