Murray Frame

Concepts of Policing during the Russian Revolution, 1917–1918

Abstract The disintegration of the tsarist police system in 1917 presented contemporaries with the challenge of creating an alternative and defining its purpose. This essay suggests that, despite the radical implications of the militia system that appeared, formal ideas about policing were conventional. Even the Bolsheviks, despite conceptualising the militia as ‘the people in arms’, legislated for a civilian police force that was similar to its predecessors, at least in terms of formally defined functions. The essay also suggests that debates about the militia during 1917 and 1918 are better understood within the wider context of pan-European historical models of policing.

COMMERCIAL THEATRE AND PROFESSIONALIZATION IN LATE IMPERIAL RUSSIA

This article investigates the attempt by Russian theatre people to ‘professionalize’ their vocation during the late tsarist period. It argues that theatrical professionalization differed from standard paradigms because fundamentally it was designed to address material impoverishment, rather than to protect existing occupational privileges. Theatre people believed that ‘professional’ status would defend them from the effects of the burgeoning commercial entertainment market. Thus they represented the gradual ‘democratization’ of the professional ideal, its diffusion amongst occupational groups not traditionally classified as ‘professions’. From 1894, a national regulatory association, the Russian Theatre Society, represented theatre peoples interests and persuaded the government to subsidize its activities. Yet the boundaries between state involvement and self-regulation were never clearly defined, creating an underlying tension within the Society about the extent of its relations with the state, a problem that was exposed during the 1905 revolution.

Theatre and revolution in 1917: The case of the Petrograd State Theatres

This article examines the relationship between the Petrograd State Theatres, the Provisional Government, and the Bolsheviks in the first months of revolution. It illustrates how the close pre‐revolutionary ties that existed between the State Theatres and the Russian government were consolidated throughout the course of 1917 by the general consent of revolutionary leaders and artists alike. The Provisional Government and the Bolsheviks both moved immediately to assert their authority over the former Imperial Theatres; and the artists, demanding organisational autonomy but not complete independence from the state, supported the new authorities (notwithstanding initial hostility to the Bolsheviks). It is suggested that the events of 1917 thus confirmed a fundamental symbiosis between Russian governments and the State Theatres ‐ governments recognised the political utility of preserving the tsarist cultural heritage as part of the state apparatus, while artists acknowledged that precious subsidies and privile...

State Expansion and the Criminal Investigation Militia during the Russian Civil War

This article examines the militia – the Soviet regular police force – and its criminal investigation branch in the context of the states dramatic expansion during the Russian civil war, 1917–21. It argues that, although the Bolsheviks harboured ideological doubts about centralized police forces, they quickly came to regard the militia as a key fulcrum of the revolutionary state, evidenced not least by the re-establishment of a unitary force under central state supervision, by its rapid growth during the civil war, and by efforts to ensure its political reliability. Despite the importance attached to the militia, however, it remained a dysfunctional organization during the 1917–21 period. Its criminal investigation branch, in particular, was afflicted by a range of operational problems that undermined its ability to function as an effective arm of the state. This suggests a counter-narrative to the assumption that statization in itself conferred extensive coercive influence upon the Bolshevik regime. Despite the dramatic growth of the state during the civil war, its traction at the grassroots of society remained uneven and unpredictable.

Michael Confino, Russia before the ‘Radiant Future’: Essays in Modern History, Culture, and Society:

damental change in the relationship of civilians to warfare and the military. No one was now exempt. In this Chickering and Förster see a foretaste of the ‘total wars’ of the twentieth century, even if the concept cannot be applied unreservedly to the period between 1775 and 1815. However, the book does lead one to question the role of warfare before 1775. Förster admits the Seven Years’ War was the first global conflict and some of the topics touched upon here, such as petite guerre, militia organizations and patriotic propaganda, were evident in thatmid-eighteenth century conflict. One cannot help but ask what processes and ideas spanned the preand post-revolutionary eras? But perhaps that is a subject for a further edited volume.

The Early Reception of Operetta in Russia, 1860s–1870s

This article explores the popular and critical reception of operetta in Russia during its European heyday, which broadly coincided with the transformative reign of Tsar Alexander II (1855–1881). It argues that the genre consistently drew audiences from most social strata and should not be considered, as some historians have suggested, a uniquely ‘bourgeois’ form of entertainment closely associated with the rise of the middle classes. It also argues that operetta crystallized a range of wider concerns about Russian culture and politics during the era of the Great Reforms. Many critics attacked operetta’s frivolity and eroticism (held to be inconsistent with the aims of art), while radicals and conservatives regarded it as symptomatic of a new climate of political uncertainty (the former with hope, the latter with trepidation). The critical responses to operetta thus testified to its popularity and to the rapidity of change in Russia during the 1860s and 1870s.

Russia and the Wider World in Historical Perspective

Preface - Paul Dukes - Notes on the Contributors - Attitudes Towards Foreigners in Early Modern Russia L.Hughes - The Mercenary as Diplomat: The Fall of the House of Stuart and the Rise of the Petrine Order G.P.Herd - Foreigners, Faith and Freemasonry in the Eastern Baltic: The British Factory and Pastor Georg Ludwig Collins in Riga at the End of the Eighteenth Century R.Bartlett - Scotland and Russia: A Boundless Bond D.Fedosov - Russia, the Balkans, and Ukraine in the 1870s D.Saunders - The Russian Constitutional Monarchy in Comparative Perspective R.B.McKean - Red Internationalists on the March: The Military Dimension, 1918-1922 J.Erickson - Paths to World Socialist Revolution: West and East B.Starkov - Soviet Perceptions of the Allies during the Great Patriotic War S.Davies - Russia and Decolonization in Eurasia J.Houbert - Concluding Remarks J.D.White - Paul Dukes - A Select Bibliography - Index