industrialization in nineteenth-century europe, tom kemp

(2): world market --> forces of change and disturbance (as solvent) [too much of this, in kemp's argument]

(4): Britain was unique because development was not part of a preconceived program ('organic' or 'autonomous')

(5): the 'advantages' of lateness -- ability to 'leap over' stages

(7): key--existence of a free labour force as a vital condition of industrialization

(7): merchants becoming industrialists [a bit too much of the orthodox narrative, again]

(8): key--traditional agrarian structure as block

(9): considerable unnevenness--wide regional differences across parts of Europe

(10): resource endowments were quite important, when you look at regions that were developing across the continent

(10-11): pithy answer to 'Why Europe?' is the nature of European feudalism ('looser, more individualist, etc.')

(11): key--it was the productive relations which were decisive (not trade)

(12): key--the creation of a class of landless wage-earners was critical

(13): suggesting that the political revolutions were crucial, in preparing the environment (political-juridical) [but how does this sit with his other arguments?]

(14): again, market forces as a 'dissolvent'

(15): emancipation from customary restrictions in the 1700s was important [how do we make sense of this? didn't take a 'State', but it did take a 'political revolution'? was this the inevitable outcome of the transformation of the agrarian structure?]

(16): the limitations of putting-out became clear by the 1700s -- couldn't realize further economies of scale, needed the factory

(17-18): imp--core of innovations took place in textiles, but this was driven by what was happening to demand and supply outside of textiles (important to note that inventive capacity was equally well-developed in other parts of Europe, but they suffered because they lacked England's reformed agrarian structures)

(20): development of credit networks was important; the Continent had them, but there the power of banks/finance was overweening (in England, most investment was from profits)

(21): sluggishness after a time, b/c of headstart?

(22-23): imp--protectionism was a widespread response -- but a more successful response was to search for niche markets, where Britain was not a competitor

(24): slow progress was not due to 'cultural preferences'/luddism

(24): they had to figure out a strategy to fit the period of British dominance

(25): capital goods industries were more important to late developers, than they were to British at comparable stages

(26): there were also differences in firm patterns (size, integration, etc.) (though he recommends against exaggerating this)

(27): imp-- rural artisans are understood as 'feudal relics', dead once the mass market emerges

(28) int--stressing the importance of links to the international division of labour, without which industrialization in Britain would have been slowed down

(29): 1848-1873 was a period of liberalizing markets, but 'free trade' was dealt a blow by the depression (industrialists sided with agrarian interests demanding protectionism)

(29): Britain didn't need protectionism, though, partly on account of her large formal and informal empire ('colonial development' as a substitute) [though presumably the dominance of her industry was sufficient?]

(30): lack of State in Britain was quite exceptional

(30-31): advantages of lateness need to be put in perspective -- they derive advantages only really in interindustry comparisons, but until 1914 nationally are inferior

(34): weakness of central powers in European feudalism [how to make sense of 'absolutist reaction' to declining seigneural revenues after the crisis of the 14th and 15th centuries, then? surely this disrupts the attempt to read European development back into a 'weak feudalism'?]

(35): towns as 'dissolvents'

(36): village cultivation as a 'collective effort'

(37): external forces --> disintegration

(38): critical -- reforms/revolution of basic agrarian structure was required, in order to give peasant cultivators incentives to pursue technical improvements

(39): emergence of a landless class

(40): labour force starting to develop in England by late Middle Ages; in France by 1700s; in Germany by 1700s; in E. Europe and Russia by late 1800s. this marks the development of capitalism.

(42): the old agrarian structures prohibit accumulation, imposing a brake upon the rate of economic progress

(43): consolidated power of the village community was also a block

(45): reciprocity in agrarian and industrial spheres [how to make (theoretical) sense of this more precisely, given the primacy of the impetus given by agrarian transformation?]

(46): importance of the potato, which was introduced in the 1700s

(47-48): imp-- French Rev was successful in safeguarding the rights of the French peasantry, which would act as a block on French development

(49): two pressures on French peasantry, after revolution: (1) modernization; (2) Napoleonic 'reform from above'. but this didn't change the basic story.

(50): imp-- story about the encroachment of the market breaking down old rural self-sufficiency, and bringing peasant/farmer into the market economy [again, this needs interrogation. how can this happen, if not 'from above'?]

(51): necessity of extra-European supplies of food

barrington moore, social origins of dictatorship and democracy (1966)

preface and acknowledgments (xi-xix)

(xi): animated by skepticism of thesis that "industrialism was the main cause of twentieth-century totalitarian regimes, because of the veyr obvious fact that Russia and China were overwhelmingly agrarian countries when the communists established themselves."

(xii-xiii): clarifying why these countries, in particular (and why not looking at small countries--there decisive influence comes from without).

(xiii): "The focus of interest is on innovation that has led to political power, not on the spread and reception of institutions that have been hammered out elsewhere..."

(xiii): very much a Weberian, ideal-type-ist, comparative approach, rather than a search for real abstractions. but perhaps the book itself is evidence that the difference between these two need not be so large?

(xiv): explorer is to native as sociologist is to historian!? a bit odd, this.

(xiv-xvii): KEY, central theses--"...one may discern three main historical routes from the preindustrial to the modern world.

1. "the first of these leads through what I think deserve to be called bourgeois revolutions... A key feature in such revolutions is the development of a group in society with an independent economic base, which attacks obstacles to a democratic version of capitalism that have been inherited from the past. Though a great deal of the impetus has come from trading and manufacturing classes in the cities, that is very far from the whole story. The allies this bourgeois impetus has found, the enemies it has encountered, vary sharply from case to case. The landed upper classes... were either an important part of this capitalist and democratic tide, as in England, or if they opposed it, they were swept aside in the convulsions of revolution or civil war. The same thing may be said about the peasants. Either the main thrust of their political efforts coincided with that toward capitalism and political democracy, or else it was negligible. And it was negligible either because capitalist advance destroyed peasant society or because this advance began in a new country, such as the United States, without a real peasantry."
   
2. "...the second route has also been capitalist, but culminated during the twentieth century in fascism... I shall call this the capitalist and reactionary form. It amounts to a form of revolution from above. In these countries the bourgeois impulse was much weaker. If it took a revolutionary form at all, the revolution was defeated. Afterward sections of a relatively weak commercial and industrial class relied on dissident elemetns in the older and still dominant ruling classes.. to put through the political and economic changes required for a modern industrial society... Industrial development may proceed rapidly under such auspices. But the outcome, after a brief and unstable period of democracy, has been fascism."
3. "The third route is of course communism, as exemplified in Russia, and in China. The great agrarian bureaucracies of these countries served to inhibit the commercial and later industrial impulses even more than in the preceding instances. The results were twofold. In the first place these urban classes were too weak to constitute even a junior partner in the form of modernization taken by Germany and Japan... And in the absence of more than the most feeble steps toward modernization a huge peasantry remained. This stratum, subject to new strains and stresses as the modern world encroached upon it, provided the main destructive revolutionary force that overthrew the old order..."
4. "Finally, in India we may perceive still a fourth general pattern that accounts for the weak impulse toward modernization. In that country there has been neither a capitalist revolution from above or below, nor a peasant one leading to communism. Likewise the impulse toward modernization has been very weak. On the other hand, at least som eof the historical prerequisites of Western democracy did put in an appearance... [T]his case stands somewhat appart from any theoretical scheme that it seems possible to construct for the others..."
   

(xvii): KEY, IN SUM--"To sum up as concisely as possible, we seek to understand the role of the landed upper classes and the peasants in the bourgeois revolutions leading to capitalist democracy, the abortive bourgeois revolutions leading to fascism, and the peasant revolutions leading to communism. The ways in which the landed upper classes and the peasants reacted to the challenge of commercial agriculture were decisive factors in determining the political outcome."

(xvii): you have some elements of reaction in the progressive examples, and vice-versa--thus, we have empircally-based general categories that transcend particular cases. moreover, there is invariably an element of contingency in the argument.

PART ONE: REVOLUTIONARY ORIGINS OF CAPITALIST DEMCORACY

Chapter One, England and the Contributions of Violence to Gradualism (3-40)

I. Aristocratic Impulses behind the Transition to Capitalism in the Countryside (3-13)

(3): "The focus in this chapter will be on the particular and very significant part that the classes in the countryside played in the transformation to industrialism."

(4-5): from the 1300s, he's arguing, we see the growing importance of commerce in countryside and in towns--and thus, the "dismounting of feudalism and its replacement by England's relatively weak version of royal absolutism."

(5): increasing importance of the wool trade in the Late Middle Ages (1300-1500), oriented to markets in the Italy and the Low Countries

(5): and the Black Death in 1348-1349 and demographic collapse, which gave an impetus to peasant rebellion.

(5): this chapter focused on the upper classes; by the late 1300s and the 1400s, especially, feudalism was in decline--it had "become parasitic, deriving its strength from the maneuvers of powerful magnates and the countermoves of the monarch."

(5-6): The Wars of the Roses (1455-1485) marks this process, the weakening of the landed aristrocracy and the emergence of the Tudor dynasty.

(6): Henry VIII, the second of the Tudor Kings, breaks with the Catholic Church without
supporting the Protestant Reformation--confiscation of the onasteries, etc.

(6-7): important, in sum: (1) ROYAL PEACE, AND (2) WOOL, combining in a specific way--"Combined with the continuing stimulus of the wool trade, the Tudor peace generated a powerful stimulus to the growth of a commercial and even capitalist outlook in the countryside." [quoting Tawney--the Tudor victory had "made the command of money more important than the command of men... [This change]... marks the transition from the medieval conception of land as the basis of political functions... to the modern view of it as an income-yielding investment."--BUT is this sufficient? hypothetically it could have happened at any time, no? isn't it question-begging?]. "The key to the English situation is that commercial life in both town and countryside during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries grew up mainly though not entirely in opposition to the crown."

(8-9): thus, economic individualism was not simply the preserve of Adam Smith and the bourgeoisie; enclosing landlords, too, "provided at least as important a breeding ground..."

(9): enclosures, key--"propelled by the prospect of profits to be made either in selling wool or by leasing their lands to those who did and thereby increasing their rents, the lords of the manors found a variety of legal and semilegal methods to deprive the peasants of their rights of cultivation in the open fields..."

(10): key--"...a change from the feudal seigneur who was at worst a lawless tyrant to an overlord who was closer to an acute man of business exploiting the material resources of the estate with an eye to profit and efficiency..." These habits existed, too, in the yeomen--the upper ranks of the peasantry, and the chief force behind small enclosures; analogy drawn to kulaks.

(13): important, comparative point--"Thus in England the chief carriers of what was eventually to be a modern and secular society were at this time fundamentally men of commerce in both the countryside and the towns. In sharp contrast with what happened in France, these men pushed forward mainly on their own instead of under the umbrella of paternalist royal patronage."

(14): the Crown, Charles I, had started to antagonize commercially-minded elements in the countryside and the town (unlike in France, power had always been delegated to the gentry in the countryside; so the Crown's meddling was impositional). this was, of course, setting the scene for the First Civil War.

II. Agrarian Aspects of the Civil War (14-19)

(14-16): summary of these trends: "in the light of this general background there would seem to be little reason to question the thesis that commercially minded elements among the landed upper classes, and to a lesser extent among the yeomen, were among the main forces opposing the King and royal attempts to preserve the old order, and therefore an important cause, though not the only one, that produced the Civil War... From the gentry as a class, then, came the main representatives of a decisive historical trend modifying the structure of English rural society... Thus under the impact of commerce and some industry, English society was breaking apart from the top downward in a way that allowed pockets of radical discontent produced by the same forces to burst temporarily in the limelight [this has interesting implications--more radical elements doing the dominant oppositional classes' handiwork; and for 1848, since it sheds light on potential cleavages in the alliance].. In this process, as the old order breaks up, sections of society that had been losing out due to long-run economic trends come to the surface and do much of the violent 'dirty work.' of destroying the ancien regime..."

(16): act of beheading the King, for example, was a popular demand rooted in the desires of 'urban journeymen and peasants' (in the Army); a preponderance of the poorer gentry amongst the regicides.

(17): modernizers and traditionalists, too, not always opposed--certainly, for example, united in their fears of the 'lower orders.' even amongst the gentry, of course--"One would scarcely expect men of substance to have an easy conscience about kicking over two of the main props, king and church, that supported the social order." [again, the ghosts of 1848]

(17): important, certainly--"the policy of the leaders of the rebellion was clear and straightforward. They opposed interference with the landlord's property rights on the part of the king and on the part of radicals from the lower orders" [abolition of the Star Chamber, 'the main royal weapon against enclosing landlords' -- the peasants, clearly, are being marginalized]

(18-19): important--"In economics the Civil War did not produce any masive transfer of landed property from one group or class to another..." but it was, certainly, a revolution--"its revolutionary consequences were deep and lasting in the area of law and social relationships. with the abolition of the Star Chamber, the peasants lost their chief protection against the advance of enclosures..."

(19): this is a critical point (leveled against the critics of those who label the Civil War a bourgeois revolution)--the fact that landed elites were still in command of the state apparatus after this, and even after 1832, does not mean this wasn't a bourgeois revolution. precisely because, as we have seen, of the increasing commercialization of countryside... "The aristocratic order survived, but in a new shape, for money more than birth was now its basis. And Parliament itself became the instrument of landed capitalists... "

(20): in sum--"while the original impulse toward capitalism may have come from the towns far back in the Middle Ages, it proceeded on the land as strongly as in the cities... both the capitalist principle are directly antithetical to... : divinely supported authority in politics, and production for use rather than for individual profit in economics. Without the triumph of these principles in the seventeenth century it is hard to imagine how English society could have modernized peacefully--to the extent that it actually was peaceful--during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries..."

III. Enclosures and the Destruction of the Peasantry (20-28)

(20): enclosures after the Civil War as legal, and historically-significant form of violence (this was not the landed aristrocracy against independent peasants; but landed capitalists against peasantry). either way, moreover, "the enclosures were the final blow that destroyed the whole structure of English peasant society embodied in the traditional village."

(21-22): speaking, here, of a decline in the 'openness' of local government to the peasantry, after the Glorious Revolution [we must ask, then, about the general thesis of the book--increasing democratization? clearly this is presented as a blip, but we can't leave its significance under-interrogated...].

(22): the anti-democratic writ of Parliament, as property triumphed over the peasantry in matters of enclosure.

(22): key--"The outcome of the Civil War itself, in sharp contrast to that of the French Revolution, was to strengthen greatly the position of the landed upper classes."

(23): 1688 to the end of the Napoleonic Wars (ca. 1815) as the "golden age of the great landed estate" (some technological improvement, in fertilizer, new crops, crop rotation; but also the simple efficiency of economies of scale)

(24): the rural capitalist, he's noting, is fairly divided into two:

1. the big landowner (who did no work himself, though looked at the figures--his contribution was legal and political, arranging the enclosures);
   
2. and the large tenant farmer (whose contribution was economic, the real pioneers of agricultural development).

(25): enclosures gathered considerable force by 1760--surged forward during the Napoleonic Wars, only to die out after 1832.

(26): "the intrusion of commerce into a peasant community generally sets in motion a tendency toward the concentration of land in fewer hands..."

(26-28): key, enclosures--graphic, moving account of the disintegration and suffering of the peasant communities (some stayed on land to be rural laborers; others migrated to the cities in search of work)--"it seems quite clear that when the common fields disappeared and a new economic system began to win out in the countryside, the old peasant community finally gave way and disintegrated... the enclosures greatly strengthened the larger landlords and broke the back of the English peasantry, eliminating them as a factor from British political life."

(29): amen--"That the violence and coercion which produced these resluts took place over a long space of time... must not blind us to the fact that it was massive violence exercised by the upper classes against the lower." [this is critical, as it contains a larger point about modernization and its relationship to violence--reminds me of Chris Harman's comment on Stalin; all the violence of modernization condensed into a few, exceptionally brutal years]

IV. Aristocratic Rule for Triumphant Capitalism (29-39)

(29): when considering the 'peaceful transition' to parliamentary democracy in the 19th century, we would do well to remember the violence that scarred the 17th and 18th centuries.

(29): consequence one--"perhaps the most important legacy of a violent past was the strengthening of Parliament at the expense of the King" [bequeathed an institutional mechanism for settling conflicts of interest]

(30): "the strong commercial tone in the life of the landed upper classes... also meant that there was no very solid phalanx of aristrocratic opposition to the advance of industry itself... the most influential sector of the landed upper classes acted as a political advance guard for commercial and industrial capitalism."

(30): consequence two--"the other main consequence was the destruction of the peasantry. It meant that modernization could proceed in England without the huge reservoir of conservative and reacitonary forces that existed at certain points in Germany and Japan... And it also of couse meant that the possibility of peasant revolutions in the Russian and Chinese manner were taken off the historical agenda."

(31): the French Revolution induced a period of reaction, in England--only to be lifted with the Battle of Waterloo.

(32): what was key re: the rise of the commercial classes in the 19th century, in England, was that "the road had been smoothed for them... under the leadership of the landed classes." [contrast with Prussia, where the State had to establish a uniform legal system, currency, etc.] "... The absence of a strong monarchy resting on an army and a bureaucracy, as in Prussia, made easier the development of parliamentary democracy... "

(32): important--"In the meantime the landed gentry and those above it in the social scale retained a firm hold on the levers of political power... [With reform bill of 1832, and the striking down of Corn Laws in 1846, he writes] The landed upper classes suffered no disaster, but they learned the limits of their power."

(34): key--comparatively mild treatment of the Chartist movement (1838-1848), down to three factors [in Germany, on the other hand, the bourgeoisie leaned on the aristocracy and the State, to protect them against popular discontent]

1. strong current of opinion in favor of doing something to alleviate mass distress--devotion to idea of libery [possibly a question-begging explanation, but ok]
2. lack of a strong repressive apparatus
3. a favorable economic turn and poor-friendly legislation took the steam out of the movement

(35): "In England the landed interests to some extent engaged in a popularity contest with the bourgeoisie for mass support..."

(35): "Thus the theme of diehard opposition to the march of democracy is a rare and minor current among the landed aristocracy of England in the nineteenth century. One cannot find in English history the counterpart to... German conservatives ['take ten men and shoot the Reichstag!']"

(35): very KEY; reason for lack of conservativsm/reaction--"One of the reasons why such a scene seems incongrous in England... is that, unlike the Junkers, the gentry and nobility of England had no great need to rely on political levers to prop up a tottering economic position..."

(36): "In the nineteenth century, as in earlier periods, the lines between wealthy nobility, gentry, and the upper reaches of business and the professions were blurred and wavering."

(37): key-- "In nineteenth century Prussia the members of the bourgeoisie who became connected with the aristocracy generally absorbed the latter's habits and outlook. Rather the opposite relationship held in England." [this is his answer--and see below--to the puzzle that their seemed to be more osmosis between the two classes in Prussia, than in England]

(37): important, larger point--"Men who hold power do not necessarily exercise it simply in the interests of the class from which they arise, especially in changing situations."

(38): key, divergent paths of England and Germany in late-19th Century--an agricultural depression in the aftermath of the Civil War (the availability of American grain, by steamship), "seriously commenced to erode the economic base of the landed upper strata." Roughly the same thing happened in Germany. BUT: there, Junkers used the State to preserve their position, forming a "united agricultural front" with peasant proprietors and even industrial interests around a program of imperialism and reaction; in England, on the other hand, "...agriculture was allowed to commit decorous suicide... The economic base had shifted to industry and trade."

(39): in sum--"...what factors stand out as responsible for England's progress toward demcoracy? Those inherited from a violent past have already been mentioned: (1) a relatively strong and independent Parliament; (2) a commercial and industrial interest with its own economic base; (3) no serious peasant problem." Other factors are specific to the 19th century... the landed upper classes absorbed new elements into their ranks... it was possible because the economic position of the governing classes eroded slowly... [furthermore], there is no reason to deny the historical significance of moderate and intelligent statesmen."

Chapter Two, Evolution and Revolution in France (40-110)

1. Contrasts with England and their Origins (40-45)

(40): key, enormous differences with England, he's noting at the outset--

1. whereas in England you had an independent landed gentry, in France they were appendages of the Crown;
   
2. whereas in England they adopt commercial agriculture, in France they live off what they can extract from the peasantry;
3. whereas in England they respond to the rise of the manufacturing classes by becoming capitalists themselves, in France they are destroyed by the Revolution.
   
4. whereas in England the peasant problem disappeared, in France it persisted and was consolidated gradually both before and after the Revolution.

(40): Thus, why was there similarity? This is the puzzle of the chapter. "Since without the Revolution it is most probably that there would have been no similarities," this is his focus.

(41): "the French nobility lived very largely from dues collected in kind or in cash from their peasants." [features emerge by the late 1300s and during the 1400s]

(41): they were located in law, and dependent on the peasantry--these two facts "were to distinguish the French nobility from the English gentry for the remainder of its history."

(41-42): "at quite an early date the peasantry had managed to escape from personal servitude...by the time of the Revolution," de facto property rights. [this is not explained, at all]

(42): in fact, precisely because they lacked an independent economic base (a la the gentry in England), the feudals also slowly lost out to the Crown (and the growing Royal Bureaucracy). this was encapsulated in the "long reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715).

(42-43): even if this fact let urban wealth intrude into rural areas, the basic form of wealth accumulation in the countryside remained the collection of wealth (not production for market)

(43): key--"France did not undergo an extensive enclosure movement. By and large, the large proprietor was interested in preserving peasant tenures because they provided the basis of his existence. Only in the latter part of the 1700s did the situation begin to change."

(43-44): important--in the course of the 1500s and afterward, "the king consolidated and extended his authority..." at the expense of the nobility [he deprived them of judicial functions, raised soldiers and taxes on their lands, intervened in their affairs, and forced them to submit to his Parlements]. This, again, culminated in Louis XIV. King had to ensure loyalty of nobility, though, which he did through the Church and War.

2. The Noble Response to Commercial Agriculture (45-56)

(45): until the opening decade of the 1700s, there certainly was a weak impluse toward commercial agriculture in France [limited markets, mostly in wheat--problem was to feed those who didn't grow, which was a small problem].

(49-50): crux of the matter, it seems: [after a lengthy discussion of the wine trade,] "The monarchy wanted a prosperious nobility as a decorative adjunct to the crown... But the crown did not want the nobility to establish an independent economic base that could enable it to challenge royal power." [I'm worried we're verging on a tautology here--no independent economic base is supposed to explain strength of monarchy; so how can strength of monarchy also explain no independent economic base?]

(50): "...successful commercial farming for the high aristocrat involved a temporary escape from French society." [mention of Haiti]

(51): "All these facts indicate that the cultural and legal barriers were becoming much less important during the 18th century." [in other words, this is not where we want to look if we want to understand the weakness of commercial agriculture]

(52): yes, a critique of Weber that parallels the charges leveled by Ellen Meiskins Wood--"Those who follow Weber, especially those who speak in terms of some abstract drive for achievement, neglect the importance of the social and political context in which such changes manifest themselves. The problem is not merely whether French rural nobles tried to run their estates efficiently... The key question is whether not in so doing they altered the structure of rural society in a way similar to what took place in those parts of England where the enclosure movement was strongest. The answer to this question is simple and decisive. They did not. Those nobles who represented the leading edge of commercial advance in the French countryside tried to extract more from the peasants."

(53): discussing Toulouse, where despite production for market, there was no real technical innovation--"the nobles used the prevailing social and political framework to squeeze more grain out of the peasants and sell it." [again, worried about a tautology--isn't the lack of an economic base meant to explain that social and political framework?]

(53-54): explaining the land tenure situation, as it differs from England; but I must say, I don't fully follow...

(55): in sum, though: "In contrast to England, commercial influences as they penetrated into the French countryside did not undermine and destroy the feudal framework. If anything they infused new life into old arrangements, though in a way that ultimately had disastrous consequences for the nobility... Essentially what the landed proprietor possessed were certain property rights, whose essence were claims, enforceable through the repressive apparatus of the state, to a specific share of the economic surplus..." [if run like this, the tautology fades, I think--but do need to think through this, some more]

(56): "In England the fusion between countryside and town was in the main directed against the crown... In France the fusion took place through the crown with very different political and social consequences."

3. Class Relationships under Royal Absolutism (56-62)

(56-57): in the 1600s, the French bourgeoisie was not the spearhead of modernization; instead, "it was heavily dependent on royal favor, subject to royal regulation..." [like Tokugawa Japan or even Akbar's India]

(57): thus, under Louis XIV, "the impulse toward establishing the bases of a modern society... came much more from the royal bureaucracy than from the bourgeoisie. That, however, was scarcely the deliberate intention of the crown. At the same time its real function... was to maintain order, supervise the economy..."

(57-58): like other agrarian bureaucracies, it was confronted with a limited source of surplus, like elsewhere (partial solution was to sell positions in the bureaucracy)

(58): regardless--"French society of the 1600s and 1700s presents us with an illuminating mixture of competing trades that scholars sometimes regard as characteristically Western and characteristically Oriental: feudalism, bourgeoisie, and bureaucracy." [an admirable universalism]

(59): "...the sale of offices was at the root of the king's independence of the aristocracy, of any effective control by a parliament. It was the key prop of royal absolutism. At the same time the practice undermined the king's independence [since it made office a piece of property]"

(60): key--had the effect of steeling the bourgeoisie to stand with the State against feudal elements; but also of converting bourgeois elements into feudals. "...The system diverted energy and resources from commerce and industry."

(62-63): why didn't such a pervasive monarchy, then, pursue the path of a Germany or Japan--a "conservative path to modernization"? he isn't providing the answer now, only suggesting that "agrarian problems played a very important part in bringing about this result."

4. The Aristocratic Offensive and the Collapse of Absolutism (62-70)

(63): the last half of the 1700s saw "a penetration of commercial and capitalist practices into agriculture." [a brief enclosure movement]

(64): crucial: the method of surplus-extraction (and the political apparatus that corresponded), in France, was simply different than in England [in France, feudal; in England, commercial]

(64): interesting that, right here at one of his most concretely Marxist moments, he is pushing back against caricatured Marx--"...any notion that the economic substructure somehow automatically determines the political superstructure, can lead one astray. The political mechanism was decisive..." [as was, then, the effort to smash it]

(64): key--enclosure movement in France more of a government move than in England, where it was indigenously actualized by gentry. "Hence capitalism was seeping into the French countryside... in the form of feudalism through the seignoral reaction, in the form of an attack on feudalism, and... through the officially sponsored enclosure movement. More rapid penetration had to await the measures of the Revolution..." [critical--all of this, though [increased feudal dues, enclosures], had the critical effect of turning the peasantry against the established order--this encouraged the unity of the Third Estate]

(65): this negative response, of course, is why "the most prosperous peasantry in Europe could become a major force for revolution."

(66-67): it was not that the nobility was closed (he's providing examples of bourgeoisie incorporation), that explains the Revolution.

(67): important--it is the case that in England this fusion took place against the king. In France, it was the monarchy that turned commoners into landed aristrocrats.

(67-68): concomitant to all this, there was expansive growth in commerce, and trade [embodied in proposals made by Turgot, which had the effect of antagonizing the sans-culottes by liberalizing grain market]

(69): KEY--"As it came to France, capitalism often wore a feudal mask... The demand for property rights within the prevailing system was very strong, as the sale of offices and the seigneurial reaction demonstrates. Capitalism... permeated the ancien regime.. Partly for this reason the radical thrust behind the Revolution, based on the sans-culottes and sections of the peasantry, was explicitly and strongly anticapitalist."

5. The Peasants' Relationship to Radicalism during the Revolution (70-92)

(70): "only when popular grievances could coalesce even briefly with those of more powerful groups would they help to bring the monarchy crashing down..."

(70-71): important--in the absence of commercial revolution (or manorial reaction), "many French peasants had become in effect small property owners." [though, he notes that, in some places families without land may have been anywhere from 20 to 70% of the rural population."]

(71): two major demands, amongst poorer peasantry

1. land
2. preservation of specific village customs that served their interests

(72): important--"the political consequence was a split within the peasantry and a very marked disintegration of the peasant community... the situation of the rural poor drove many toward violent egalitarian theories. for them, modernization meant mainly that the prosperous peasants were blocking them from dividing up the land... [Thus] there were at least two peasant revolutions, that of the peasant aristocracy and that of the larger and more diffuse majority..."

(73): for the upper ranks of the peasantry, on the other hand, discontent was a product of a fact of "possessing the land without really owning it... Mainly wanted to eliminate the arbitrary aspects of the feudal system that had been increasing in the last years..."

(74-75): the impulses giving rise to the Revolution in this context: decreasing duties on British manufactures, natural disasters, reactionary pressure of stratum of nobility [others were quite willing to compromise], etc.

(75): summer of 1789, then, sees a series of peasant uprisings

(75-76): important, no bourgeoisie on the barricades--"full-scale violence [actually] frightened the bourgeoisie, who retreated into the arms of the nobility"

(76): with the storming of the Bastille, major traits of the radical elements in the French Revolution

1. the fear of counterrevolutionary plots
2. defensive uprising amongst the masses, mainly artisans and journeymen
   
3. will to punish and destroy enemies

(77): KEY, feudalism dismantled, thanks to the peasantry and in three phases--the Revolution, itself, of course, can be thought of as three journees--three popular upheavals. "The main impulse behind each surge came from the Parisian sans-culottes. Each surge succeeded as longa s it could draw on active support from the countryside. When this support dried up,... the impulse behind the radical revolution petered out, and its urban remnants were easily repressed. It is fair, therefore, to hold that the peasantry was the arbiter of the Revolution, though not its chief propelling force... and largely responsible for what in retrospect seems the most important and lasting achievement of the Revolution, the dismantling of feudalism."

1. storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789
   
2. storming of the Tuileries on August 10, 1792, which led to the execution of Louis XIV
3. uprising on May 31, 1793, which led to the reign of terror and Robespierre.
   

(78): the death certificate of the ancien regime delivered in August 1789 -- but, of course, up to more radical phases to make this complete (and, as he notes citing de Tocqueville, here it was simply continuing the work of the royal absolutism).

(80): 25th of August 1792, feudal dues disappeared; 28th of August, villagers receive back commond lands

(81-83): important, peasant radicalism, in the form of 'loi agrarire': equal distribution of lands, making the Commune uncomfortable, it seems (splitting the ranks) [March 1793 the death penalty decreed for preaching it!] -- all this, he's saying, a response to the intrusion of capitalism into the countryside.

(84): yes, the spectre of 1848, again--"...the bourgeois revolution needed the help of the radical revolution, as we have seen with the events of July 14 and August 4..." [of course!] This, even though "the two were fundamentally incompatible due to incompatible attitudes toward property..."

(86): critical, effects and context of the third uprising--"...both the rural and the urban radicals shared a common hostility at this point to the rich who were profiting from the Revolution and to the unfettered workings of the market... To sum up the meaning of the uprising..., the bourgeois revolution had been pushed sharply to the left under radical pressure and forced to shed the moderates (arrest of 32 Girondins), while the urban radicals and the peasants were still marching together..." This was the 'heroic' and 'desperate' time of the Revolution, led by the Committee of Public Safety (my understanding--you had the Constituent Assembly until 1791; the Legislative Assembly until the second uprising; and the Commune, until now)

(88): key, running into trouble--for the wealthier peasants -- as producers -- the system of price controls implemented in the third phase was oppressive, and they evaded it (even though the high, unregulated price of wheat had enabled the uprising, in the first place). Thus, the radical phase of the Revolution was "in many places an outright attack on the substantial peasants... worst of all, townsmen... were its main agents in the countryside..."

(89): in sum--"The obvious and decisive fact of the radical phase is this: the urban sans-culottes had been able to push the Jacobin leaders into policies that saved the Revolution but at the cost of turning the peasants against it... To the extent that these conditions prevailed elsewhere in the countryside [high price of bread relative to wages], they alienated radical support from the Revolution and dried up the sources of rural radicalism"

(90): important--Ventose decrees, Robespierre and Saint-Just realizing that they needed to make concessions to the peasantry. Alas, "it would have been very difficult to meet the expressed desires of the poorer peasants without putting a spike into the wheels of the bourgeois and capitalist revolution... Thus during the radical phase the needs and aspirations of the urban sans-culottes finally came into direct and open conflict with all sections of the countryside..."

(91): key--against the Marxist argument that the bourgeois revolution could not follow the radical revolution this far, Moore attributes the failure of the radical revolution to the tension that his policies brought them into conflict with the countryside--and in a way that aggravated the misery of the city-dweller.

(92): "No matter how radical the city was, it could do nothing without the help of the peasants. The radical revolution was over." [I need to sharpen my understanding of what exactly led to this fall-out; what I have culled from this chapter seems a bit confused...]

6. Peasants against the Revolution: The Vendee (92-101)

(92): from 1793 to 1796--the "only major peasant uprising against what is loosely called the Left" (calling for restoration of King, what have you)

(92): key, there is actually no paradox here: "the main thrust of the counterrevolution was anticapitalist against the merchants and manufacturers in nearby towns and those scattered through the heart of the Vendee itself... Resembles the great peasant upheavals that were the main popular force breaking apart the old regimes of Russia and China before the communist victories..."

(93): importantly--"The counterrevolutionary area was one where commercial agriculture had not penetrated..." But this, he is suggesting, is not an answer. Instead, something more specific is needed. His best guess is not the lightness of burden, nor the myth that these peasants lived amongst the nobility, but that "the leading peasants in the areas that were to become counterrevolutionary already had some of the major benefits of private property (because these were areas where enclosures had taken place)." Led to a "stubborn individualism--"in many instances a man would not see his neighbors for long stretches of time. "...What might be expected to happen if the Revolution failed to abolish rents and took more taxes out of the peasants than had been the case under the old order? What if the Revolution promoted a substantial bourgeois land grab? Finally, what if the Revolution came as a wholesale attack on peasant society? These are things that did happen."

(98): key, then--"What mattered most in the specific conditions of the Vendee was the attack on the clergy because it was part of a general offensive: economic, political, and social at once." So things like the reorganization of local government, the seizure of church properties, etc. (which had led to a very large bourgeois land grab).

7. Social Consequences of Revolutionary Terror (101-108)

(101): writing, now, against the impulse to regard the Terror "as a daemonic outburst of mob violence..." Certainly, there was much that was indiscriminate (the 1792 September Massacres, for example).

(103-104): roughly 30,000 to 40,000 victims of revolutionary repression--"Yet in assessing it, one has to keep in mind the repressive aspects of the social order to which it was a response. The prevailing order of society always grinds out its tragic toll of unnecessary death year after year... [T]o dwell on the horrors of revolutionary violence while forgetting that of normal time is merely partisan hypocrisy." [and this is just as true in China, India, etc.]

(104): reminder that the radical arm of the revolution was a negative, defensive reaction to the bourgeois revolution ("the steady spread of capitalist figures..." / the free market in grain, etc.).

(105): KEY POINT--you could not have had a peaceful transition, had the conservatives smothered the Revolution successfully, as you 'did' in England after the civil war. "The underlying social structure of France was fundamentally different and hence ruled out the kind of peaceful transition... that England experienced in the 1700s and 1800s."

(105): key--addressing himself to the question of whether it was, or was not, a bourgeois revolution: "To deny that the predominant thrust and chief consequences of the Revolution were bourgeois and capitalist is to engage in a trivial quibble... [Certainly, he agrees that the bourgeoisie were not protagonists, themselves, BUT] That the ultimate outcome of all the forces at work was a victory for an economic system of private property and a political system based upon equality before the law... are truths undeniable even if they are familiar." [see also pg. 109]

(105): Bourbon Restoration recovered half of the property lost during the Revolution!

(106): key, and in sum--"...the destruction of the political power of the landed aristocracy constitutes the most significant process at work in the course of French modernization. Ultimately it is largely... traceable to the response of the French nobility to the problems of agriculture in an increasingly commercial society. Royal absolutism was able to tame and control an aristocracy that had difficulty in establishing an independent economic base." [this eliminated, he's adding, the threat of right-wing authoritarianism]

(107): key--it also created "small-peasant property," with ambiguous consequences--"the experience of requisitioning, the attempt to place ceilings on the prices of grain, and the encouragement given to small holders and agricultural workers during the radical phase... turned the upper stratum of the peasants decisively against the Republic." [there is more, certainly, that needs to be said about the divisions in the peasantry; why are we so concerned, after all, with the upper peasantry, given their limited numbers?]

(107-108): some provisional reflections on revolutionary and reactionary tendencies of peasantry, but nothing conclusive beyond these few generalizations about the 19th and 20th centuries in France

1. influential peasants are not concerned about democracy; they want guarantees of property and social position
   
2. continued advance of capitalism threatens small peasant property
   

8. Recapitulation (108-110) [excellent summary, consult if necessary]

(108): again, a summary--Revolution was imperative, precisely because the ancien regime stood in the way of democratization; this was not the case in England, where you had a landed elite that were quite bourgeois ("part of democracy's entering wedge")

(110): in tracing the end of the French revolution, he speaks about how the Jacobin need to get food to urban areas and revolutionary armies broke the alliance with the richer peasants. but i am confused, perhaps because of poor comprehension: why did the poor peasants leave this alliance? or, differently put, why was the counterrevolution successful--did it have the backing of poor peasants?

Chapter Three, The American Civil War: The Last Capitalist Revolution (111-158)

1. Plantation and Factory: An Inevitable Conflict? (111-114)

(111): In America, of course, no well-entrenched agrarian society, of either feudal or bureaucratic forms. (1) Rather, "commercial agriculture" was important from the very beginning. (2) No political struggles, then, between a monarch and a landed aristocracy. (3) No massive class of peasants, comparable to Europe or Asia.

(112): key, a revolution not motivated by desire to cast off economic fetters--"The conclusion... amounts to the statement that the American Civil War was the last revolutionary offensive on the part of what one may legitimately call urban or bourgois capitalist democracy. Plantation slavery in the South... was not an economic fetter upon industrial capitalism. If anything, the reverse may have been true... But slavery was an obstacle to a political and social democracy." [but hang on, there is a point about technical inefficiency of slavery, owing to the low cost of labor, and whatever else--but let's watch this proceed]

(112): rightly passing over the American Revolution, which "did not result in any fundamental changes in the structure of society."

(114): to the question of whether there was some inherent contradiction between the industrial capitalism of the North and the plantation economy of the South, "we can answer.. with a provisional negative: there is no abstract general reason... Special historical circumstances... had to be present in order to prevent agreement between an agrarian society based on unfree labor and a rising industrial capitalism." [here he is making a comparison to Germany, where advanced industry got along well with highly repressive forms of rural labor (even if the Junker was not a slave-owner)]

(115): BUT--"if the conflict between the North and South had been compromised, the compromise would have been at the expense of subsequent democratic development in the United States..."

2. Three Forms of American Capitalist Growth (115-131)

(115): By 1860, there were three different forms of society in the US:

1. cotton-growing South;
   
2. the West, a land of free-farmers;
   
3. and the rapidly industrializing Northeast.

(116): "Between 1815 and 1860 the cotton trade exercised a decisive influence upon the rate of growth in the American economy. Up until about 1830 it was the most important cause of the growth of manufacturing... By 1849, 64% of the cotton crop went abroad, mainly to England. From 1840 to the time of the Civil War, Great Britain drew from the Southern states 80% of all her cotton..."

(116): "In Southern society, the plantation and slave owners were a very small minority. By 1850, there may have been less than 350,000 in a white population of six million... only a small minority owned most of the slaves... [7% owned 75%!]"

(117): "...the smaller farmers in the South by and large accepted the political authority of the big planters..."

(117-118): "Slavery was almost certainly not on the point of dying out for internal reasons... If slavery were to disappear from American society, armed force would be necessary..."

(118): Emancipation Proclamation (1863) only emancipated slaves in areas where the North had no jurisdiction!

(118): "These considerations point strongly toward the conclusion that slavery was economically profitable."

(119): Slavery shifting to the "low South", and West (not in the tobacco growing areas, after 1850). This shift was of course threatening the balance of slave states and free states (Missouri coupled with Maine)

(121): key--but even if running a plantation was a capitalist task, the Southern plantocracy was not bourgeois--not opposed to hereditary privilege, and not based in town life. "Here was a real difference and a real issue."

(123): key-- "It is almost impossible to speak of purely economic factors as the main causes behind the war, just as it is impossible to speak of the war as mainly a consequence of moral differences over slavery. The moral issues arose from economic difference. Slavery was the moral issue... Without the direct conflict of ideals..., the events leading up to the war... are totally incomprehensible" [but what do we make of the hollowness of the Emanicpation proclamation? the notion that Lincoln was willing to save the union, alone?]

(124): after the 1830s, the North became a manufacturing center--the American Economy as a whole was less depndent on a "single agricultural staple." Cotton ceased to dominate the Northeast.

(125): regardless, though, it certainly wasn't Northern business interests behind the war--they "were very far from bellicose advocates of a war of liberation or even war for the sake of the union."

(127): the conflict comes, then, over the supply of labor to Northern Capitalists--"Perhaps more than any other factor, these trends set the stage for armed conflict and aligned the combatants in such a way as to make possible a partial victory for human freedom."

(128-129): key--the West is an important part of this story--"From the 1830s onward, there was a gradual redirection of Western produce toward the Eastern seaboard" [made possible by transportation revolution]. As a result, he's arguing, "The outlook of the early individualist and small-scale capitalist, characteristic of the Northeast, spread to the dominant upper stratum of the Western farmers." This, he's suggesting, produced a fear of competition from slavery.Similarly, Southern planters see this new strata as a threat.

(130): this was the underpinning of the bargain that brought Lincoln to office, in 1860--"business was to support the farmers' demand for land, popular also in industrial working-class circles, in return for support for a higher tariff."

(131): interesting--"Here energies that in Europe would have gone into building trade unions... went into schemes providing a free farm for every workman whether he wanted it or not. The actual effect of the Westward trek... was to strengthen the forces of early competitive and individualist capitalism by spreading the interest in property." [this was more a myth than reality--speculators had their hands on it, and maybe some of the more wealthy, enterprising workers]

(131): "The link between Northern industry and the free farmers ruled out for the time being the classic reactionary solution to the problems of growing industrialism..." It also brought the country towards civil war.

3. Toward an Explanation of the Causes of the War (132-140)

(132-133): no obvious, 'mortal' conflict in economic terms, between the two systems

(134): important--"In addition to the conflict between free farmers in the West and the plantation system, about the strongest case one can make in strictly economic terms is that for the South secession was not an altogether unreasonable proposal mainly because the South did not need much that the North really had to offer."

(134): other than economic answers, historians have given three explanations

1. a moral conflict over slavery--but this elides the fact that North never took a radical position on slavery
2. the blunering of politicians--but this is unhhelpful
3. push question back to why political machinery for consensus broke down

(136-137): executive (re)summary of the argument--"...The fundamental issue became more and more whether the machinery of the federal government should be used to support one society or the other..."

(140): alternative way of framing it: causes for unity were being undermined--"it is difficult to find a case in history where two different regions have developed economic systems based on diametrically opposite principles and yet remained under a central government that retained real authority in both areas... Cohesive forces appear to have been weak..."

(140-141): there was also, he's arguing, neither (1) a strong working-class in the North, nor (2) threat of foreign power which could bind North and South together under a common banner (Germany 1871, Japan 1868 are said to have been examples of this)

(141): in sum--"...[T]he ultimate causes of the war are to be found in the growth of different economic systems... Two further factors made compromise extremely difficult. The future of the West appeared uncertain in such a way as to make the distribution of power at the center uncertain... Secondly... the main forces of cohesion in American society... were still very weak."

4. The Revolutionary Impulse and its Failure (141-148)

(141): Unlike the French Revolution and, partly, unlike England, there was no real "radical upsurge" during the Civil War [here we need 'Black Reconstruction' and the others--the 'new' histories of the Civil War, even if the kind of argument Moore is making is still defensible (no artisans, sans-culottes, though?)]

(142): slave outbreaks had no political consequences? To the DuBois!

(141-145): Thaddeus Stevens and Radical Republicans provided the revolutionary impulse that did exist, intending to wage 'progressive capitalism's' war on the 'baron and serf' slavery (combination of workers, industrialists, and some railroad interests at its height, in 1865-1868). The South were to be treated as a 'conquered people', and their society reconstructed (land reform, land confiscation, 'forty acres and a mule').

(146-147): The 1867 reconstruction acts floundered, though, because "influential Northern sentiment was in no mood to tolerate an outright attack on property... The failure of land reform was a decisive defeat and removed the heart of the Radical program."

(147): In the absence of this radical reconstruction, there was a move towards a new form of labor--not wage labor (which didn't work, when attempted first), but sharecropping.

(148): this didn't enrich the planters, but it did have the effect of making the South more of a one-crop economy than before (as everyone was pressed to grow cash-crop)

(148): key--of course, 1876 marks the return to normalcy--as elite moderates make an alliance across battle lines (Hayes-Tilden), and occupational regime is finally dismantled. "...the classic conservative coalition was possible. So came Thermidor to liquidate the 'Second American Revolution'"

5. The Meaning of the War (149-155)

(149-152): War gave a massive boost to industrial capitalism through permitting policies that would never have been tolerated, without it (high tariffs, end of slavery, subsidies, national banking and currency system). At the same time, this was not why the war happened, again--industrial capitalism did not necessarily have to regard plantation slavery as an obstacle; slavery was an obstacle to the establishment of democracy, however (and democracy is not a prerequisite of industrial capitalism--Germany, Japan).

(152): "Slavery was a threat and an obstacle to a society that was indeed the heir of the Puritan, American, and French Revolutions."

(153): "Striking down slavery was a decisive step, an act at least as important as the striking down of absolute monarchy in the English Civil War and the French REvolution..."

PART THREE: THEORETICAL IMPLICATIONS AND PROJECTIONS

Chapter Seven, The Democratic Route to Modern Society (413-432)

(413): again, three routes to the modern world

1. the route of the bourgeois revolution
2. capitalist road without a revolutionary surge (German and Japanese examples)
   
3. the communist road
   

(414): presentation of these as "successive historical stages," but it's unclear how and why, at this stage.

(415): Western feudalism predisposed societies toward the parliamentary path, because of certain institutions it contained--"immunity of certain groups from the ruler, conception of right of resistance to unjust authority." [come on, though, this is quite unconvincing--reading into the relationship of lord to vassal the modern concept of the contract?]

(416): Marx's concept of an oriental despotism that coordinates the irrigation system he finds unconvincing, though it can be a starting point.

(417): as regards the process of modernization, "one point is clear:" persistence of royal absolutism or a hulking bureaucracy is not favorable to democracy. At the same time, they were important to 'checking' the nobility.

(417): a decisive precondition, too, "has been the emergence of a rough balance between the crown and the nobility... The pluralist notion that an independent nobility is an essential ingredient in the growth of democracy has a firm basis in historical fact." [but what about France?]

(418): but the nobility does need a bourgeoisie--if it seeks its freedom outside of this alliance, democracy is not the result (Russia as an example of this)

(418): ok--strong agreement with the "Marxist thesis that a vigorous and independent class of town dwellers has been an indispensable element in the growth of parliamentary democracy."

(419): furthermore--"among the most decisive determinants influencing the course of subsequent political evolution are whether or not a landed aristocracy has turned to commercial agriculture, and if so, the form that this commercialization has taken."

(419): European feudalism had three main divisions of land. Japan showed resemblances to this arrangment; some similarities in India. China was not like this.

1. the commons
2. the land owned by feudal, worked by peasant
3. peasants' own plots
   

(419-420): there were three main responses to the advance of commerce in the towns, and demands of absolutist rulers for more taxes.

1. English landed aristocracy turned to commercial farming, moving peasants of the lands.
   
2. The French landed elite left the peasants in possession--intensification of the old arrangement (I think). [this led to democracy only because of the Revolution, remember--it could equally have led to the German path]
   
3. In E. Europe you had the manorial reaction--E. German Junkers reduced free peasants to serfdom, and a similar process was at work in Russia (though for political, and not economic reasons).

(420-421): here he is making explicit that the problem is really one of the "form of commercial agriculture," and not simply the fact (or non-fact) of commercialization.

(421-422): a 'cultural' explanation is quite unconvincing, he's arguing. agreed.

(422): important--"Where it has been possible for landlords to make use of the coercive apparatus of the state in order to sit back and collect rents, a phenomenon found widely in Asia and to some extent in prerevolutionary France and Russia, there is clearly no incentive to turn to less repressive adaptations."

(423): there are therefore at least three major variables:

1. the relationship of the aristocracy to the monarchy
2. the response of the aristocracy to commercialization
3. the relationship of the landed upper classes with the bourgeoisie

(424): there is the classic rural-urban cleavage, and then there are class divisions within each--so there are a wide variety of permutations of alliances, with varying outcomes (in Tudor and Stuart England, a vigorous alliance)

(424): and here's an odd, contingent point, that throws the comparisons into doubt, I feel -- one that opens into the question of the 'permanent revolution', though: "the English bourgeoisie from the 17th through much of the 19th century had a maximum material stake in human freedom because it was the first bourgeoisie and hand not yet brought its foreign and domestic rivals to their full powers."

(426): again, England and the US (for different reasons) were the only countries to escape the peasant question (he attributes the "instability of French democracy in the 20th century to this fact").

(426): the role of violence--the English Civil War, the French Revolution, and the American Civil War

(427): provided the distinctions between the cases remain clear, "it is necessary to group revolutions by the broad institutional results to which they contribute."

(428): KEY, Barrington Moore against the classic concept of the bourgeois-democratic revolution--"..this meaning of the bourgeois revolution is such a simplification as to be a caricature of what took place. To see that it is a caricature we need only recall

1. the importance of capitalism in the English countryside, which enabled the landed elite to control the political machinery
2. the weakness of any purely bourgeois impulse in the French case, and the importance, therefore, of radical elements; and the continuation of the peasant economy into present-day
   
3. the fact that plantation slavery was an obstacle to democracy, certainly, but not so much to capitalism.
   

(430): "in a word, the landed upper classes either helped to make the bourgeois reovlution or were destroyed by it."

(430): once more, an executive summary of FIVE conditions (looking at these, through India):

1. first condition is to develop a balance, in order to avoid too strong a crown or too independent a landed aristocracy.
   
2. a turn toward an appropriate form of commercial agriculture either on the part of the landed aristocracy or the peasantry.
   
3. weakening of the landed aristocracy, if not commercial
4. prevention of an aristocratic-bourgeois coalition against peasants and workers (typical when the bourgeoisie is weak, and the basis for authoritarianism)
5. a revolutionary break with the past

Chapter Eight, Revolution from Above and Fascism (433-452)

(432): in Germany and Japan, you have capitalism in agriculture and industry, but no popular upheaval

(434-435): critical distinction, labor-repressive labor system vs. market labor system--the crux of his distinction between the English example (and the West of the US) and the Japanese, German, Russian, and even French cases is the form of surplus extraction. in the latter case, a reliance on a 'labor-repressive' system (rather than the labor market) to ensure an adequate labor force and adequate surplus ties the landed aristocracy to the State apparatus. [this is precisely where Skocpol pushes back--to her, the distinction between the two on the basis of their political implications is not admissable; it is rather another way of assessing the claim about the strength of the central bureaucracy]

(436): this seems deeply problematic--from the subordination to the House of Hohenzollern in the 1600's and 1700s, he's reading ideas of subordination to a central institution that he links to fascism! too ambitious, and he immediately acknowledges this. so where does it leave the claim?

(437-438): interesting, citing Marx and Engels on the German 1848--a bourgeoisie which was to weak to rule, and for the right to make money threw in its lot with the landed aristocracy and the royal bureaucracy (this will not, though, bring fascism in and of itself, just a conservative modernization from above--that only happens under the inability of these democracies to cope and to bring about fundamental structural changes). If this coalition is wanting, he adds, you move towards Russia and China.

(438): and what he's noting about fascism, let us remember, is the significant role of the landed elite (made possible by the failure of peasants to band together with urban strata)

(438-439): discussing the rationalization of the new order in Germany and Japan in the 1800s, which had already been done, in England and France, under royal absolutism.

(440): the State, obviously, was critical for incipient industrialization, and the taming of the labor force (but this is perhaps where the contrast with the other examples becomes blurred, a la Skocpol's claim?)

(441): raising the question of the autonomy of the State structure, which is posed, though unclearly, here--it must be able to "free itself from the influence of both extreme reactionary and popular or radical pressures in the society, something that can happen rather more easily than simplified versions of Marxism would allow us to believe."

(442): ultimately, though, these regimes are in a bind, because modernization will require changes in social structure, which they want to stabilize. the answer to this, he's arguing, is militarism.

(443): drawing parallels between McCarthyism and the situation in England, during and after the Napoleonic Wars.

(444): this is the real question--why did England, in its reactionary phase during the Napoleonic Wars, not launch itself onto the reactionary path of a Germany or Japan--the answer, critically, was the relative weakness of the repressive apparatus, in England. [one thinks Skocpol will pick up, right here; whereas for Moore this pushes the question back]

(445): he's playing with the 'fascist' possibility in the Russian case, but for me this is revealing how undefined the term itself has been, till this point.

(446): again, this needs lengthy interrogation--"...the Russian peasants were revolutionary and eventually the major force in exploding the old regime."

(446): Fascism and the Subcontinent

(447-8): Fascism, a provision definition--"Fascism is inconceivable without... the entrance of the masses onto the historical stage. Fascism was an attempt to make reaction and conservatism popular and plebian... [It] stressed not only the inevitability of hierarchy, discipline, and obedience, but also positied that they were values in their own right... Another feature was the stress on violence... Plebian anticapitalism thus appears as the feature that most clearly distinguishes 20th century fascism from its predecessors, the nineteenth-century conservative and semiparliamentary regimes..."

(448-449): Fascism and the peasantry--most successful in appeal to the peasant whose holding was relatively small and unprofitable for the particular area in which it existed" [the 'little fellow'--seduced by the romantic image of an idealized peasant. though, it goes without saying, this was only ever an ideological justification, rather than a policy pursued by the Nazis]

(450-451): example of Japan, Italy--same pseudoradical and propeasant features, though in the latter especially, this was entirely opportunistic and ideological (policy catered to big agriculture, after Mussolini took power)

Chapter Nine, The Peasants and Revolution (453-583)

(453): "The process of modernization begins with peasant revolutions that fail. It culminates during the 20th century with peasant revolutions that succeed." [catchy -- but the first part is not clear]

(453): recovering the peasant as a subject of history, after he/she had been dismissed

(453-45 ): we want to understand what triggers peasant revolutions, and why. at this stage, certain theories can be dismissed:

1. not simple deterioration of living, owing to impact of commerce and industry (think India--even if there have been upheavals)
2. not a threat to peasant existence (i.e. enclosrues)
3. where nobility lives amongst peasantry, less likely? (no, look at Russia)
4. landless labor, large rural proletariat--but this doesn't explain the Russian Revolution, or even the Chinese Revolution, really
5. religion? but it's always wielded by upper classes, interpreted differently by lower classes

(457): rather, he's arguing, we ought not to focus on the peasantry--we need to think about the upper classes (peasant rebellions typically take on the character of the social structure that animates them--restore the Good Tsar, dynastic change, etc.)

(459): the general hypothesis--it is society's with a central authority that are more vulnerable to rebellion; but where regulation is diffuse (i.e., the caste system), rebellion is less likely. [this is useful, because England and France seem to fit the model, too, though he doesn't acknowledge this in the same way...]

(459-460): if landed elites take up commercial agriculture, the more limited the rebellion

(462): discussing the context leading up to the Peasant War in Germany--enserfment was the response, there, to the rise of an export market in grain

(466): the aristocratic victory in the Peasant War, he's arguing, foreclosed the possibility of liberal democracy emerging (since, presumably, it consolidated a labor-repressive system of surplus extraction)

(467): English squire vs. German Junker

1. the former turned to commercial agriculture, destroyed the social organization of the peasantry through enclosures--no peasant war
2. the latter turned to serfdom in the face of the export trade--faced with peasant war

(467-468): a definition of modernization, from the perspective of the peasantry

1. production for the market
2. peace and order over a wide area; the creation of a strong central gov't

(468-75): argument is that three things seem important, re: peasant rebellion

1. character of link to the overlords (landlord, priest)--when strong, chances of rebellion are feeble
   
2. class divisions within the peasantry
3. and degree of cohesiveness within the peasantry [he is also making a distinction between revolutionary and conservative forms of solidarity--the latter is, in the main, a modern phenomenon (this is the context of Marx's comment on the peasantry being a 'sack of potatoes'--it's the effect of commerce, industry and a capitalist legal framework, at least in part, which encourages competition between households in a village]
   

(470-471): subjective interpretation of exploitation as a cause is clearly tautological; so an objective explanation is demanded.

(477-478): "To sum up, the most important causes of peasant revolutions have been the absence of a commercial revolution in agriculture... and the concomitant survival of peasant social institutions into the modern era... Where the peasant community survives, as in Japan, it must remain closely linked to the dominant class in the countryside if revolution is to be avoided."

(479): "By themselves peasants have never been able to accomplish a revolution. On this point the Marxists are absolutely correct, wide of the mark though they are on other crucial aspects. The peasants have to have leaders from other classes..." [And anyway,] "peasant revolts have been repressed far more often than they have succeeded."

(481): noting that artisans and journeymen played a much more important role than Marxist theory might lead us to believe (this is Craig's intervention, as well, but there it is 1848 under scrutiny)

(481): deeply unsatisfactory account of the Russian Revolution











--

(1) there is a preliminary problem in the opposition of democracy to communist dictatorship, but we will keep this on the shelf for when the concepts are elucidated further.

(2) the question-begging character of the argument, which almost inheres in its Weberian set-up. we can always, it seems, push the chain of causality back. our task is to think through when this is useful, and when it is not. (example of impulse given by wool trade, in 1300s/1400s England--can we not ask to have this pushed back, further? or is it simply a contingent factor?)

(3) obvious problem in Russia's case was that the peasantry did not, in the slightest, 'lead' the revolution. it will be interesting to see how he justifies the claim that they constituted the decisive revolutionary impulse; it is, certainly, more defensible, but still requires some reconciling to the larger narrative of Bolshevik triumph.

(4) cleavages in the revolution; poorer elements doing dirty work. one can see why this might culminate in 1848, and 'permanent revolution'

(5) increasing lack of democracy in the aftermath of the civil war, for the peasantry (pg. 21)

(6): Stalin as condensation of the typical violence, rather than atypical, which is inherent in the path of modernization.

(7) the critique of Moore that the German and Japanese examples are disingenuous, because their fascist 'phases' were temporary, raises the more fundamental question, i think, of what in each example we can treat as a true 'characteristic', and what we treat as 'temporary'. this is, of course, fundamental--the balance of contingency and theory is the challenge of any good history.

alexander rabinowitch, the bolsheviks come to power (1976)

Introduction

(xvi): "I have elected to focus attention on the revolution in Petrograd for several related reasons. First, Petrograd was, after all, the capital... of immense significance in determining the course of the revolution throughout the country... the country's most important commercial and industrial center... finally, because in 1917 the national headquarters of the Bolshevik Party and the center of Bolshevik activities were in Petrograd, it is there that one can best study botht he party's operations from top to bottom..."

(xvii): "Historians in the Soviet Union have stressed historical inevitability and the role of a tightly knit revolutionary party led by Lenin in accounting for the outcome of the October revolution, while many Western scholars have viewed this event either as an historical accident or, more frequently, as the result of a well executed coup d'etat... I find, however, that a full explanation of the Bolshevik seizure of power is much more complex than any of these interpretations suggest. Studying the aspirations of factory workers, soldiers, and sailors as expressed in contemporary documents, I find that these concerns corresponded closely to the program of political, economic, and social reform put forth by t he Bolsheviks at a time when all other major political parties were widely discredited because of their failure to press hard enough for meaningful internal changes an immediate end to Russia's participation in the war. As a result, in October the goals of the Bolsheviks, as the masses understood them, had strong popular support" [more or less the argument]

(xvii): "In Petrograd in 1917 the Bolshevik Party bore little resemblance to the by-and-large united, authoritarian, conspiratorial organization controlled by Lenin depicted in most existing accounts... "

(xvix): "...To judge by his writings of March 1917, he seems not to have appreciated the degree to which socialist leaders in Petrograd had cooperated with liberals in the formation of the Provisional Government, or the extent to which the population at large, at least for the moment, acquiesced in this development. Lenin asumed that revolutionary Russian workers, having helped bring down the regime of Nicholas II, would instinctively see that a bourgeois government would do no more than the tsarist regime to fulfill their keenest aspirations..."

(xx): Kamenev, a Bolshevik since 1903, did not agree with Lenin -- working class was too weak, neither the peasantry nor the foreign bourgeosie would permit socialism. supported the war pending negotiated peace.

(xx-xxi): Rabinowtch highlighting the lack of influence of the Central Committee over 'regional organizations' at this time; "...the doors opened wide to tens of thousands of new members..., so that to a significant degree the party was now both responsive and open to the massess..."

(xxi): key--"...my research suggests that the relative flexibility of the party, as well as its responsiveness to the prevailing mass mood, had at least as much to do with the ultimate Bolshevik victory as did revolutionary discipline, organizational unity, or obedience to Lenin..."

(xxii): John Harold Snodgrass in NYT in March 1917: "'Nowhere in their country could the Russian people have found better men to lead them out of the darkness of tyranny... Lvov and his associates are to Russia what Washington and his associates were to America...'"

(xxii): "... most friends of Russia abroad believed that because the new ministers had been selected by the Duma... they could speak for the population. This was not an altogether valid assumption. The Fourth Duma, in session in 1917, had been elected in 1912 under regulations that excluded the bulk of the population from the franchise..."

(xxiii): May and June saw All-Russian Congress of Peasant and Worker/Soldier Soviets, respectively -- and, with this, the formation of the respective Executive Committees

(xxiii): "The situation that confronted Lenin upon his return to Russia in April, therefore, differed dissapoinintgly from what he had anticipated." [weak Bolshevik influence among workers and soldiers / most socialists supported Provisional Government and war effort / and moderate Bolsheviks within his ranks]

(xxiv): Lenin intransigent on war effort, scuppering hopes of Bolshevik-Menshevik unity

(xxiv): April Theses published April 7th in Pravda; situation in Russia was between 'bourgeois democratic' and 'socialist' phases. "Yet Lenin's message no longer included an immediate call to arms. As long as the masses retained faith in the bourgeoisie, Lenin explained, the party's primary task was to expose the fradulence of the Provisional Government..." [This marginal moderation, Rabinowich is arguing, allowed him to win majority of Bolsheviks to his side--won a resolution condeminng the Provisional Government in April Petrograd Conference. At the All-Russian Conference, also won victories, reflected in the conference resolution condemning the PG as an ally of counterrevolution. But moderate influence still existed within the Party...]

(xxv): "Taken together, the April Conference resolutions pointed the party vaguely toward the socialist revolution while leaving unanswered the crucial questions 'How?' and 'When?'"

(xxv): "...Yet in the weeks that followed, among workers, soldiers, and sailors in the capital, support for the repudiation of the Provisional Government and the transfer of state power to the soviets grew with astonishing speed. This was partly because of widespread disenchantment with the results of the February revolution. Deteriorating economic conditions... critical shortages of housing, food, clothing, fuel, and raw materials... the gap between wages and the rising cost of living widened... The February revolution did not aleviate these difficulties; on the contrary, administrative confusion increased in March and April... [resulting in] extensive additional layoffs..."

(xxvi): "... this traditional core had been squandered in the campaigns of 1914-1916... Consequently, by 1917 most of the troops stationed in and around Petrograd, including those in regiments of the guard, were poorly trained wartime recruits... Military discipline was foreign to these soldiers; a high percentage had had their fill of duty at the front... The Provisional Government's patriotic declarations...were to them understandably disturbing. For these reasons, by the late spring of 1917 rapidly growing numbers of Petrograd workers and soldiers and Baltic Fleet sailors viewed the Provisional Government increasingly as an organ of the propertied classes..."

(xxvi-xxviii): April Crises prompt shakeup of PG; among others, Tsereteli (Mensehvik) and Chernov (SR) take positions in the PG (six socialists, in all, enter -- not including Kerensky). This is out of 15, total. But this coalition, formed in May, was incapacitated by the split in its ranks -- "in the realm of foreign policy the government chose simultaneously to upgrade the combat readiness of the armed forces in preparation for a summer offensive and to encourage negotiations aimed at achieving a compromise peace..."

(xxviii): "Once they had joined the first coalition, the moderate socialists became identified in the popular mind with the shortcomings of the Provisional Government. Only the Bolsheviks, among the major Russian political groups, remained untainted by association with the government and were therefore completely free to organize opposition to it..."

(xxviii): "To the peasant-soldiers of hte garrison, the Bolsheviks proclaimed: If you don't want to die at the front, if you don't want the reinstitution of tsarist discipline... power must be transferred to the soviets. Of particular interest to workers, the Bolsheviks demanded tight soviet control over all phases of the economy, higher wages, an eight-hour working day, worker control in the factories, and an end to inflation..."

(xxviii-xxix): Petrograd membership numbers: February, 2,000; April, 16,000; June, 32,000.

(xxx-xxxi): June 9 Bolshevik demonstration against war cancelled; June 18th mass march organized by Congress of Soviets. "Though the Mensheviks and SRs worked feverishly to insure the success of the march, their plans backfired... the moderate socialist Soviet leadershp watched long columns of workers and soldiers... parade by, holding aloft crimson banners bearing the slogans: 'Down with the Ten Minister-Capitalists!'... The sea of Bolshevik banners and placards, all contemporary observers agreed, was broken only occasionally by slogans endorsed by the Congress..."

(xxxi): important--Bolsheviks strong in capital, but country-wide balance of forces "was mirrored in the makeup of the First Congress of Soviets (June 1917): in attendance were 533 registered Mensheviks and SRs, and 105 Bolsheviks."

(xxxii): July 4 rising, despite Lenin's attempts to restrain the more radical elements in the party.

Chapter 1, The July Uprising

(3): "despite differences as to the precise issue that had triggered the movement... virtually all commentators seemed agreed that the Bolsheviks, more than any other political group, were to blame for the trouble.."

(3): dimensions of food crisis

(4): factory owners suffering lack of fuel and raw materials, "urg[ing] that the government inform the public of the nature and causes of the developing situation so that laid-off workers would not hold factory owners responsible for their situation."

(4): land seizures in rural areas, as government conducts hearings on land reform

(5): announcement from Germany that military high command tightened grip with resignation of Bethmann-Holweg

(5): Kerensky offensive on June 18; German counterattack on July 6

(6): "the objectives of the war were incomprehensible to most of the soldiers, and they were angered by the knowledge that while the Soviet was trying to arrange a just peace, the government was preparing to launch a new offensive..."

(7-8): description of a segregated Petrograd -- workers clustered around the peripheries, center as the site of the elite

(8-9): Bolsheviks headquartered in the Kshesinskaia mansion

(9-10): Lenin speaking to Kronstadt sailors very ambivalently (initially refused to speak at all), calling for peaceful demonstration

(10): key--"The previous day's developments had reconfirmed that among workers and soldiers in the capital, the Provisional Government had little support. The Soviet leadership, however, was still determined not to yield to mass pressure. Majority socialists remained convinced that neither the provicial population nor the army at the front would support a transfer of power to the soviets... They feared that by breaking with the liberals and the business and industrial circiles who supported them they would run the risk of weakening the war effort and enhancing the likelihood of successful counterrevolution... In weighing these alternatives Lenin [too] considered the potential reaction of the provinces and the front to be of decisive importance..." [this last point is quite critical--to be cited when the Bolsheviks are chastized for not having roots in the provinces. they knew this, and wrestled with it.]

(12): "Other authoritative figures who probably appealed for caution on this occasion were Trotsky and Grigorii Zinoviev... They were adamant in their insistence that the demonstrations should be peaceful [once to both of them it became clear that the masses could not be restrained]"

(12-13): Volodarsky calling for an all-Socialist provisional government (aware of loyalty of workers to Soviet)

(13): and radicals calling for "decisive military action"

(14): Lenin as "German agent" [a portion of German money was funneled to the Bolsheviks, apparently--but made no difference, and most Bolshevik leaders unaware...]

(15): Soviet statement of support for PG

(16): sum of July Days--"...the goal of the radical elements in the Petrograd garrison and of the Bolshevik extremists... had been the overthrow of the PG. In belatedly supporting the movement, most party leaders probably held out the hope that the pressure of the streets would be enough to force the All-Russian Executive Committees to take power into their own hands. As it turned out, neither the extremists' aims nor the more limited hopes of party moderates were realized. The impatient workers, soldiers, and sailors of Petrograd who until now had flocked behind the Bolsheviks emerged from the July experience compromised and, temporarily at lest, demoralized..."

Chapter 2, The Bolsheviks Under Fire

(19): Plekhanov far-gone -- accepting the accusations against Lenin as fact

(19): "...with the lone exception of Maxim Gorky's Novaia zhizn', the entire socialist press rejected Bolshevik claims that the July movement had been spontaneous and called for decisive measures to deal with extremism as insistently as did liberal and rightis papers..."

(21): Kerensky becomes Prime Minister, after Lvov and others resign from the cabinet ("Declaration of Principles" announced on July 8, calling for land reform, labor legislation, etc.)

(24-25): Martov calling at meeting of Executive Committee for the taking of power in the name of the Soviet--"events would soon show that Martov's vision of a revolutionary soviet government uniting all socialist elements, carrying out a broad program of reform... corresponded quite closely to the aspirations of the politically conscious Petrograd masses. We shall see, for example, that precisely these goals were expressed in the disucssions and resolutions of most district-level soviets... Within the SR-Menshevik eladersihp at this time, however, Martov's views were shared by a relatively small minority."

(25): Kerensky resignation/frustration, new cabinet formed instead late July--"this meant that the Soviet's leverage over the government was further reduced... On this basis, the second coalition... came into being (7 liberals, 8 socialists]"

(28): Kerensky in the AP--"'My government will save Russia, and if the motives of reason, honor, and conscience prove inadequate, it will beat her into unity with blood and iron.'"

(28-29): "Steps [were taken] ... military commanders were authorized to fire on Russian units fleeing the field of battle on their own. Bolshevik newspapers were banned from all theaters of military operations. Political meetings among front troops were strictly forbidden..."

(29-30): crackdown on Bolsheviks; Kamenev arrested.

(31): "As arrests of suspected leftists mounted, few non-Bolsheviks challenged the government. Among those who did were MArtov; Trotsky; and Anatolii Lunacharsky... At a Central Executive Committee meeting on July 17, for example, Trotsky staunchly defended the behavior of the Bolsheviks throughout the July days and mocked the idea of Lenin's being a German agent..."

(32): Trotsky arrested as well, July 23

(33-34): discussions about whether Lenin should be in hiding, or surrender to expose the regime in trial

(34-35): Lenin in Finland (works on The State and Revolution, at this time)

(37): interesting--"There was no use talking further about a Constituent Assembly, Lenin felt, because the 'victors' would not convene it; the party ought therefore to marshal what stregnth it had left and go underground 'seriously and for a long time.'"

Chapter 3, Petrograd During the Reaction

(41): Kerensky at the Cossacks' funeral, July 15

(42): "What was most astounding about the post-July days reaction in Petrograd was how quickly the prevailing political climate appeared to have shifted..."

(43): the days of reaction gave impetus to the Right, street violence placing the blame on Jews and workers... "...One speaker put particular emphasis on Jewish domination of the central organs of the Russian democracy.' The assembled crowd would not disperse until broken up by a detachment of soldiers and militiamen."

(45): reactionary sentiments expressed at meeting of the Provisional Committee of the Duma, July 18

(46): "...for the left and especially for the Bolsheviks these were indeed difficult days, subsequently remembered by many revolutionary veterans as perhaps the roughest in the history of the party..."

Chapter 4, The Ineffectiveness of Repression

(51): key--"...one can see that those who facilely wrote off Bolshevism as a potent political force in the mid-summer of 1917 failed completely to take account of the basic concerns and great potential power of the Petrograd masses and of the enormous attraction that a revolutionary political and social program like that of the Bolsheviks held for them. At the same time, such people were obviously misled by the torrent of toughsounding decrees emanating from the Winter Palace; the read into the actions of the Provisional Government a singleness of purpose and degree of strength and effectiveness that it simply did not possess... almost none of the major repressive measures adopted by the cabinet during this period either was fully implemented or successfully achieved its objectives..."

(52): "most of the [Bolsheviks'] roughly thirty-two thousand members were not disturbed by the authorities. Those leftists actually jailed were not formally indicted for some time, if at all, and the October revolution intervened before any of them were brought to trial.. The Provisional Government's fundamental weakness and lack of credibility among the masses were probably the main reasons for its lack of success in disarming civilians... "

(55-57): gov't botching the case of the imprisioned Bolsheviks, poor prosecution -- their release becoming cause celebre amongst socialists by late in July

(59): July 13, secret Bolshevik strategy conference--"In these theses [for the conference] Lenin argued that the counterrevolution, fully supported by the Mensheviks and SRs, had managed to take full control of the government and the revolution. Not only the moderate socialist parties but also the Soviet had become 'mere fig leaves of the counter-revolution... Now that the counterrevolution had consolidated itself and the soviets were powerless, there was no longer, in his estimation, any possibility that the revolution might develop peacefully. The party's pre-July orientation toward transfer of power to the soviets... had to be abandoned. The only tactical course left to the party was to prepare for an eventual armed uprising and transfer of power to the proletariat and poorer peasantry..."

(60): "Lenin's ideas were the subject of fierce debate... When the theses were put to a vote, they were decisively rejected, ten of the fifteen party officials attending the conference voting against them...

(60): "In contrast to Lenin's view that the moderate socialists had completely sold out to the government..., this resolution, while acknowledging that the Kerensky government was a dictatorship, implied that it was not yet fully 'under the thumb of the counterrevolution.'" [demand was qualified to 'All Power to the Revolutionary Soviets']

(61): "When this resolution is compared with the course Lenin was advocating, one of the things that emerges most distinctly is the reluctance of its authors to give up the hope of cooperating with other socialist elements..."

(61-62): Lenin responds in 'On Slogans'

(62): "For the time being, however, Lenin was on the outside looking in..."

(62): damage, in sum, to Bolsheviks was "superficial and easily overcome..."

(64): "...the one development that all feared most--mass defections--had not materialized..."

(66): " [in the context of Stalin's address to the Second Petrograd City Conference, July 16--his remarks, on behalf of the Central Committee, were very poorly received] Stalin's views on the development of the revolution corresponded closely to those of Kamenev, but after Lenin's return to Russia he swung sharply leftward. By the midle of June he could be counted among the ultramilitants within the Bolshevik leadership..."

(66-69): important pages--here a discussion unfolding, at this meeting, about whether or not the soviets have betrayed the revolution, and to what extent can the reaction be considered a triumph of the counterrevolution. counter-argument is that the soviets are actually drifting leftward, even if the Menshevik-SR leadership is drifting to the right, that the counterrevolution has been temporary and the soviets are salvageable.

(70): "more markedly than in the case of workers, soldiers of the Petrograd garrison appear to have turned against the Bolsheviks after the July experience. This was probably in part because a relatively higher percentage of solider-Bolsheviks were undisciplined, politically inexperienced newcomers whose loyalty to the party were tenuous..."

(71): int question of utility of specifically military organizing--"supporters of military organizations contended that regular military forces were a key factor in every modern revolution... critics of military organizations argued that the potential costs of such organs in terms of duplication of effort and loss of control far outweighted whatever benefits... it is not surprising, then, that the apparent involvement of the Bolshevik Military Organization in the preparation of the July uprising without authorization from the Central committee intensified criticism of the organization..." (see intra party struggle between these organs, documented on the pages that follow)

(72): July 28, Sixth Party Congress

(75): late July -- "'Among soldiers, Kerensky's latest decrees, especially his reinstitution of the death penalty, have caused a terrible stirr and explosion of hostility toward officers."

(76): key--"The fact that repressive measures undertaken by the Kerensky administration had the entirely unintended effect of hieghtening popular suspicion of the government... is clearly reflected in numerous documents of the time..."

(76): discussion of the formation of district soviets--Rabinowith's entirely plausible argument is that the proceedings of these soviets (some 12 by May) is the best indicator of the mood of the people. the Soviet, on the other hand, and the Executive Committees were staffed by intellectuals and politicos...

(77): key--"One of the most striking observations that emerges from study of the district soviets between late April and early August is the divergence that developed during this time between the political outlook of the district soviets, on the one hand, and the central Soviet organs, on the other..."

(77): "A second feature that emerges... during the summer of 1917 is the expanding influence within them of leftist groups such as the Menshevik-Internationalists, the Interdistrict Committee, and the Bolsheviks..."

(78): important, the reaction/conspiracy in context--"What the relevant documents indicate most clearly is that in the aftermath of the July uprising, most district soviets were not interested in either condemning or defending the Bolsheviks. Their primary concern was with such matters as the government's effort to disarm workers and to transfer radicalized soldiers from the capital, the reinstitution of capital punishment at the front..."

(79-80): absolutely brilliant communique against the reinstitution of the death penalty by a district soviet

Chapter 5, The Bolshevik Resurgence

(83): The Sixth Congress opens

(84-85): Larin's appeal for unity, problematizing the soviets

(86-87): key--"All Power to the Soviets" vs. 'All Power to the proletariat supported by the poorer peasants and revolutionary democracy organized in the soviets of workers, soldiers', and peasants' deputies' vs. what?

(88-89): compromise resolution adopted

(89): in sum--"What then was the significance of the programmatic decisions of the Sixth Congress? Officially, the slogan 'All Power to the Soviets' was now withdrawn. It is missing from all official Bolshevik Party documents throughout the month of August. Beyond this, however, the decisions seem to have had little practical impact... the party's decisions notwithstanding, many mass organizations in Petrograd continued to view the creation of a revolutionary soviet government as the solution to their most pressing problems..."

(90): "by early August there were numerous unmistakable signs that with it apparatus intact, the Bolshevik Party had embarked on a new period of growth..."

(90): nice--"Factory workers and garrison soldiers could recall their representatives in the Soviet whenever they saw fit, and during the first half of August Bolshevik supporteres... [substituted] Bolsheviks for deputies advocating the programs of the moderate socialists..."

(92-93): results of elections to the City Duma (Bolsheviks second to the SRs; then the Kadets, then the Mensheviks)

Chapter 6, The Rise of Kornilov

(95): amid impending chaos (and triggered by German occupation of Riga)--"for these groups, the lone remaining hope of restoring order at the front and arresting chaos in the rear seemed to be an alliance of antisocialist liberal and conservative forces and the establishment of a strong dictatorship dedicated to the task of eliminating conflicting sources of political authority (most importantly, the Soviet0, bridling the revolution, and marshaling the Russian population in defense of the motherland..."

(95-96): gathering of various pro-coup factions, banker/industrialist alliance with military officers

(99): role of Savinkov, "a revolutionary extremist who turned rabid chauvinist under the impact of the Great War."

(99-100): one of Kerensky's first actions as Prime Minister (after July 8th) was to appoint Kornilov as commander of the southwestern front... Kornilov putting pressure for restoration of capital punishment, etc.

(100): "in rightist circles, Kornilov's stock soared while the government's took a corresponding plunge. Among the masses, meanwhile, Kornilov's image as perhaps the foremost symbol of counterrevolutionary was significantly reinforced..."

(100-101): July 16 council at General Staff HQ, "...one after one they blasted the Soviet and the PG in general, as well as Kerensky personally... As one of the front commanders declared: 'There cannot be dual authority in the army. The army must have one head and one authority.'"

(102): after council, Kerensky promoted Kornilov to commander-in-chief. "It was probably Kornilov's reputation for severity and toughness, rather than his alleged readiness to accomodate revolutionary change, that now made him attractive to Kerensky. What the army needed... was a strong personality at its head... The selection of Kornilov had the added advantage of being extremely popular with disgruntled liberals and conservatives and with the nonsocialist press..."

(104-105): back-and-forth between Kerensky and Kornilov concerns use of repression in army, officers' authority, bounds of legitimacy of the democratic committees (Cheremisov as alternate candidate for commander-in-chief?).

(107): icy encounter between Kerensky and Kornilov in Petrograd, August 10, but Kerensky agrees, in principle, to Kornilov's August 3 program for restoration of authority in army

(109): "...In view of the unpopularity of the steps envisioned in Kornilov's program among the Petrograd masses and their likely response to its implementation, the roop dispositions made by Kornilov during the first half of August were advisable whether the army ultimately acted alone or in cooperation with Kerensky. It appears that Kornilov, unlike many of his supporters, still held out some hope that the government would take stock of its situation and submit to his authority peacefully..."

Chapter 7, Kornilov Versus Kerensky

(110): Moscow State Conference, August 12 to August 14 (amid fear of Kornilov coup)--"...the delegates were split between liberals and conservatives, by and large staunchly supportive of Kornilov and of stringent measures to restore order, and moerate socialists, who recognized the need for firm government but continued to insist on tempting repression with at least modest steps toward reform."

(111): more-or-less successful Bolshevik-organized wildcat strike on the day of the conference--"the impact of the strike bore witness to the power and sentiment of the working classes and the resurgence of Bolshevik influence"

(113): priceless--"Trying to walk a tightrope between the left and right, Kerensky in his opening address... sought salvation in strong words. Turning to the left, he thundered: 'Let everyone who has already tried to use force of arms against the power of the people know that such attempts will be crushed...' Turning next to the right, he roared...: 'At the same time let those who think the time is riped to overthrow the revolutionary government with bayonets, be even more careful...' '[H]e appeared to want to scare somebody... In actuality he only engendered pity.'"

(115): "The Moscow Conference ended on the night of August 15; as a device for uniting diverse elements of Russian society behind the Provisional Government, it had been a total failure. Kerensky came away from the ordeal with an increased awareness of his own isolation."

(116): key--"...if Kerensky had now moved distinctly closer to Kornilov politically, there remained a crucial difference between the two men which goes far toward explaining the events that followed: Kerensky and Kornilov each viewed himself... as the strongman in a new authoritarian government. More than ever, each was contemptuous toward and apprehensive of the other. Kerensky was determined to use Kornilov for his own ends, while Kornilov harbored similar intentions regarding Kerensky. Meanwhile, spurred by the Moscow conference, preparations for a coup by rightist groups at home and at the front were reaching a climax. The stage was set for a final, decisive confrontation."

(117): the putsch plan, for August 27

(124-125): Kerensky's dangerous balancing game comes unbalanced--"...seems to have decided that the wisest course of action was to forestall Kornilov's sympathizers in the canbinet from attempting to compromise with the general at his expense and to keep the lef uninfromed... , while at the same time removing Kornilov as commander-in-chief before the Third Corps reached the outskirts of Petrograd..."

(127): "A significant portion of the military high command now quickly registered solidarity with Kornilov..."

(128): "Almost from the start of the Kornilov crisis, socialist leaders, with a better sense of the mass mood, were confident that the forces bent on the creation of a strong military dictatorship would ultimately be rebuffed..."

Chapter 8, The Bolsheviks and Kornilov's Defeat

(130): meeting of the All-Russian Executive Committees in Smolny, August 28--Bolsheviks talk of Kerensky having invited the crisis, not supporting the PG; moderate socialists accept Kerensky's version of events, support the government (though not his move to create a 'directory' on the model of France from 1795-1799). "...Ultimately adopt[ed] a resolution proposed by Tsereteli pledging full support to the prime minister."

(132): Bolshevik dilemma at this time (moderate socialists needed them for the Committee for Struggle Against the Counterrevolution)

(133): Lenin vexed at fact of cooperation with Mensheviks and SRs in Moscow, for Moscow State Conference--he "was apprehensive that such predilections within the party would hamper the prospect of its acting boldly to take power at an opportune moment..."


(134): "It is well to bear in mind that within the party Soviet fractions, the influence of moderates such as Kamenev was strong throughout the summer of 1917. The right wing of the party had rejected Lenin's radical revolutionary course at the April Conference and later, with less energy, at the Sixth Congress. It did so again the night of August 27-28..."

(136-137): brilliant, inspiring editorial excerpt (from Paris 1871, to Petrograd 1917)

(137): important--"As a sign that the moderate socialist majority in the Soviet was genuinely ready to break with the counterrevolutionary bourgeoisie, the resolution demanded, among other things, the liberation of Bolsheviks jailed following the July uprising, the arrest of counterrevolutionary officers, the preparation of the Petrograd garrison for battle... The resolution also advocated the arming of the workers and the abolition of capital punishment at the front."

(138): "... between August 27 and 30 more than 240 [ad-hoc committees] were formed in various parts of Russia, often by urban and rural soviets..."

(139): "...it would be difficult to find, in recent history, a more powerful, effective display of largely spontaneous and unified mass political action..." [the largely spontaneous needs interrogation, but ok]

(142): Union of Railway Workers

(144): Kronstadt mobilizes!

(144): key--"The overwhelming superiority of the left over the pro-Kornilov forces was quickly evident. Steps taken by the moderate socialists and Bolsheviks to insure that factory workers would not be deceived by rightist agitators achieved their aim..."

(148): glorious--"... at times, echelons of the Savage Division were encircled by local workers and peasants who berated them for betraying the revolution. The troops had not been told the real reason for their movement northward, and, as it turned out, most had little sympathy for Kornilov's objectives..."

(149): "Actually, there were almost no skirmishes betwen Kornilov's forces and those on the government's side uring the entire affair..."

(150): Gen Krymov's suicide

Chapter 9, The Question of a New Government

(152): key, re: Kerensky--"One might have expected that at this point, having suffered so badly at the hands of the right and having witnessed the enormous power of the left, the prime minister would have taken pains to retain the support of the latter. Yet, obsessed more than ever by fear of the extreme left and still intent on somehow strengthening the war effort, Kerensky now behaved almost as if the Kornilov affair had not happened..."

(152): "...the exigencies of the struggle against Kornilov had pulled the moderate socialists leftward into conflict with the government and toward closer alliance with the extreme left..."

(154): "...at the bottom the demands of the masses at this time differed little from what they had been two months earlier..." ["All Power to the Soviets!"]

(156): another excellent communique -- "'We insist on the... abolition of capital punishment, to be effective after the execution of Kornilov... Soldiers' pay should be increased to twenty rubles... The necessary funds should be obtained by confiscating excess profits from plant and factory owners...'"

(158): important--"It is worth noting that even workers in industrial plants that heretofore had been Menshevik and SR strongholds, as well as soldiers in some of the more politically restrained regiments of the garrison--for example, those which initially had remained neutral and subsequently had taken the lead in helping to suppress the July uprising--now turned against the government... The political resolutions passed at this time were inspired by no single party or organization... These statements varied greatly in regard to specifics... However, common to virtually all were concern that Kornilov and his supporters be dealt with harshly so as to avoid further attacks by the 'counterrevolution,' aversion for the immediate creation of some kind of exclusively socialist government which would bring an end to the war..."

(159): meeting of All-Russian Executive Committees on August 31 to consider gov't question--closest, till October, that Mensheviks and SRs came to breaking with gov't

(162): August 31 (later that night), Petrograd Soviet adopts Kamenev's statement (details of the statement pp 159-160)--"...reflected a gradual... leftward shift in the deputies' orientation. It is worth recalling in this connection that on March 2 a Bolshevik resolution opposing assumption of power by the Provisional Government received a mere 19 votes in the Petrograd Soviet, while a resolution sponsored jointly by the Mensheviks and SRs pledging qualified support for the government attracted 400 votes... "

(164): but All-Russian Executive Committee does not go this far, calls for support to Kerensky, September 2. "It would have obviously have been very difficult for the moderate socialists to have acted otherwise. Support for the course proposed by the Bolsheviks would have required the Mensheviks and SRs to repudiate their policies of the preceding six months and abandon their ideal of creating a democratic government representing all classes..."

(165): "...For the time being, the rightist movement was, of course, shattered... Kadet politics virtually ground to a halt ["to some extent unfairly" suspected of being in league with Kornilov]"

(165-166): Mensheviks and SRs in crisis (left SRs emerging as an independent force)

(167): key, in sum--"Among the competitors for power in 1917, then, it is clear that the winners in the Kornilov affair were the Bolsheviks. The defeat of Kornilov testified to the great potential power of the left and demonstrated once again the enormous atrraction of the Bolshevik program. Yet it seems questionable to argue, as some do, that Kornilov's defeat made Lenin's victory inevitable. The mass mood was not specifically Bolshevik in the sense of reflecting a desire for a Bolshevik government... So that whether the party would somehow find the strength of will, organizational discipline, and sensitivity to the complexities of the fluid and possibly explosive situation requisite for it to take power was, at this point, still very much an open question."

Chapter 10, "All Power to the Soviets!"

(170): "[Because of Kornilov affair and as it was unfolding], Lenin now endorsed the possibility of returning to the 'peaceful' pre-July tactical program urged all along by party moderates..."

(171): Lenin on transferring power to the soviets--"'The slogan 'Power to the Soviets' is very often incorrectly interpreted to mean a 'cabinet of the parties of the Soviet majority'... [Not so.] 'Power to the Soviets' means radically reshaping the entire old state apparatus, that bureaucratic apparatus which hampers everything democratic. It means removing this appartus and substituting for it a new popular one... It means allowing the majority of the people initative and independence, not only in the election of deputies, but also in state administration...'"

(172): alas -- Lenin in 'The Russian Revolution and Civil War' ..."'Only the immediate transfer of all power to the soviets would make civil war in Russia impossible...'"

(172): "It is indicative of the spirit of freewheeling debate within the Bolshevik organization in 1917 that even Lenin's new moderation was not accepted without opposition."

(174-175): proposal for proportional representation in the Petrograd Soviet; September 25 a new presidium eas elected, with four Bolsheviks and Trotsky as chair (out of 7)

(177): Democratic State Conference, September 14

(178): "It is worth noting that while Kamenev was speaking out for the creation of a broad, democratic coalition government... and against an exclusively soviet regime, Trotsky urged the transfer of full power to the soviets. This important distinction bespoke fundamentally different views on the development of the Russian revolution which were soon to erupt into one of the bitterest and most important internal controversies in the history of Bolshevism... In the context of the present discussion, however, the crucial point is that both... viewed positively... the prospects for peaceful development of the revolution."

(178-179): September 12-14, Lenin abandons moderation (worried about capitulation of Petrograd, seeing radical agitation around him in Finland)

(180): key--"...a successful insurrection had to be timed to occur when the activity of the advanced ranks was at its height, while, on the other hand, vacillations within the enemy camp were at their strongest... He contrasted the existing situation with conditions prevailing in July, observing that at that time the Bolsheviks had still lacked the support of the proletariat; now, as a result of the persecution of the Bolsheviks and the Kornilov experience, the party had majorities in the soviets in both Moscow and Petrograd. In July there had been no countrywide revolutionary upsurge, but such an upsurge had followed the Kornilov revolt. Finally, earlier there had not been serious wavering among the Bolsheviks' enemies, while now there was a significant degree of vacillation."

(181): the initial response of other Bolsheviks -- "'We were all aghast,' Bukharin was to recall... Most of those present were apparently concerned above all that they [the letters] be quietly destroyed [Stalin proposed circulation, though!]"

(182): at this moment, Lenin resolves to return to Petrograd (travels September 17, or so)

(183): unsatisfactory resolution to the Democratic State Conference -- agreed to coalition without the Kadets (left didn't want coalition; coalitionists wanted the Kadets). the next day at at-hoc meeting, though, the "propertied elements" are brought back on to the table.

(185): "Thus the long-anticipated Democratic State Conference ended in what amounted to an evasion: a few as-yet-unnamed representatives were to be made responsible for somehow devising an acceptable solution to the cabinet crisis which more than a thousand delegates to the conference from all over Russia had been unable to resolve."

(186): September 22-24 negotiations between ad-hoc group from DSC and Kerensky, Kadet Central Committee, industrialists, etc. Tsereteli et. al. selling out. Kerensky names Kadet-heavy coalition cabinet on September 25.

(187): September 21 meeting of Bolsheviks--"what was perhaps most striking about this meeting was that even now... Lenin's recommendation that the urban masses be called to arms was given absolutely no consideration..."

(188): Trotsky and Stalin on one side in discussions about participation in the 'Preparliament' -- Rykov, Kamenev, Nogin, and Riazanov opposed.

(190): nonetheless: "This basic orientation toward the creation of a new government at the Congress of Soviets [due to be held October 20] was to shape the Bolsheviks' activity throughout the latter part of September"

Chapter 11, Lenin's Campaign for An Insurrection

(192): Lenin still censored -- publishing of his earlier, moderate pieces continues

(193-194): tenders his resignation from the Central Committee! "There is no evidence that this resignation was ever formally considered by the Central Committee and, as we shall see, Lenin was soon to participate in the deliberations of that body as if it had never been submitted..."

(195): Petersburg Committee vs. Central Committee

(196): this wrangling starts to push the Central Committee left--October 5, only Kamenev opposes a boycott of the first Preparliament session on October 7, but not without further controversy

(197-198): Volodarsky's [and Lashevich's] revolutionary pessimism (seems most wise, in my humble opinion)--"'The correct revolutionary path is to reject compromises but not to force developments.'"

(201): October 7, Trotsky takes the floor at the Preparliament

(202-205): October 10, Central Committee meeting at Sukhanov's flat (a left Menshevik; wife was a Bolshevik!). Lenin is here, calling for insurrection. Kamenev and Zinoviev opposed. (Lenin prevails, 10-2)

(208): key--"Looking back over the period between the Kornilov affair and the decision of October 10, one can see that, as in April, chief responsibility for this drastic transformation in the outlook of the party's top hierarchy belongs to Lenin... This major personal victory of Lenin's should be borne in mind as we turn to a consideration of political developments in Petrograd and intraparty disputes over tactics between October 10 and the Bolshevik seizure of power. Few modern historical episodes better illustrate the sometimes decisive role of an individual in historical events."

Chapter 12, Obstacles to An Uprising

(212): now, in contrast, Central Committee was more eager/radical than some provincial Executive committees...

(213-214): Left SRs emphasizing importance of taking power in the name of the Congress (and not in the name of one political party)

(217): Nevsky's warning, too--"Warning that absolutely nothing had been done to prepare the provinces for the overthrow of the Provisional Government and that the Bolsheviks were in fact just starting to gain a foothold in the countryisde, he asserted that peasants in several regions had declared that in the event of an uprising they would withhold bread. He added that the party could not hope to achieve victoy if it ignored the mood of the masses."

(218): important-- "...It should be borne in mind that at issue here was not whether workers and soldiers were sympathetic to transfer of power to the soviets--that the Bolshevik program was broadly supported by the masses was acknowledged by all--but whether or not they would risk loss of work, immediate shipment to the front... in response..."

(219): Kalinin, October 15--"'The resolution of October 10 is one of the best resolutions the Central Committee has ever passed... But when this uprising will take place is uncertain--perhaps in a year.'"

(220): key--October 16, Central Committee meets again--one of Lenin's most persuasive addresses. But still question of whether the masses would rather heed a call put out by the Soviet, rather than the party. Final outcome: "implicit in the comments of several speakers... was the assumption that conditions were not yet ripe for a party-organized insurrection, and that the October 10 resolution was an affirmation of intent to overthrow the government at the first suitable opportunity, rather than a policy directive for immediate implementation... while Trotsky did not attend the meeting, he clearly shared this outlook... the position taken by Trotsky and others of like mind seems to have been based on a realistic appraisal of available evidence regarding the prevailing mood and correlation of forces in Petrograd, the provinces, and the front."

(222): Kamenev resignation; Kamenev/Zinoviev public joint-statement and Lenin furious

Chapter 13, The Garrison Crisis and The Military Revolutionary Committee

(225): Trotsky and Stalin united on pursuing insurrection through the Soviets (more ambitious than the simple postponers; less ambitious then the Leninist program of taking power as party)

(225): important--Kerensky gov't gives pretext and spark, moving Petrograd garrison to the front (worry, again, that the PG was surrendering Petrograd to spite the revolution; soldiers are enraged, of course, call for transfer of power).

(226): "There is no direct evidence that the Provisional Government ever seriously entertained the idea of surrendering Petrograd... What does seem to be true is that, as in late August, the embattled Kerensky perceived the apparent German threat as an excellent excuse to rid the capital once and for all of the more unruly elements in the garrison."

(229-230): tensions, nonetheless, between front troops and rear troops, which concerned Bolsheviks

(232): important--at the Petrograd Soviet, October 9, formation of the Military Revolutionary Committee, on the basis of a Menshevik-SR proposal, interestingly enough. purpose was to prevent gov't attempts to ship soldiers out of Petrograd (though it famously becomes the organ for PG's overthrow)

(236): "Over and over Lenin reiterated the absolute necessity of overthrowing the Provisional Government before the Congress of Soviets so that 'the congress, irrespective of its composition, would be confronted with a situation in which the seizure of power by the workers is an actual fact.'"

(239): important--"...Western historians have tended to view the organ [the Military Revolutionary Committee] as merely a front organization closely clontrolled by the Bolshevik Central Committee or the Military Organization. Yet such an assessment is inaccurate..."

(241): Military Revolutionary Committee moves to break with the authority of the PG over the Petrograd Garrison. The beginning of the insurrection!

(242-243): Trotsky and oratory

(245-246): ibid, taking of Peter and Paul Fortress

(246-247): "...there was every hope that if the party waited for the government to atack... it would be able to count on the support of the Left SRs, the soldiers at the front and rear, a united Bolshevik Party, and a broad front of mass organizations... Hence, despite its successes... the Military Revolutionary Committee did not cross the Rubicon between moves that could be justified as defensive and steps which would appear to have usurped the prerogatives of the congress..."

(248): Kerensky and the Cabinet move against the Military Revolutionary Committee, October 23-24

Chapter 14, On The Eve

(251): concerns at Central Committee meeting about alienating postal/railway workers, and the Left SRs. [didn't discuss insurrection, this time--no Lenin]

(254): "...it became evident that the vast majority of troops were responding to directives from the extreme left, not to those from the regular military command..."

(256): Kerensky at Preparliament--one last 'hysterical wail of a bankrupt politician', well-received--but nonetheless, does not get carte blanche for crackdown on the left

(257): brilliant--"Martov, who took the floor next on behalf of the Menshevik-Internaitionalists, was similarly critical of the existing government. As he appeared on the rostrum, someone on the right cried out, 'Here is the minister of foreign affairs in the future cabinet'--to which Martov, peering in the direction of his critic, at once retorted, 'I'm nearsighted and cannot tell if this is said by the minister of foreign affairs in Kornilov's cabinet'"

(258-260): critical--Menshevik/SR position--resolution to crisis can only be political, whereas the Kadets fantasize of a military victory over the Bolsheviks--it is this that is narrowly accepted at the conclusion of the meeting. "...however, word of the Prepariliament's action drove the prime minister into a blind rage." [this is a key moment; the PG could not, fundamentally, make the requisite reforms]

(265): Lenin on the evening of the 24th--perplexed that the Central Committee has not yet moved. Flees for Smolny in disguise.

(266-267): key claim--"Accounts of the October revolution by writers in the Soviet Union, seeking to maximize Lenin's role int he Bolshevik seizure of power at the expense of rotsky's, convey the impression that under the latter's influence, the party exaggerated Kerensky's strength and underestimated that of the left, and passively awaited a vote of the Congress of Soviets... The interpretation is, of course, seriously distorted; as we have seen, the policies of the Military Revolutionary Committee between October 21 and 24 were directed toward effectively subverting the Provisional Government in advance of the Congress... Yet there is a measure of truth in the Soviet view that prior to Lenin's appearance at Smolny late on the night of October 24-25, a majority of the Military Revolutoinary Committee, not to speak of the Central Committee, was still uneasy about the possibility of going too far too fast... As we have seen, the Military Revolutionary Committee's initial efforts in the wake of the government's offensive against the left were aimed at alerting left forces..., not calling th emasses into the streets... almost all of the Military Revoluionary Committee's subsequent military operations on October 24 can be interpreted as reactions to offensive moves by the government..."

(268): yes--"...Lenin, in contrast to almost everyone else, attached decisive importance to overthrowing the Provisional Government in advance of the congress..."

(269): and it begins (2:00AM)

(272): Trotsky coins the 'Council of People's Commissars'

Chapter 15, The Bolsheviks Come To Power

(276): Kerensky flees Petrograd in a car borrowed from the American embassy, in search for loyal troops at the front!

(278-279): Trotsky and Lenin announce the revolution ('We shall win the confidence of the peasantry by one decree, which will abolish landlord estates' -- if only)

(285): as if to confirm all that has passed, Kerensky's cabinet meets for a last time, appointing a Kadet to the position of 'Dictator'.

(289): a blank is fired at the Winter Palace!

(290): the Duma dying for the gov't!?

(291-292): important--the Second Congress of Soviets opens (300 of the 670 delegates are Bolsheviks; some 505 of the 670 are committed to transfer of power to the soviets)

(293): Mensheviks and SRs denounce the 'mad venture' of the Bolsheviks -- retorts of 'Who do you represent?'

(294): key--Menshevik/SR walkout with immense historical consequences. "When one recalls that less than twenty-four hours earlier the Menshevik and SR congress fractions, uniting broad segments of both parties, appeared on the verge of at long last breaking with the bourgeois parties and endorsing the creation of a homogeneous socialist government pledged to a program of peace and reform, the profound impact of the events of October 24-25 becomes clear... they played directly into Lenin's hands, abruptly paving the way for the creation of a government which had never been publicly broached before--that is, an exclusively Bolshevik regime."

(295-296): Martov trying to prevent a civil war--could a civil war have been avoided? And Trotsky right back--"No compromise! To the dustbin of history!"

(297): the Left SR position was to stick with it, despite grievances (and concerns over the peasantry)

(300): Provisional Government arrested!

(304): October 26, 5:00AM -- "...The Bolsheviks had come to power in Petrograd, and a new era in the history of Russia and of the world had begun..."

Chapter 16, Epilogue

(306): Lenin's land decree, adopted on October 27--"...The land decree, borrowed in its essentials from the popular agrarian program of the Left SRs, abolished private property in land and provided for the transfer of all private and church lands to land committees and soviets of peasants' deputies for distribution to the peasantry according to need..."

(305): An "at first exclusively Bolshevik administration"

(305-306): And, of course, a Menshevik and SR-led All-Russian Committee for the Salvation of the Country! An insurrection promptly put down. Dustbin of history, I think Trotsky said...

(309): nonetheless, some questions--Bolshevik moderates, Zinoviev and Kamenev of course, arguing for a broad socialist government; possible concessions to Mensheviks and SRs... But this did not survive the defeat of Kraznov on October 30.

(310): again, Zinoviev, Kamenev and other moderates resign from the Central Committee in protest (they re-enter later, after a Bolshevik-Left SR gov't has been formed, which was itself short-lived -- that didn't survive Brest-Litovsk, in March 1918)

(310-311): key--"...Had it not been for the Provisional Government's commitment to pursue the war to victory, a policy which in 1917 enjoyed no broad support, it surely would have been better able to cope with the myriad problems that inevitably attended the collapse of the old order and, in particular, to satisfy popular demands for immediate fundamental reform..."

(311): key--"That in the space of eight months the Bolsheviks reached a position from which they were able to assume power was due as well to the special effort which the party devoted to winning the support of military troops in the rear and at the front; only the Bolsheviks seem to have perceived the necessarily crucial significance of the armed forces in the struggle for power..."

(311): key--"Perhaps even more fundamentally, the phenomenal Bolshevik success can be attributed in no small measure to the nature of the party in 1917. Here I have in mind neither Lenin's bold and determined leadership, the immense historical significance of which cannot be denied, nor the Bolsheviks' proverbial, though vastly exaggerated, organizational unity and discipline. Rather, I would emphasize the party's internally relatively democratic, tolearant, and decentralized structure and method of operation, as well as its essentially open and mass character--in striking contrast to the traditional Leninist model."

(313): importance of not having abandoned the soviets after July, as Lenin had recommended.

(313): another important example in late September, when insurrection would have happened had Lenin had his way; and would have failed...

--

(1) the sense that the masses were steadily moving Left -- must be explained by frantic building of infrastructures of resistance, surely? not simply inherent in worsening conditions. indeed, how could it be? this is important to draw out, if only by implication.

(2) if one ever needs an example of 'recall' of deputies in action, look no further -- this institution is one of the principal reasons Soviets were responsive to mass sentiment, as it shifted leftward over the months

(3) Volodarsky and Mikhail Lashevich -- wah wah! and Nevsky's warning. All things to consider in context of October 10 decision.

(4) the question of the peasantry and the provinces hangs over the entire text. the Left SRs warn of this; Lenin thinks it'll be resolved with the seizure and redistribution of land. what to do? what. to. do?

(5) the State in the RR -- with respect to the PG, this clearly hinges on the question of why it was unable to stop the war (and, also, why it couldn't pursue adequate reform more generally)

(6): "What is to be done?" on this reading, is more or less irrelevant to the Russian Revolution. And rightly so, one thinks!