Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917

222 Pages·1999·15.225 MB·

by  Orlando Figes, Boris Kolonitskii

Interpreting the Russian Revolution

Interpreting the Russian Revolution
The Language and Symbols of 1917
Orlando Figes and Boris Kolonitskii
Yale University Press
New Haven and London
Copyright €> 1999 by Yale University
All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any
form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright
Law and except by reviewers for the public press) without written permission from
the publishers.
Set in Goudy by Print Line, New Delhi
Printed in Great Britain by Redwood Books, Wiltshire
ISBN 0-300-08106-5
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 99-63582
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Illustrations vi
Acknowledgements ««
List of Abbreviations
Introduction 1
1 The Desacralization of the Monarchy:
Rumours and the Downfall of the Romanovs 9
2 The Symbolic Revolution 30
3 The Cult of the Leader 7i
4 Languages of Citizenship, Languages of
Class: Workers and the Social Order m
5 The Language of the Revolution in theV illage 127
6 Images of the Enemy 153
Conclusion 187
Index 191
Illustrations
1 Pornographic postcard of Rasputin and the on 23 March 1917. (Russian State Archive of Him
Empress, typical of the kind widely circulated and Photographic Documents, Krasnogorsk)
during 1917. (Houghton Library) 14The funeral of the seven Cossacks killed in
2 ‘Demonstration on Znamenskaia Square*. Petrograd during the July Days. (Sute Archive
A postcard of the February Days in Petrograd. of Film and Photographic Documents,
(State Archive of Film and Photographic St Petersburg)
Documents, St Petersburg) 15Kerensky as the people’s Minister of Justice
3 Crowds outside the Tauride Palace during the with senior officers during the spring. (State
February Days. (State Archive of Film and Archive of Film and Photographic Documents,
Photographic Documents, St Petersburg) St Petersburg)
4 The removal of the Romanov insignia from a 16Kerensky as War Minister in a military-style
pharmacy. (Museum of the Revolution, tunic with ministerial hat, cane and trousers.
Moscow) (State Archive of Film and Photographic
5 A crowd on the Nevsy Prospekt in Petrograd Documents, St Petersburg)
stand around a bonfire with tom-down Tsarist 17Kerensky as War Minister in full military dress
emblems during the February Days. (State on an inspection of the northern Front. (Sute
Archive of Film and Photographic Documents, Archive of Film and Photographic Documents,
St Petersburg) St Petersburg)
6 A group of Moscow workers playing with the 18The veteran Marxist G.V. Plekhanov and dele­
stone head of Alexander II in front of a movie gates to the first All-Russian Soviet Congress
camera. (Russian State Archives of Film and group around a portrait of the people’s hero
Photographic Documents, Krasnogorsk) Kerensky. (State Archive of Film and
7 Police archives in Petrograd destroyed by fire in Photographic Documents, St Petersburg)
the February Days. (State Archive of Film and 19General Kornilov is greeted as a hero by the
Photographic Documents, St Petersburg) right-wing members of the Officers’ Union on
8 Workers placing red cloth covers over Tsarist his arrival in Moscow for the State Conference
emblems on the iron fence of the Winter Palace on 12 August. (Russian State Archive of Film
in Petrograd. March 1917. (Russian State and Photographic Documente, Krasnogorsk)
Archive of Film and Photographic Documents, 20Waiters and waitresses of Petrograd on strike.
Krasnogorsk) (State Archive of Film and Photographic
9 Sergeant Timofei Kirpichnikov, leader of the Documents, St Petersburg)
mutiny of the Volynsky Regiment in the 211 May celebration in the active army. (State
February’ Revolution with a delegation of Archive of Film and Photographic Documents,
British Workers in the spring of 1917. (State St Petersburg)
Archive of Film and Photographic Documents, 22A village meeting in 1917. (Russian Sute
St Petersburg) Archive of Film and Photographic Documents,
10 A soldier activist distributing a party newspaper. Krasnogorsk)
(Russian Sute Archive of Film and Photographic 23Revolutionaries displaying their banner.
Documents, Krasnogorsk) (Russian State Archive of Film and
11 A political meeting in the army during the Photographic Documents, Krasnogorsk)
spring of 1917. (Sute Archive of Film and 24Members of the ’propertied élite’ conscripted to
Photographic Documents, St Petersburg) dear snow while their Red Guards watch,
12 A postcard of the mass political demonstration Petrograd, 1918. (Russian Sute Archive of Film
on 18 June in Petrograd. (Russian Sute Archive and Photographic Documents, Krasnogorsk)
of Film and Photographic Documents, 25Members of the ’propertied élite’ conscripted to
Krasnogorsk) clear snow while their Red Guards watch,
13 The burial of the victims of the February Petrograd, 1918. (Museum of the Revolution,
Revolution on the Champ de Mars in Petrograd Moscow)
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Steve Smith and Raj Chandavarkar for
reading and commenting on individual chapters; Vladimir Chemiaev for
his general comments; and Daniel Beer, Helen McNamara and Laura
Pieters Cordy for helping with the preparation of the ^manuscript.
Abbreviations
BA BahhmetiefF Archive, Columbia University, New York
GAKO Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Kuibyshevskoi Oblasti
GARF Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii
OR IRLI Otdel Rukopisei Insdtuta Russkoi Literatury (Pushkinsldi dom)
OR RNB Otdel Rukopisei Russkoi Natsional’noi Biblioteki
PRO Public Record Office
RGAVMF Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Voenno-Morskoi Flot
RGIA Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv
RGVLA Rossiiskii Gosudarstvennyi Voennyi Istoricheskii Arkhiv
SPARAN Sankt'Peterburgskoe Otdelenie Arkhiva Rossiiskoi Akademii Nayk
TsGAIPD Tsentral’nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv fetoriko~Politicheskikh
Dokumentov (St Petersburg)
TsGASP Tsentral’nyi Gosudarstvennyi Arkhiv Sankt Peterburga
Introduction
This is a book about the ways in which language was used to define
identities and create new meanings in the politics of 1917. Language is
defined in the broadest sense - songs and texts, symbolic flags and emblems,
pictures and monuments, banners and slogans, common speech and rumour,
dress and body language, ritualized demonstrations by the crowd, parades
and other ceremonies to represent and show allegiance to the idea of ‘the
revolution’.
All these systems of symbolic meaning defined and separated the com­
peting sides of the political struggle. Indeed, at one important level they
were the object of the fight itself, the symbolic batdefield of the revolution,
in so far as each side competed for the ascendancy of its own political
symbols within the political culture of 1917. Some wanted to hoist the
red flag, others to rally behind the national one. Somè wanted to sing
the ‘Marseillaise*, others to march with the ‘Internationale*. Some spoke
the language of the populist tradition, others the language of the Marxist
one. The political struggle between the socialist parties was to a large
extent defined by the struggle to establish the common symbols of the
revolutionary tradition. Each faction fought to control the symbolic system
of the revolutionary underground (the red flag, the ‘Marseillaise*, the key
words and slogans of liberation, and so on) which dominated the political
culture of 1917 and alone was capable of mobilizing mass support. Whoever
mastered the red flag, or monopolized the meaning of its lexicon, was in
pole position to become the master of the revolution too.
But to control the language of the revolution was not so simple or
straightforward. The whole of society was rapidly politicized by the February
Revolution, and it was impossible for official media (government and party
newspapers, pamphlets and so on) to determine all the meanings and uses
of its language within society. Individual statements could take on meanings
within several different fields of discourse simultaneously, or they could
combine to produce new meanings unanticipated by their original authors.
2 Interpreting the Russian Revolution
The whole of the revolutionary period could in this sense be conceived
as one of near chaos in which the political actors competed with each
other to fix public meanings, yet ultimately lost out to the power of a
language that each proved unable to control. The new words and symbols
of the revolution floated off the page or from committee rooms and out
on to the streets, into shops and taverns, schools and churches, factories
and barracks, towns and villages, where they were interpreted and used
in many different ways. Some words took on a real symbolic meaning and
power for a time —only to retreat into the background just as suddenly
or to burst like a bubble. Others saw their meanings or their connotations
change as time passed or political circumstances altered.
The language of the revolution contained many different idioms and
dialects, then, which gready complicated politics in 1917. Key words and
symbols could mean different things, or imply different strategies, to the
members of a single party organization. Many rank-and-file Bolsheviks,
for example, continued to sing the ‘Marseillaise* in 1917, seeing it as a
song of solidarity with all socialists, although Lenin himself considered it
a ‘bourgeois* anthem and preferred to sing the ‘Internationale* as a more
exclusively Bolshevik song. Such differences of interpretation were a result
of the cultural traditions of the revolutionary underground in which the
various sections of the Social Democratic movement had developed. It
was no easy matter for the leadership to get them to give up their particular
traditions and unite on the basis of a single (centralized) symbolic system.
All the major parties were confronted with this problem during 1917.
In this sense the struggle for power was not just defined by the competition
between rival symbolic systems. It was also defined by the struggle within
them. Each side struggled to unite and mobilize its own diverse supporters,
and to convert others, under its own symbols of the revolution. Flexibility
was a cardinal advantage in this symbolic battle: the party whose political
language was able to accommodate the greatest number of different idioms
and dialects, and yet unite them all in a common understanding which
had real significance for people’s daily lives, was likely to attract the most
support and dominate the revolutionary discourse. This was the key to
the remarkable success of the language of class, for example, which
dominated the political discourse during 1917. It was a language that
could express a wide range of identities (the ‘labouring people’, the
‘proletariat*, the ‘working class’, loyalties to factory or trade, etc.) and
could equally articulate many different ideals of social justice (moral reform,
workers’ rights and so on), yet always managed to unite these different
idioms in a common discourse of political struggle that was capable of
appealing to anyone who felt excluded from society.
In the highly fragmented political culture of 1917 the power or effec­
tiveness of any word or symbol was likely to be increased by its flexibility.