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“The war produced a dreadful desolation in the underground movement. After the arrest of the Duma faction, the Bolsheviks had no centralized party organization at all. The local committees had an episodic existence, and often had no connections with the workers’ districts.”
― History of the Russian Revolution
― History of the Russian Revolution
“Without a guiding organization, the energy of the masses would dissipate like steam not enclosed in a piston box. But nevertheless what moves things is not the piston or the box, but the steam.”
― History of the Russian Revolution
― History of the Russian Revolution
“We seek to uncover
behind the events changes in the collective consciousness. We reject wholesale references to the “spontaneity” of the movement, references which in most cases
explain nothing and teach nobody. Revolutions take place according to certain laws. This does not mean that the masses in action are aware of the laws of revolution, but it does mean that the changes in mass consciousness are not accidental, but are subject to an objective necessity which is capable of theoretic explanation, and thus makes both prophecy and leadership possible.”
― History of the Russian Revolution
behind the events changes in the collective consciousness. We reject wholesale references to the “spontaneity” of the movement, references which in most cases
explain nothing and teach nobody. Revolutions take place according to certain laws. This does not mean that the masses in action are aware of the laws of revolution, but it does mean that the changes in mass consciousness are not accidental, but are subject to an objective necessity which is capable of theoretic explanation, and thus makes both prophecy and leadership possible.”
― History of the Russian Revolution
“Similar (of course, far from identical) irritations in similar conditions call out similar reflexes; the more powerful the irritation, the sooner it overcomes personal peculiarities. To a tickle, people react differently, but to a red-hot iron, alike. As a steam-hammer converts a sphere and a cube alike into sheet metal, so under the blow of too great and inexorable events resistances are smashed and the boundaries of “individuality” lost.”
― History of the Russian Revolution
― History of the Russian Revolution
“...you must remember that the political development of the masses proceeds not in a direct line, but in a complicated curve. And is not this, after all, the essential movement of every material process? Objective conditions were powerfully impelling the workers, soldiers and peasants toward the banners of the Bolsheviks, but the masses were entering upon this path in a state of struggle with their own past, with their yesterday’s beliefs, and partly also with their beliefs of today. At a difficult turn, at a moment of failure and disappointment, the old prejudices not yet burnt out would flare up, and the enemy would naturally seize upon these as upon an anchor of
salvation.”
― History of the Russian Revolution
salvation.”
― History of the Russian Revolution
John’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at John’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
146 books
|
58 friends
978 books
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132 friends
0 books
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71 friends
219 books
|
39 friends
196 books
|
79 friends
180 books
|
236 friends
213 books
|
474 friends
153 books
|
173 friends
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