The Bolsheviks and the Russian Empire [Paperback]

This book offers a new interpretation of the Russian Revolution, finding that nearly two-thirds of the Bolsheviks were ethnic minorities.This book offers a new interpretation of the leadership of one of the twentieth century's most important events, the Russian Revolution. It offers a collective biography of the Bolsheviks, finding that nearly two-thirds were ethnic minorities from across the multiethnic Russian Empire. Mindful of the ways in which Russia's imperial policies toward the realm's diversity shaped identities and politics, the book shows how socialism's class universalism was most appealing to those who bore the heaviest political and economic costs of maintaining a diverse but politically illiberal empire.This book offers a new interpretation of the leadership of one of the twentieth century's most important events, the Russian Revolution. It offers a collective biography of the Bolsheviks, finding that nearly two-thirds were ethnic minorities from across the multiethnic Russian Empire. Mindful of the ways in which Russia's imperial policies toward the realm's diversity shaped identities and politics, the book shows how socialism's class universalism was most appealing to those who bore the heaviest political and economic costs of maintaining a diverse but politically illiberal empire.This comparative historical sociology of the Bolshevik revolutionaries offers a reinterpretation of political radicalization in the last years of the Russian Empire. Finding that two-thirds of the Bolshevik leadership were ethnic minorities  Ukrainians, Latvians, Georgians, Jews, and others  this book examines the shared experiences of assimilation and socioethnic exclusion that underlay their class universalism. It suggests that imperial policies toward the Empire's diversity radicalized class and ethnicity as intersectional experiences, creating an assimilated but excluded elite: lower-class Russians and middle-class minorities universalized particular exclusions as thlC$