Brutalization Revisited: The Case of Russia

Abstract

In the case of Russia, the existence of a relationship between lost war, revolution, and Civil War is obvious. Unlike the German case, however, it has not been investigated in any detail. The Great War is often seen as the ‘forgotten war’ in the shadow of the Revolution of 1917 and the Civil War of 1918–21. Inspired by George Mosse’s work on Germany, this article investigates the connections between these conflicts. It argues that it is not easy to reconstruct the direct linkages between the fronts of an industrialized war to the violence of revolution and civil war. Rather, enduring traditions were transferred, transformed, and radicalized: the style of rule, the result of an absent political and patriotic consensus between the heterogeneous communities of communication, and dispositions to violence among the decisive sectors of the population, not only the soldiers and the revolutionaries, but also the peasants and workers longing for an egalitarian and just economy. The main role of the war was that it destroyed the old state and set these pre-existing violent tendencies free, which began to feed on themselves.

Deconstruction of Natural Order. The Legacy of the Russian Revolution

“…Political consciousness is relatively persistent and remains after the disappearance of beings, phenomena, and processes which molded it (Wood, 2003;O'Kane, 2015). As such, it is of exploratory and explanatory power for identifying the sources and consciousness heritage of the revolution (Hickey, 2011;Beyrau, 2015).…”

La tesis de la brutalización (George L. Mosse) y sus críticos: un debate historiográfico

“…73 Como afirma un artículo que revisita la tesis de la "brutalización" en el caso de Rusia, "es difícil establecer conexiones directas entre los frentes de una guerra industrializada y la violencia de la guerra civil y la revolución". 74 Últimamente, junto a la noción de "desmovilización cultural" se ha recurrido al concepto de "cultura de la derrota" (propuesto originalmente por Wolfgang Schivelbusch, 75 y recogido por John Horne, Robert Gerwarth y otros), para explicar que unos países sufriesen la "brutalización" de la política y otros no tras 1918, a pesar de que sea difícil documentar dicho fenómeno. Según Julia Eichenberg y John Paul Newman en su obra sobre el internacionalismo y pacifismo de grupos excombatientes durante el periodo de entreguerras, la evolución de las "culturas de la victoria" por un lado, y las "culturas de la derrota", por otro, explica que en países como Francia e Inglaterra se desarrollara entre los veteranos una cultura de paz, y en Alemania y los países derrotados una cultura de guerra, haciendo encajar en ello el caso italiano, que sin embargo requiere mucho mayor estudio.…”