Unmaking and Remaking an Empire: Beyond the “Russian Revolution” - Erik Scott

If 1917 marked a pivotal year for the United States, it was even more transformative for Russia. Centuries of tsarist rule came to an abrupt end, and socialist revolutionaries came to the fore. While it is common to think of it as a single event occurring in one country, the so-called Russian Revolution in fact encompassed a series of national revolutions unfolding across the remnants of a vast Eurasian empire. Revolutionary fervor was often greatest among groups for whom class revolution and national revolution coincided, and Jews, Latvians, Poles, and Georgians all joined the socialist cause with exceptional enthusiasm. As the revolution was institutionalized, members of ethnic diasporas were overrepresented in very visible positions of power throughout the new Soviet state. Together, they sought to build an anti-imperialist union but ended up creating a new kind of empire. Erik Scott, Associate Professor of Russian History at the University of Kansas For more information about the National WW