Recorded November 2, 2017.
As part of the Utopia Dystopia lecture series, Dr James Ryan (Cardiff University) will deliver a talk, to take place almost exactly 100 years since the start of the October Revolution, which will address simple but crucial question: What was the October Revolution actually for and should Leninism be considered to have any relevance in our world today.
Russia’s October Revolution was one of the most consequential events in modern history. It helped ensure that the ultimate fate of the Russian Revolution would be far removed from the spirit of freedom and democracy that seemed so promising in 1917. When we think of the Russian Revolution, it is difficult not to be aware that it failed, and that its story is bound intimately with the complex relationship between utopia and dystopia. The Soviet state that resulted from the Revolution soon became extraordinarily violent and repressive, and ultimately it collapsed – along with the legitimacy of its ideological basis - having lasted for seven decades.
This talk, to take place almost exactly 100 years since the start of the October Revolution, will provide a centenary perspective on Lenin the man and Leninism the ideology. It will do so by appraising Lenin’s significance in 1917, before addressing a simple but crucial and much-overlooked question: What was the October Revolution actually for? The lecture will explain the content of Leninism as a body of political thought, and why it matters. It will conclude with some reflections on the question whether or not Leninism should be considered to have any relevance in our world today.
Dr James Ryan is lecturer in Modern European (Russian) History at Cardiff University. A graduate of University College Cork and a former recipient of a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Fellowship, he is the author of Lenin’s Terror: The Ideological Origins of Early Soviet State Violence (London, 2012). He is currently working on an intellectual history of Soviet state violence, 1918-1941. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
About Utopia Dystopia Series
A century after the Russian Revolution of 1917, its driving forces and its legacy, and indeed even its start and end, are still the subject of debate. It encompassed two key episodes in 1917, the February and October revolutions. The February revolution (known as such because of Russia’s use of the Julian calendar until February 1918) began on March 8, 1917. This led to the collapse of the imperial rule by the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, and the establishment of a democratic provisional government. The October revolution (which in the Julian calendar began on October 24th and 25th) began on November 6th and 7th led by Vladimir Lenin, leader of the Bolshevik party, and overthrew the provisional government to establish the first Marxist state in the world. It generated the dominant model of revolution for the remainder of the 20th century, engendered communist parties in many countries and was exported to much of Eastern Europe in the former of Soviet hegemony after victory in 1945, and helped shape the process of decolonisation.
As we journey through Ireland’s decade of commemorations and move ever closer to considering the complex war of independence and civil war that preceded the formation of the Irish State, this lecture series will reflect on the aftermath of the Russian Revolution right up to today and how it changed the course of world history at many levels.
The Utopia Dystopia lecture series has been organised by Trinity College Dublin’s Department of Russian and Slavonic Studies and Department of History in association with the Trinity Long Room Hub Arts and Humanities Research Institute.
See the full lecture series here - www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/…utopia-dystopia.php
Learn more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/
