Why Russia 1917 Is a Contrast Case

This course uses Russia's revolutions of 1917 as a contrast case because they differ from the Atlantic revolutions in ideology, aims and outcome. The American, French and Latin American revolutions were shaped by Enlightenment ideas of natural rights, representation and property. The Bolsheviks drew on Marxism, which saw history as class struggle and aimed to abolish private ownership of land and industry, replacing the 'bourgeois' state with a dictatorship of the proletariat.

Russia also had two revolutions in one year: in February a broad popular uprising toppled the tsar, and in October the Bolshevik party seized power. Comparing 1917 with 1789 was something the revolutionaries themselves did constantly, debating who were the Jacobins and who might become a Napoleon. Using Russia as contrast helps test which features of revolution are general and which belong to particular ideologies and circumstances.