Overview

This comparative historical sociology of the Bolshevik revolutionaries offers a reinterpretation of political radicalization in the last years of the Russian Empire. Finding that two-thirds of the Bolshevik leadership were ethnic minorities - Ukrainians, Latvians, Georgians, Jews and others - this book examines the shared experiences of assimilation and socioethnic exclusion that underlay their class universalism. It suggests that imperial policies toward the Empire's diversity radicalized class and ethnicity as intersectional experiences, creating an assimilated but excluded elite: lower-class Russians and middle-class minorities universalized particular exclusions as they disproportionately sustained the economic and political burdens of maintaining the multiethnic Russian Empire. The Bolsheviks' social identities and routes to revolutionary radicalism show especially how a class-universalist politics was appealing to those seeking secularism in response to religious tensions, a universalist politics where ethnic and geopolitical insecurities were exclusionary, and a tolerant 'imperial' imaginary where Russification and illiberal repressions were most keenly felt.

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9781139013628

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This brilliant study makes us think in new ways about the Bolshevik Revolution and its intersection with ethnicity. Through a detailed examination of the life courses, radicalizing experiences, and paths to politics of the Bolshevik elite, Liliana Riga deftly illuminates why significant numbers of non-Russians were attracted to an extreme left-wing movement that framed its actions in class-based, non-national terms. In doing so, she not only demonstrates the complexity of motivations underlying revolutionary activity, but problematizes the entire category of 'Russian' Revolution. - Mark R. Beissinger, Princeton University Although Bolshevism was an ideology of revolutionary class universalism, it was not just a response to class conflict. Two-thirds of Bolshevik leaders were members of ethnic minority groups who found revolutionary class universalism especially appealing because imperial state policy rendered them culturally assimilated yet socially and politically excluded. Bolshevism had a strong ethnic inflection that few scholars have examined. To bring it to light, Riga painstakingly traces the impact of state policy toward ethnic minorities on the ideological development of ninety-three Bolshevik leaders between 1917 and 1923. She has produced a work that is highly original in its use of data and in its interpretive framework. It will provoke debate among historians, political scientists, and sociologists interested in the Russian Revolution and, more generally, in the radicalization of intellectuals. - Robert Brym, University of Toronto One rarely comes across a book that changes the grammar of social science: The Bolsheviks and the Russian Empire has that character. Riga shows that Bolshevik identity rests on the character of the empire in which it was born, arguing that class universalism had ethnic roots. The scholarship is superb, with conviction coming from detailed analyses of varied regions within the Tsarist empire. This book is a masterpiece. - John A. Hall, McGill University Recommended. -Choice

This brilliant study makes us think in new ways about the Bolshevik Revolution and its intersection with ethnicity. Through a detailed examination of the life courses, radicalizing experiences, and paths to politics of the Bolshevik elite, Liliana Riga deftly illuminates why significant numbers of non-Russians were attracted to an extreme left-wing movement that framed its actions in class-based, non-national terms. In doing so, she not only demonstrates the complexity of motivations underlying revolutionary activity, but problematizes the entire category of 'Russian' Revolution. - Mark R. Beissinger, Princeton University Although Bolshevism was an ideology of revolutionary class universalism, it was not just a response to class conflict. Two-thirds of Bolshevik leaders were members of ethnic minority groups who found revolutionary class universalism especially appealing because imperial state policy rendered them culturally assimilated yet socially and politically excluded. Bolshevism had a strong ethnic inflection that few scholars have examined. To bring it to light, Riga painstakingly traces the impact of state policy toward ethnic minorities on the ideological development of ninety-three Bolshevik leaders between 1917 and 1923. She has produced a work that is highly original in its use of data and in its interpretive framework. It will provoke debate among historians, political scientists, and sociologists interested in the Russian Revolution and, more generally, in the radicalization of intellectuals. - Robert Brym, University of Toronto One rarely comes across a book that changes the grammar of social science: The Bolsheviks and the Russian Empire has that character. Riga shows that Bolshevik identity rests on the character of the empire in which it was born, arguing that class universalism had ethnic roots. The scholarship is superb, with conviction coming from detailed analyses of varied regions within the Tsarist empire. This book is a masterpiece. - John A. Hall, McGill University

Author Information

Liliana Riga is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Edinburgh. She holds a BA in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, an MA in political science from Columbia University and a PhD in sociology from McGill University. She is an Honorary Fellow at the University of Glasgow, Scotland, and has taught sociology at McGill University, the University of Strathclyde and the University of Edinburgh. Her work has appeared in, among other publications, the American Journal of Sociology, Sociology, Nations and Nationalism and Comparative Studies in Society and History. An article drawn from material from this book appeared in the American Journal of Sociology and was awarded Honorable Mention in 2009 for Best Article in Comparative Historical Sociology by the American Sociological Association.

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