The Revolutionary Background

Here's my first discussion post for the term:

Was there a danger that the Bolshevik Revolution would spread from Russia in the period 1917-1920?

Stipulating up front that hindsight always provides 20/20 vision, I have to conclude that there was virtually no danger that the Bolshevik Revolution would spread beyond Russia in the aftermath of World War I. Part of drawing this conclusion of course is dependent on how comparatively easy revolutions in Berlin, Munich, Budapest, and Bratislava were put down, but the other part of the issue regards how well entrenched the ruling elites were in these countries (and others), as well as how badly the Bolsheviks, in attempting to export revolution, misjudged the power of nationalism and the forces of reaction.

On the first point, Charles Maier argues compellingly that Marxist revolution was contained in concerted efforts by the bourgeoisie to prevent the loss of status and power. Of the three countries on which Maier focuses his argument, Germany is the most important since it experienced two Marxist uprising with temporary success. Part of the success of counter-revolution in Germany was how well entrenched traditional bases of power, i.e., the military and aristocratic landowners, still were when the war ended. Maier writes, "The constitutional system of the Reich and the three-class Prussian voting system, as well as the continuing dominance of the army and bureaucracy, preserved the power of the Junkers until 1918 and even beyond."[1] These power bases, as well the important Catholic constituency and the ascendant industrial bourgeoisie within the liberal parties, were effective controls on the power of the Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (SPD) before the war. With the collapse of the monarchy, these interests were willing to support the SPD against the revolutionary left, and this dependence was reciprocated in the SPD's inability to government without the center.

On the topic of nationalism, Ivan Berend's analysis is instructive. Beyond the obvious example of fascism emerging in certain places as an effective immunization against Marxism, Berend's treatment of postwar ethnic tensions in Yugoslavia provides an important context in which to read Boris Starkov's account of Soviet intrigue in the Balkans in the 1920s. Berend writes, "The long dreamt-of brotherhood of the newly founded states was very quickly found to have snags."[2] Recounting early separatist movements among, e.g., Slovaks and Croats, it is unsurprising that the necessary unity through class to render a Marxist uprising successful was lacking since unity in nationality was so contentious. Finally, it is worth noting that Kun's revolution in Hungary was put down by many of the same forces that attempted (but failed) to overthrow the Bolsheviks. Here, the key differences seem to be the comparative lack of popularity of Kun's regime and the more favorable territorial advantage held by the Bolsheviks in the Civil War.

[1] Charles S. Maier, Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilization in France, Germany and Italy in the Decade after World War I (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1975), 34.

[2] Iván T. Berend, "Alternatives to Class Revolution: Central and Eastern Europe after the First World War," in Pat Thane, Geoffrey Crossick and Roderick Floud, eds., The Power of the Past: Essays for Eric Hobsbawm (New York: Cambridge, UP, 1984), 263.