#Bolshevik Revolution

[cid5]

'The Winter Palace is taken!' — Soviet painting from 1954 showing two Bolsheviks smoking in the Winter Palace following its capture during the October Revolution.

[comradeupdog]

It’s Bolshevik Revolution Eve everyone! Remember to leave out your means of production and Communist Manifesto so Lenin can have a treat after he leaves you a Vanguard Party under your Soviet Tree.

[queen-mabs-revenge]

socialist party campaigning outfit for the day that's in it 🚩☭ ❤️

[xdextrarx34x]

[dailytrotsky]

The October revolution laid the foundation of a new culture, taking everybody into consideration, and for that very reason immediately acquiring international significance. Even supposing for a moment that owing to unfavourable circumstances and hostile blows the Soviet regime should be temporarily overthrown, the inexpungable imprint of the October revolution would nevertheless remain upon the whole future development of mankind.

Leon Trotsky , The History of the Russian Revolution

[asshole-rebel-psycho]

Dr. Zhivago was the coldest pimp ever. Cradling two bitches during the Bolshavick Revolution and surviving multiple fucking blizzards just to get pussy.

[automatedstorytelling]

[quibbs126]

You know, I’d love to take more classes that teach me about the historical context of certain books

I was watching some videos about Animal Farm today (mostly about the animated movie), and it reminded me of a book we went over in my World Literature class, Yevgeny Zamyatin’s “We”, since it was another book that criticized communist Russia during the days of Stalin (okay I think they had different points; Animal Farm seems to have been more a warning of what communism will do, while We was meant to actually criticize the Soviet Union, considering Zamyatin lived there). I remember going over the context in class, and it was legitimately so interesting to learn about. Admittedly, I don’t remember much about the actual book, in part because I never really read much of it (though I plan to since I still have it), but the history of the author and book itself was so interesting, and I would have never known about it had I not taken the class and my professor not talk about it, and it along with the other books we learned the context for really just makes me want to learn more historical contexts for books

By the way, if you want the history I’m talking about, I’ll give a summary based on what I was told in class, though I don’t remember all the details (I’ll pull out my notes from it). Basically Zamyatin was an avid supporter of the Bolsheviks and their revolution against the Tsar (Zamyatin was Russian if I didn’t make that clear), and being active in the movement, such as being an editor for a newspaper and writing editorials supporting the revolution. However, once the party started cracking down on human rights and dissenting voices, he became disillusioned with the party, and he starts writing critiques on it, as well as writing We. He finished it in 1920, and ended up sending to Europe to be published, so that the rest of the world could know what was going on in Russia (We doesn’t directly take place in the Soviet Union, it’s a sci fi dystopian novel set in the far future, but the society (the One State) takes obvious inspiration from it). Meanwhile he read manuscripts of his work in St Petersburg, and it became the first manuscript banned in the Soviet Union, with Zamyatin being marginalized for his work and losing his job. Zamyatin eventually becomes so disillusioned with the Soviets that he writes a letter to Stalin requesting he and his family be allowed to leave. The only reason Stalin allows this is because Zamyatin was good friends with another writer named Gorky (unfortunately I don’t remember what the significance of Gorky to Stalin was, I didn’t write that down in my notes). Zamyatin had hoped that the Soviet Union would collapse in a few years so that they could return, but unfortunately he didn’t get to live to see it, dying in 1937

Sorry, I went off on a bit of a history lesson there, but I think this stuff is pretty fascinating, and I would love to hear more of the history behind books (if I haven’t made that clear already)

[zordonmlw7]

Gosh I think a musical about Sanzo Tsuda and the Otsu Incident would be really cool.

Nicholas II would open with a happy song about vacationing with his cousin and touring around Japan while also having undertones about how this a huge powertrip for him, getting to play in the culture of a country who is scared of him because of the military power he will one day inherit.

Cut then to Tsuda who would have a song about his slipping sanity with the chorus line providing haunting background vocals. The song would focus on his medals for heroism won in the Seinan War and how he would do anything to protect them. He then gets assigned to guard the streets that Nicholas II will go down and participates in a group number with Japanese reporters accusing the prince of coming to spy and speculating that the visit was a precursor to an invasion.

Cut to the actual incident which could be a reprise of all 3 of the previous songs with Tsuda and Nicholas singing back and forth and the haunting vocals emphasizing the same thing as Nicholas: that the Russians are subjugating the Japanese people. Tsuda then snaps and the attack happens in slow motion as a carefully choreographed dance number. Tsuda is taken into custody and Nicholas is taken to his hotel to be treated because he refuses a Japanese doctor.

Cut to then a huge group number to represent the 10,000 condolence telegrams sent by citizens and institutions that all melt away into a solo number by Yuko Hatakeyama in which she sings about the value of her life and how she hopes it can atone for Tsuda's act, ending with her suicide in front of the Kyoto Prefectural Office.

Next is another group number in which various lawyers argue about how to handle Tsuda's case. Some try to invoke Article 116 of the Criminal Code to execute Tsuda despite it not applying to a foreign crown prince while others argue for the actual charge of attempted murder which would carry life imprisonment at worst. The song is taken over by Kojima Iken, chief justice of the Supreme Court who fights back against his own cabinet and agrees on charging him with the actual crime, but does relent on trying Tsuda immediately instead of following procedure and allowing the case to make its way up the lower courts.

Tsuda gets another song in his prison cell where he laments his actions but at the same time questions whether he laments assaulting a complete stranger or merely laments doing it unsuccessfully. He wonders if he will keep his medals for heroism. Reporters arrive at his cell questioning the warden about his sanity, but are driven off and warned about the consequences of printing anything doubting that Tsuda was anything less than sane.

I feel like the court room scene to sentence Tsuda would have it's set set up and background music to make it seem like a musical number but instead its just a few quick lines sentencing him to prison for life.

Cut then to Nicholas being visited by Emperor Meiji where they sing a happy duet with the Emperor apologizing and Nicholas relishing it and promising to forgive him. Only once the Emperor leaves, he reveals that he will never forgive Japan.

Tsuda gets one last short song about how in less than a year, he's dying in prison and is still haunted by voices and wonders if he is still the hero he tried so hard to be. In his dying breath, he hopes that Japan will not be crushed by Russia.

This is followed with a reporter summarizing Nicholas becoming Tsar and advancing further east, forcing Japan to retaliate with the Russo-Japanese war, with Japan coming out victorious.

The final number would be Nicholas II during the Bolshevik revolution just before being executed. He would sing about how he did what he did for his family. How he thought he was invincible and thought he would leave his children an even stronger Russia than he had received. But all he had done was cost the lives of millions and had his family lose both Russia and their lives. And the stage would go black with his execution, ending the musical.

[immaculatasknight]

Perfidious Albion... always

[makingcontact]

Uncovering the Refugee Experience & Healing Through Storytelling (Encore)

Wilson Dairy Restaurant (Left), Helen Zia as a baby with mom (Right). Credit: Photo copyright Helen Zia used with permission. This week’s Making Contact episode is about two strong women who survived historic trauma, and the stories they later told their families.  We start with the story of Katie Wilson. Born to an Orthodox Jewish family in Kiev, Ukraine, she grew up safe and comfortable – until…

[oceanicmarxist]

"calling off revolution"?

maybe we came from different universes, but i don't recall there being a point in early 1917 where the revolution that hadn't even happened yet was "called off".

by the women's march on international women's day on march 8th (feb 23rd O.S), there had already been at least five days of protests and strikes (first from the workers at the putilov factory).

will agree that people understate the role of the women's march, but to say that everybody had given up until those women marched is just inaccurate, the women joined up with other protestors to form a larger bloc which would eventually force the tsar to abdicate.

in case you forgot, Stalin purged, browbeat, murdered, and exiled most of those "bolshiveks" when

you can make a statement on IWWD without turning it into a sterile, sectarian screed.

Happy birthday to the bolshiveks, menshiveks, SR's, social democrats and liberals being fucking cowards and calling off revolution, only to be shamed into action by the women of St. Petersburg who came out in force in the streets on March 8th, International Women's day.

They went from factory to factory, throwing rocks and heckling the passivity of the union men that had rolled over in the face of the Tsar, and the next day they too came out into the streets in a show of solidarity with their sisters and siblings.

International Women's day marks the start of the 1917 revolution. Within days, the liberal Duke Lavrov called off the soldiers, and a short time later the Tsar himself abdicated the Russian throne.

the bolshiveks (especially under Stalin) would slowly begin to push the importance of this day under the rug, as they betrayed the decades of work that Russian feminists had been doing both within and outside of their ranks. Upon it's founding (under great pressure from radical feminists), the USSR was the first country in Europe to legalize abortion, only to revoke that right within a matter of years under the command of Stalin.

People have a tendency to forget the Febuary revolution, saying that it matters little since the bolshiveks end up winning in the end - but it behooves us, regardless of our political tendencies to remember the bravery of the women of St. Petersburg, slowly left out of our historical accounts in favor of those that ironically never could have won without them.

So, to working women everywhere: remember the power in your hands. You have the power to topple empires.

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

If it happened once, it can happen again.

Happy International Women's day.

[comradeupdog]

The Terror is a needed part of every revolution, not because revolutionaries like violence but because the old order was based on violence and the defenders of that order will use violence to challenge the work of building the new order. A revolutionary state will have to use violence because it will be a state, a revolution that does not attempt to establish a state will die in infancy because everyone around that revolution would have a state which is the most efficient way to organize “armed bodies of men” as Engels says.

There is not one (1) historical example of a genuine revolution that did not require mass violence or threat of mass violence to establish itself. I would love a revolution that is all about good feelings and requires no violence, which goes straight into a classless, stateless society, but that is not what history teaches us about revolutions. Revolutions are about destroying the previous state of one class and establishing a state of another class.

[russianreader]

Communist Dissidents in Early Soviet Russia

Communist Dissidents in Early Soviet Russia. Five documents translated and introduced by Simon Pirani This book gives voice to Russian communists who participated in the 1917 revolution, but found themselves at odds with the Communist Party as it consolidated its rule in the early 1920s. One Red army veteran demands action against corrupt officials; another mourns the dashed hopes of 1917 and…

[lilithism1848]