Lenin and the Russian Revolution - Professor Catherine Merridale FBA
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- Опубліковано 18 чер 2024
- Why did Lenins Bolsheviks take power in October 1917? The earlier (February) revolution and the hopes it raised, the complex realities of power, and the political and social history of Russia leading up to the coup will be explored, asking why liberal or parliamentary government already appeared unrealistic.
Why was Lenins role so crucial? Who were his supporters, and what did they make of his plans? How, as a Marxist, did he justify the seizure of power and would the October Revolution have been possible without him? How in this centenary year, are these events being commemorated in Putins Russia?
The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website: www.gresham.ac.uk/lectures-an...
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`they might be young, they might be male` - I`d like her to explain that comment.
According to the present Woke zeitgeist, their being male meant they could obviously not possibly be 'on the spot, in touch with life' nor could they possibly be 'the germ for an alternative political system', because only women fulfil those criteria. Take, for example, Lenin. It may have looked as if he had fulfilled those criteria, but without question, new research at the department of Women's Studies, will prove beyond any doubt that he was merely the mouthpiece for his wife, who dictated all his letters/speeches/etc. We have seen the same exposures with regard to famous men artists who, it has turned out, did nothing but carry out what their woman (or women) suggested they do.
As for the caveat about their youth, that surely contradicts the Woke zeitgeist, where the only hope for a better world lies with ignorant teenagers, growling at the UN.
Same. I’d also like an explanation as to what a “press-up” is
She certainly "warmed" to her subject.
@@nicholasd7107press up is the British term for push-up
@@Weyutani thank you
That's a nice lecture on the era and it seems really pleasant with all the pictures shown. It feels a bit biased though.
This noble dream
1) “We must hate-hatred is the basis of communism. Children must be taught to hate their parents if they are not communists.” - Vladimir Lenin
2) “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” - Vladimir Lenin
3) “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” - Vladimir Lenin
4) "The way to crush the bourgeoisie [middle class] is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” - Vladimir Lenin
5) “Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism.”
-Vladimir Lenin
6) “One man with a gun can control 100 without one.” - Vladimir Lenin
7) “It is necessary-secretly and urgently-to prepare the terror.” -Vladimir Lenin
8) “The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses.”
- Vladimir Lenin
9) “Surely you do not imagine that we shall be victorious without applying the cruelest revolutionary terror?”
- Vladimir LenIn
@@joshhoodrat451I searched up your fist quote just to be sure and I’ve found out that’s it’s just made up. How disingenuous.
@@joshhoodrat451 "bourgeoisie [middle class]" 😐
A comprehensive insight into one of the most important political and revolutionary figures of the 20th century.
A truly superb lecture! The style somehow reminded me of Carlyle!
The Soviet era has not been so completely forgotten in contemporary Russia as Professor Merridale says, A docu-drama on the life of Trotsky was shown on Russian TV around 2010, It showed both Trotsky and Lenin in a mostly favorable light, but also shows Stalin outmaneuvering them as he plotted a seizure of absolute power. Lenin and Trotsky issue harsh decrees establishing adictatorship, thinking they will be temporary, but Stalin, once he grabs supreme power, makes them permanent. Not the truth. But it does indicate that the Russian public remains eager to learn about the origins and history of the Soviet UNion.
A very good presentation for people eager to know the history of russian revolution and about Lenin.
I never understood why the Social Revolutionaires and the Mensheviks walked away from the Soviet right after the October coup that actually made Soviet power a reality.. they should have known the Bolsheviks now had the opportunity to create a single-party state
@jeremy Lyons there were Liberal and conservative parties there, certainlty. But at that point in time, the majority were Socialists of one kind of another. Socialist thought was very popular in Imperial Russia. It just that the Bolsheviks were the most radical/hardline variation
@jeremy Lyons In the context of Imperial Russia that is certainly true
They didn't walk away. The bolsheviks took by force. The menshevik duma reps barely got out of petro alive. They fought a civil war for a few years after. It's still a wonder how those psychos managed to take power.
The Bolsheviks were willing to risk all. The others were voices.
I still say his best work was with McCartney
Nah better with Groucho
(Just Like) Starting Over is a masterpiece, though.
“V.I. LENIN!!! VLADIMIR ILYCH ULYANOV!!!”
Thank you! Wonderfully interesting.
There are some inaccuracies here but still fairly good.
"There was no extra money to pay wages (why does this remind me of 'Brexit')". Wow: where did that come from!
Everything has to be political for people like her...
I agree, she doesn't have to make snarky little comments like this. I can tell her political beliefs from her plummy voice, her absence of a sense of humour and the fact that she looks exactly like an ostrich has pushed his head through a clothes rack in Jigsaw.
@@cable849the whole lecture is political. What did you think you were watching?
Apparently everything has to be a mystery for people like you...
I agree, and rhetorically laden, passing as critical conclusive facts. Considering she is born British, an imperial power, and personally possessing an annoying, presumptive-leading, subjective wit, what else may we expect?.@@antgrantrant
(04:16) There would be no more dancing in that ballroom.
Great lecture, thank you for posting this, Gresham.
07:30 what about that part
“confusingly called...” perhaps by you not taking into consideration two different calendars as they taught us in school
A man like Churchill was not present, thus the concept of 'Land Ships' never occurred unfortunately, whereas in the 2nd WW Tanks were central to the Soviet defense of Russian land and cities!
Great lecture. Definitely did share.😇✌🏻
(16.34) interesting interjection...not subliminal.
Every society needs an educated citizenry who can understand and question current events. When the voices that understand are silenced or ignored, then events could lead to anarchy. There are very few revolutions that end without bloodshed.
Events in the U.S. in 2020 make me worry about our future because it seems that voices that disagree with popular thought are shunned instead of acknowledged. Political correctness is a form of exclusion, while responsible speech is about protecting social responsibility.
The Russian Revolution leads to the idea, "Be careful what you wish for, you may receive it." History proves that Stalin's regime was more oppressive than the Czars ever were.
Capitalism is fast reducing world poverty;
socialism never works.
‘Without the First World War, there would have been no Bolshevik
Revolution.’ How far do you agree with this view?
i disagree. there was a lot of unrest in russia at the time. you cant forget about 1905
@@Cooliofamily 1905 was a liberal revolt. February is likely inevitable but October is extremely unlikely without the Germans shipping Lenin back to Russia.
@@slizzysluzzer my point being that there was a lot of unrest at the time, including but not limited to WW1. You are correct about 1905, but the fact remains that the conditions that led to the bolsheviks had been brewing for the previous ~60 years.
@@Cooliofamily Unrest doesn't automatically lead to socialist revolution. There are multiple other factions that could have taken advantage of the chaos and without WW1 or the disastrous Kerensky Offensive it's less likely that that any potential Provisional Government collapses in general. The road to October isn't paved in stone, it required a very exacting set of circumstances to come true and came as a tremendous shock to every observer at the time. It was not inevitable, in fact, it was quite unlikely. History can sometimes throw curveballs.
@@Cooliofamily Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism. The world war marked the end of capitalist progress and the redivision of markets and resources among the capitalist nations.
Only an academic can view a history like this in such a fashion. Although the historical content is initially of high quality, the academic’s periodical injection of opinion exposes her gushing revisionist view of the glory of “Revolution”... I wonder if she realises she is the literal incarnation of the Bourgeoisie? If such a revolutionary fever gripped the people again, she wouldn’t be amongst them, bathing in proletarian glory, she would be ejected from the roof of her ivory tower. The phrase “Sow the wind and reap the whirlwind” comes to mind.
Lenin was a bourgeoise academic
It is only your revisionism here
@@cmo5150 he was indeed… as is the essence of Vanguardism.
@@cmo5150 an academic ?
@@cmo5150 huh
The claim that the Petrograd Soviet was some sort of popular institution or that it represented the common people is not quite correct. The Petrograd Soviet began as basically the creature of the Menshevik party leadership. It functioned less as a government than it did as a Menshviek controled opposition "party". It only became politically meaningful when Trotsky and others fully went over to supporting the Bolsheviks & splitting the Menshvieks. It then became a "shell" which was used to give the seizure of power a certain institutional legetamcy which it otherwise lacked.
I would question the narrative that Trotsky only drew close to the Bolsheviks after the July days. He and others were flirting with them for a long time.
Her overall thesis of the October Revolution as a grass-roots popular movement is very questionable. The "revolution" had the structure of a narrow "coup". The Kornilov Affiar had led to Kernesky arming the Bolsheviks and accepting them as as military force. They used that military force to seize the capital.
She is also not correct about the nature of the Military-Revolutionary Committee (MRC). The MRC was created over the objections of other parties and its purpose was to allow a picked minority to exercise power in the name of the Soviets but unaccountable to the Soviets. The MRC was effectively an entirely Bolshevik institution specifically tasked with carrying out the coup.
In the final stage of the coup, the Bolsheviks took control of the congress of soviets and used the congress of Soviets to dismantle the petrograd soviet in whose name they in theory took power. The provisional executive committee (Ispolkom) of the Petrograd Soviet was done away with and replaced it with a new creation under their control run by Kamenev.
The mistake people often make (including the presenter) is seeing the October Revolution as simply a revolution against the Kerensky provisional government. The October Revolution was in fact a dual coup which overthrew both kernensky and the Petrograd soviet.
if it was really unpopular then they wouldnt been able to win the civil war despite the invasion of 5 big imperai nations at that time and despite constant pushbacks by the white movement. But you are right about the coup part , although it was supported by almost everybody in petrograd , rural areas didnt really support it. It was more similar to what happened in the paris commune than the french revolution as opposed to how many people interpret it.
@@shrektheintelllectual3615 Some say that 14 capitalist countries, others say
29, invaded Russia to restore Nikolai II
&/or Russian capitalism.
Ms. Merridale: Bourgeois Historian Extraordinare! Apparently unaware that the Russian Revolution, along with its Chinese sequel, has irreversibly destroyed Anglo-Saxon world hegemony. This is the first phase of the World Revolution, is it not?
At the cost of millions of its own people. You use made-up words created by intellectuals to justify the hellish creation of a man who let his own children starve because he refused to work. He wanted a world without consequences. He rambled for decades about an egalitarianism that had always ended in failure. Always.
@@johnmartin7225 Well, well, well. You are apparently such an 'intellectual' that you are not even aware that Lenin didn't have any children. Keep making it up, 'Bourgeois Historian'.....BTW I never said that the 'game was worth the candle'. Merely that it is on. You can't change history. And there is no point fabricating it.
Communist Russia is gone and we are still here. Not too shabby wouldn’t you say?
Recent reports on Internet shows that
England alone killed even more Indians.
not to mention Spain, Portugal, France
governments own lists millions of casualties in
Europe + in 3rd World/Global South.
30:03
great lecture
Great lecture until Brexit was mentioned, then I had to switch off as I couldn't concentrate on the rest trying to think what Brexit had to do with Trotsky and the October Revolution.
Stuart Miers Yes indeed, Stuart. I had the same reaction, but I did listen to the end. It's actually an engaging talk about history. I'm always at a loss to understand why some of these professors think we care about their personal political opinions and perspectives. I guess they've never heard the quip about opinions being like assholes. She is not the first Gresham lecturer to opine on current events, and I'm sure not the last. To date, all the interjections I've heard have had a "slant to the Left", which is not terribly surprising considering the current state of academia. Telling also, are her summations. One gets the impression she is making the case in a subtle way, that "it could have worked if only they had done it right". This "personal leakage" is unfortunate, but indicative of the times in which we live.
One does not get the impression that she considers the failure of the revolution to be unfortunate. She is of the democratic left, probably, but no further.
16:30 "Brexit" !!!!! The only similarity is the revolutionary breaking away from the bourgeois EU.
Her pathetic and irrelevant comment was a complete turn-off, so I turned it off. Shame. I will have to look to an alternative Utube to learn more about the subject. Black mark, Gresham college, must try harder.
"We don't want a revolution, I promise you." On the contrary, we do want a revolution -- one that is informed by the errors of Soviet Russia, one that avoids hierarchization, and one that eschews violence, but a revolution nonetheless. A tall order, but there is no Third Way. Excellent lecture.
Oh not again!
Utopian
@@el5880 No, it is utopian to imagine the status quo will last.
@@ronrice1931 utopian is thinking it won’t be violent.
@@el5880 Violence is inherently fascist. It is utopian to think we can achieve communism using fascist methods. Needless to say, that does not rule out self-defense, but it does rule out violent overthrows. Capitalism will always command more violent means than we do, it will not be brought down with guns.
Antony Sutton
When Dr Merridale says “there’s no doubt that Lenin took German gold”, she means “there’s no evidence that...”. She makes the claim, but has yet to provide anything but conjecture. That’s not historiography, it’s speculation. Other than that, not a bad presentation on the facts, even if the editorializing is a bit annoying.
Nice lecture, but a pretty despicable shot by this elitist at the working class people who supported Brexit at 16:40
1) “We must hate-hatred is the basis of communism. Children must be taught to hate their parents if they are not communists.” - Vladimir Lenin
2) “A lie told often enough becomes the truth.” - Vladimir Lenin
3) “Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted.” - Vladimir Lenin
4) "The way to crush the bourgeoisie [middle class] is to grind them between the millstones of taxation and inflation.” - Vladimir Lenin
5) “Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism.”
-Vladimir Lenin
6) “One man with a gun can control 100 without one.” - Vladimir Lenin
7) “It is necessary-secretly and urgently-to prepare the terror.” -Vladimir Lenin
8) “The press should be not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer of the masses.”
- Vladimir Lenin
9) “Surely you do not imagine that we shall be victorious without applying the cruelest revolutionary terror?”
- Vladimir LenIn
46:02 - freudian slip
She meant cock--no, I meant cock. Goddamn it, I really meant to say cock.
Ya betcha.
I would love to read statements from Russians regarding accuracy, effects on their country, or anything relevant.
الإنكليز و فرنسا مقهورين من الشيوعية و الإتحاد السوفيتي السابق لان أنهت سيطرتهم على دول إفريقيا و اسيا و نشر الأنظمة الملكية و تخلص من الاستعمار البريطاني و الفرنسي
100th Anniversary Next Year March 2021!✊
😂
Decent lecture, but Merridale's light tone lands awkwardly when watching this in March 2022.
Lenin is young again! ✊
1917 while on the streets - "Down with the tyranny!"
1925 while in NKVD basement - "Wish we had the Tsar back"
At $20 million Wall St. was content with their purchase.
you know NKVD didnt exist back then. And also widespread purges werent a thing before 1937
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss...
13:30 Trotsky was in US?
💃🕵️🤔
There successors took power in the USSA in 2020, establishing a one-party, bureaucratic socialist state under Total Dem Power (TDP).
Um, the Democratic party is a capitalist party. Even the members who call themselves socialists aren't even as radical as European social democrats. None of them suggest abolishing private enterprise or private property. And then, about your one-party state line: Have you actually been here? Have you noticed we have states with all different levels of one or two party control? At the federal level, have you noticed the evenly divided Senate? Have you noticed the right-wing Supreme Court?
@@sammartland932 Dems don't acknowledge the legitimacy of any of these institutions, and under them the regime has lost its legitimacy as it is governed by the DNC/CCP cabal as a Plantation. There are three components -- a corporate wing funded by Demigarchs to support their parochial interest; communist ideology; and mob culture where the code of omerta is in force. Resist and Impeach Biden!
Angloids be like
Interesting but this is an oped not a lecture
Interesting story
I disagree with everything you said. But history is always written by the winners.
Please direct me to fresh sources
Weak troll.
She sounds like a Moscow propagandist. Probably is
Ленин Сталин.
tKronstad -
As a socialist, I believe Lenin should be remembered the same way Robespierre is. They were (probably) sincere revolutionaries who helped overthrow unjust systems and gain power, then intense opposition lead to paranoia and the ultimate betrayal of their ideals in favor of stability, which still fell into the hands of more nakedly meglomaniacal autocrats.
The October Revolution was the single most democratic event in human history.
Shame they didn’t or couldn’t read the fine print, nothing democratic about it. Pure power politics applied ruthlessly
Pro communist lecture, pass.
36 45 was he a professor? He used Hobson ?
No, the ruling class does not want revolution. They want to keep rich and powerful at the expense of the working class. Lenin was not wrong but right. We need a revolution and a society in which the wealth is owned by all, not by a minority of capitalist exploiters. It is easy to blame Lenin for Stalin since he gave the Red Czar the position of general secretary. But Stalin was only able to rise because of the civil war and the degeneration that followed. Stalinism was a product of a backward society, weakened by years of civil war. Despite what the ruling class and its supporters may claim, socialism has not failed. It is the only alternative!
It's a huge oversimplification to say Stalin only rose to power because of factors of externality, war etc. His party position as General Secretary and his ambitions are specifically what allowed him to horizontally maneuver, make intrigues, gain favor etc from various other party members prior to his steady rise. That aspect of history was precipitated by one party rule, and other decisions from the Bolsheviks (ending of factions etc). The external factors had more to do with a political degeneration of the entire party apparatus, who no longer saw Lenin's ( and others Trotsky et al) prognosis for world revolution. A conservative mindset came to be represenrable, Stalin amongst other came to represent that and enforce it. But the machine was there for him to impose it once in the drivers seat. Had the soviets (small "s", the council) had power its unlikely a figure like Stalin could have arose in such a manner as he did. It's not set in stone as a condemnation of the Bolshevik party itself but various bad political choices and political substitutions for the party over the class euthanized the life of the revolution (not just metaphorically).
The smiling community quantitatively type because cocoa relatively nod an a judicious sweatshop. snobbish, educated russia
Make fool
Completely unprofessional reference to Brexit
All hail the great LENIN!
74 yrs of gulags, massmurder and oppression
wut? soviet union only lasted 69 years(nice). Gulag system was only became a camp during 1930s.
gulags are waiting for people like you
Great lecture.. Shame about the highly unprofessional snipe about Brexit to get a cheap laugh in the arrogant assumption that it would ingratiate herself with the audience..
17:00 erasmus
Her short reference to Brexit in comparison with the ver dire situation of summer 1917 in Russia seems veryy far far fetched and only shows her bias against Brexit. When I heardt her statement, I stopped watching the video.
Agree. It booted me out too. But it wasn't a comment for me, it was for her clique.
I feel really bad for the Czar
Why he went to war unwisely and the result was millions of dead Russians, in addition his people lived in abject poverty.
Don't.
Anti-Brexit and Pro-Globalist professor. Great info, but she does not present the horrors of Marxism.
What is brexit please ?
I hope you arent paying money to go to this college.
For the rest of the world a Nazi victory would have been unspeakably tragic. However, a capitulation to Hitler by the Soviets might have saved many millions of lives east of The Iron Curtain, as grim as that prospect might seem.
Romance for the 'glorious' early Bolshevik days is as misplaced and distasteful as it is for the 'noble' Left in the Spanish Civil War, who were marching thousands of the RC clergy with men and women of various religious orders, out into the streets to be executed.
I doubt that. Imagine the Allies having to ferret out the last Nazi fanatics out of the endlessness of Russia, and an even larger Holocaust on top of that. For this to be a better history on balance, the Nazi regime would have to be a great deal less horrible than the Communist one, which it wasn't.
Edit: And I bet what would've happened in China because of this would make the Great Leap Forward look like a minor recession.
That is absolutely not true. Look up General Plan East. The plans of Nazi Germany, stated clearly in the Plan, including seizing all of Russian (and Ukrainian Belorussian etc by today's borders) land west of the Urals, starving to death most of the population, killing the entire Jewish population and keeping the surviving Slavs as slaves to German colonial settlers. Nazi victory would have been unspeakable catastrophe for almost everyone east of Berlin.
100th Anniversary Next Year March 2021!✊