to get information on accessing more materials including my responses to exam questions on these themes. The influence of the exiled Marxist theorist Georgi Plekhanov was vital here. It was he who first mapped out the two-stage revolutionary strategy. With it the Russian Marxists at last had an answer to the problem of how to bring about a post-capitalist society in one only now entering the capitalist phase. It gave them grounds for their belief that in forsaking the seizure of power—which, as Plekhanov put it, could only lead to a ‘despotism in Communist form'—they could still advance towards socialism. Interpreting the Russian Revolution: The Language and Symbols of 1917 (1999), co-written with Boris Kolonitskii, analyses the political language, revolutionary songs, visual symbols and historical ideas that animated the revolutionary crowds of 1917. [17]

Orlando Figes [Home] Orlando Figes [Home]

The Imperial Family: Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, Tsarevich Alexis, Romanov Family, Olga, Maria, Anastasia Lenin came to Marx already armed with the ideas of the People's Will, the terrorist wing of the Populist movement which had carried out the assassination of Alexander II in 1881. Lenin's elder brother, who had belonged to the People's Will, was executed for his participation in the abortive plot to kill Alexander III in 1887. There is a Soviet legend that on hearing of his brother's death Lenin said to his sister Maria: ‘No, we shall not take that road, our road must be different.' The implication is that Lenin was already committed to the Marxist cause—the ‘we' of the quotation—with its theoretical rejection of terror in favour of the organization of the working class. But this is nonsensical (Maria at the time was only nine). And while it may be true that his brother's execution was a catalyst to Lenin's involvement in the revolutionary movement, his first inclination was, like his brother's, towards the People's Will. Lenin's Marxism, which developed slowly after 1889, remained infused with the Jacobin spirit of the terrorists and their belief in the overwhelming importance of the seizure of power. Another strand, exploited through the centuries by successive rulers to enhance their authority, is the idea of spiritual exceptionalism. It was Ivan the Terrible, no less, who adapted Byzantine rituals to create an imperial myth – that the tsar was anointed by church and god, and that Moscow was the Third Rome, the rightful successor and true capital of Christendom after the fall of Rome and Constantinople.Harding, Luke (7 December 2008). "Luke Harding, "British scholar rails at police seizure of anti-Stalin archive", The Observer, 7 December 2008". The Guardian. London.

www.orlandofiges.info :: Home

Figes, Orlando (16 December 2013). "Is There One Ukraine?". Foreign Affairs . Retrieved 24 July 2015. Guy Dammann (14 July 2008). "Interview: Guy Dammann talks to Orlando Figes". The Guardian. London . Retrieved 31 August 2011.Translated into more than twenty languages, [25] The Whisperers was described by Andrey Kurkov as "one of the best literary monuments to the Soviet people" [26] In it Figes underlined the importance of oral testimonies for the recovery of the history of repression in the former Soviet Union. While conceding that, "like all memory, the testimony given in an interview is unreliable", he said that oral testimony "can be cross-examined and tested against other evidence". [27] Timothy Phillips (25 May 2012). "Staying alive with the language of love - Life Style Books - Life & Style - London Evening Standard". The Standard . Retrieved 24 July 2015. The conventional narrative is that the Russian revolution took place in October 1917, and launched the world's first communist state. However, Figes argues that the revolution was continuous phenomena covering a century of Russian history, and which unfolded in three "movements".