Fin de siecle, the First World War, the Revolutions of 1917-1918, the Civil war 1917-1922, NEP 1921-1928 from Cambridge history of Russia, volume 3

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The critical years from the turn of the century to the eve of the First World War were a time of uncertainty and crisis for Russia's old political, social and cultural order, but also a time of possibility, imagination and daring. A chronological narrative of events is one way to retell this contradictory story. Still useful too is rehearsing the old debate about whether Russia was heading towards revolution in these pre-war years (the 'pessimistic' interpretation as it has been named in the historiography and in much classroom pedagogy) or was on a path, had it not been for the burdens and stresses of war, towards resolving tensions and creating a viable civil society and an adequately reformed political order (the 'optimistic' narrative). The conventional narrative of successive events and likely outcomes, however, suggests more coherence, pattern and telos than the times warrant. To understand these years as both an end time and a beginning, and especially to understand the perceptions, values and expectations with which Russians lived these years and entered the war, the revolution and the new Soviet era, we must focus on the more complexly textured flux of everyday life and how people perceived these experiences and imagined change.

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