Comparative Russian Revolutions

Catalog description

An intensive reading, writing and discussion seminar studying in some depth the background, origins, development, and outcomes of two Russian revolutionary periods of the 20th century: the interrelated upheavals of 1905 to 1917, resulting in the overthrow of the tsarist regime and its replacement by the Bolsheviks; and the reform, collapse, and transformation of the Communist government of the Soviet Union from Mikhail Gorbachev to the present. In the process of two in-depth examinations, the course explores contrasts among the social, economic, political, and cultural forces at work in the two revolutionary periods.