Revolution and the People in Russia and China: A Comparative History by S.A. Smith


Revolution and the People in Russia and China: A Comparative History
Title : Revolution and the People in Russia and China: A Comparative History
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0521886376
ISBN-10 : 9780521886376
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 258
Publication : First published January 1, 2008

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.

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

  • Julie Greene

    Smith is interested in looking at the identity of migrant peasants turned proletarians in St. Petersburg and Shanghai as each country headed into revolution. He wants to break with traditional assumption that class identity is linked only to capitalist production and wage exploitation. Instead he argues for the influence exerted more broadly by capitalist modernity, and he examines identities based on native-place, individuality, gender, consumerism, religion, national identity, etc. The book is based on lectures he gave and it is beautifully written and very clearly argued. I found it a very creative way to think about working-class identity. In the end he is quite unclear about the relationship between class identity and all the other identities he explores. So more was needed there. Nonetheless it's a very smart and provocative book, and a great read for a global labor history class at the grad level.