The Russian Revolution of 1917 was a key turning point in the history of modern Europe and the world. For much of the twentieth century, politics were defined by attitudes to what had taken place in Russia in 1917. To understand the Russian Revolution, then, is to understand a key building block of modern history and the contemporary world. Senior lecturer and renowned Russian researcher Dr. Jonathan Smele sheds new light on the many forces that came to bear in tsarist Russia, from the emancipation of the serfs in the mid-nineteenth century to the climactic revolutions of the early twentieth century that brought the small Bolshevik party to power.
Lecture 1 Russia: The Geographical Setting
Lecture 2 Russia: Empire and People
Lecture 3 The “Great Reforms”: Alexander II and the Emancipation of the Serfs
Lecture 4 The Social and Economic Consequences of the Emancipation
Lecture 5 Origins of the First Russian Revolution, 1881–1905
Lecture 6 Russia and the World in the Late Nineteenth Century
Lecture 7 The Opposition to Tsarism: Constitutional Democrats and Socialists-Revolutionaries
Lecture 8 The Opposition to Tsarism: Lenin and the Bolsheviks
Lecture 9 Nicholas II, Stolypin, and the “Constitutional Monarchy,” 1905–1917
Lecture 10 Russia in War and Revolution: August 1914–February 1917
Lecture 11 The Year of Revolutions, 1917: Events
Lecture 12 The Year of Revolutions, 1917: Interpretations
Lecture 13 The Russian Civil Wars, 1917–1921: Events
Lecture 14 The Russian Civil Wars, 1917–1921: Interpretations