Revolution and the People in Russia and China: A Comparative History

by S. A. Smith

Overview

A unique comparative account of the roots of Communist revolution in Russia and China. Steve Smith examines the changing social identities of peasants who settled in St Petersburg from the 1880s to 1917 and in Shanghai from the 1900s to the 1940s. Russia and China, though very different societies, were both dynastic empires with backward agrarian economies that suddenly experienced the impact of capitalist modernity. This book argues that far more happened to these migrants than simply being transformed from peasants into workers. It explores the migrants' identification with their native homes; how they acquired new understandings of themselves as individuals and new gender and national identities. It asks how these identity transformations fed into the wider political, social and cultural processes that culminated in the revolutionary crises in Russia and China, and how the Communist regimes that emerged viewed these transformations in the working classes they claimed to represent.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781316334683
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	04/24/2008
Series:	The Wiles Lectures
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	981 KB

About the Author

Steve Smith is Professor of History at the Department of History, University of Essex. His previous publications include Like Cattle and Horses: Nationalism and Labor in Shanghai, 1895–1927 (2002), A Road is Made: Communism in Shanghai, 1920–27 (2000) and Red Petrograd: A Revolution in the Factories, 1917–18 (1983).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Capitalist modernity and Communist revolution; 1. Memories of home: native-place identity in the city; 2. The awakening self: individuality and class identity; 3. After patriarchy: gender identities in the city; 4. Saving the nation: national and class identities in the city; 5. Workers and Communist revolution.

Editorial Reviews

"Smith has written an illuminating comparative history of the transformation of peasants into workers in pre-1917 St. Petersburg and pre-1949 Shanghai. Recommended." -Choice

"S. A. Smith has produced a challenging new history of familiar themes that illuminates some dark corners and suggests fresh approaches to older stories. His book may be the most thoroughgoing social history of Russia's and China's workers in revolution , and it is certainly the most arresting, original, and stimulating treatment to appear recently."
American Historical Review, Gerald Surh, North Carolina State University

"… pleasant for readers being interested in modern history … high quality of analysis of the industrial capitals of Russia and China."
Labor History

From the Publisher