British Revolutionaries and the Suppression of the Left in Lenin's Russia, 1918-1924

Existing studies of the response of British socialists to events in Russia have tended to group around two periods. First, several historians have discussed 1917 itself and shown how British leftwingers enthusiastically welcomed the downfall of the Tsar. The subsequent overthrow of the Provisional Government and the coming to power of the Bolsheviks was not as widely supported, but for large sections of the left it was a great moment the first socialist revolution, the first breach in world capitalism.' Secondly, other historians have told the depressing saga of the systematic distortions perpetrated by sections of the British left during the 1930s and after with regard to the horrific despotism of Stalin's Russia.2 What has so far been noticeably absent is any study of the British left's response to events in the period between the Bolshevik seizure of power and Stalin's terror. This is a surprising gap. While a great deal of energy has been expended in examining the policies of the Lenin regime in order to clarify to what degree Stalinism was a logical development of Bolshevism, this closely related question is yet to arouse academic interest. If, at least in part, the Leninist regime constructed and put into place some of the basic mechanisms of Stalin's despotism, what was the reaction of the British left to this? Just as Stalinism had its roots in Leninism, were the apologetics and 'fellow-travelling' of the 1930s also anticipated in the British left of the early 1920s

Ancient history · Economic history · Political science · Anarchism and Radical Politics · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Soviet and Russian History

• Emma Goldman and the Russian Revolution

  Francois Jacob, Frank Jacob•Emma Goldman and the Russian…•2020

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