Historicizing Divergence: A Comparative Analysis of the Revolutionary Crises in Russia and Finland

Pavel Osinsky () and Jari Eloranta ()
Additional contact information
Pavel Osinsky: Appalachian State University
Jari Eloranta: Appalachian State University

A chapter in Economic History of Warfare and State Formation, 2016, pp 103-116 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract Beginning 1917, Russia and Finland both experienced revolutionary situations, the seizure of power by radical political groups, and civil wars. However, the ultimate outcomes of the revolutionary crises in the two countries turned out to be different: the Russian Bolsheviks won the struggle for power whereas the Finnish Red Guard suffered a defeat. Why did the radical socialists win in Russia but lose in Finland? This chapter argues that the Russian revolutionaries benefited from the existence of two coalition alliances that had not fully materialized in Finland: the workers–soldiers’ alliance, which was critical for the radicals’ seizure of power, and the workers–peasants’ alliance, which became pivotal during the years of the civil war. Thus, our comparative historical analysis lends support to the “social history” of the revolutions but—in contrast to other writings—draws attention to the centrality of structural conditions created by a mass mobilization war and the contingent nature of the extant revolutionary alliances.

Keywords: First World War; Russia; Finland; Civil war; Revolution; Alliance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:stechp:978-981-10-1605-9_4

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/9789811016059

DOI: 10.1007/978-981-10-1605-9_4

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Studies in Economic History from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().