From Alexandrov to Nikolai: the approach of catastrophe. Making sense of the twentieth century What are the historical boundaries of the present 20th century

Chapter 5. Paris, California: The French Intellectual (excerpts)

Neither in Cambridge nor later in Paris was socialism my political aim, it was my domain. scientific interests. In some respects, this did not change until adulthood. 1966, the year I became a student at Cambridge, was the 30th anniversary of the Popular Front, the French centre-left coalition that had been in power for a short period in the mid-1930s when the socialist Léon Blum became prime minister. In connection with this anniversary, the shelves were filled with an avalanche of books describing and analyzing the failure of the Popular Front. Many of the writers took up this topic with the express purpose of teaching a good lesson so that next time it would turn out better: an alliance of leftist parties still seemed quite possible and even desirable.

I myself was not particularly interested in the political aspects of these disputes. Having grown up in certain traditions, I was used to seeing revolutionary communism as a disaster, so I didn't see much point in reassessing its current prospects. On the other hand, I found myself in Cambridge in the midst of the reign of Harold Wilson and Labor - a reign that was cynical, exhausted, endlessly justified and less and less effective. From this side, too, nothing more was to be expected. So my social-democratic interests took me abroad, to Paris: it turned out that it was politics that connected me with French science, and not vice versa.

Although it may seem strange, given my own political views and the activity of life there, but I needed Paris to become a real student of history. I received a one-year Cambridge fellowship for a postgraduate position at the École Normale Supérieure, an excellent observation post for the study of the intellectual and political life of France. When I got there in 1970, I began to study for real - much more than at Cambridge - and made very serious progress in my dissertation on French socialism in the 1920s.

I started looking supervisor. In Cambridge you don't really learn: you just read books and talk about them. Among my teachers there were all kinds: old-fashioned liberal empiricists, historians of England; methodologically sensitive intellectual historians; there were also several economic historians of the old left school of the period between the two wars. Not only did my Cambridge supervisors not initiate me into historical methodology, they simply met with me quite rarely. My first official leader, David Thomson, died shortly after we met. My second superintendent was J. P. T. Bury, an exceedingly pleasant elderly specialist in the Third Republic; he treated me to excellent sherry, but was poorly versed in my subject. I think we saw each other three times during my dissertation preparation. So my first postgraduate year at Cambridge (1969-1970) was completely on my own.

I had to not only choose a topic for my dissertation on my own, but also invent all the problems, questions that made sense to ask, and criteria that should have been used when answering these questions. Why was socialism unable to fulfill its own obligations? Why did socialism in France fail to reach the heights of social democracy in Northern Europe? Why was there no unrest or revolution in France in 1919, although everyone expected radical upheavals? Why Soviet communism seemed a much more suitable heir in those years french revolution than socialism that grew up on republican soil? There were implicit questions about the triumph of the extreme right in the background. Could the rise of fascism and National Socialism be understood simply as a failure of the left wing? This is how I looked at all this at that time, and only much later did these questions regain relevance for me.

Arriving in Paris, I suddenly found myself at the epicenter of the intellectual establishment of republican France. I was well aware that I was attending classes in the same building where Émile Durkheim and Leon Blum studied at the end of the 19th century, and thirty years later, Jean Paul Sartre and Raymond Aron. I was in complete bliss, being among intelligent, like-minded students on a campus in the 5th arrondissement, where it was comfortable to live and work well in a very convenient library - they even allowed you to take books home (this is a rarity for Parisian libraries - both then and current ones).

For better or worse, I began to think and speak like a normal (student of the École Normale). Partly it was a matter of form: adopting a pose and assimilating a style (both academic and everyday), but at the same time it was also a process of osmotic adaptation. The École was filled with over-educated young Frenchmen with swollen egos and sunken chests, many of whom have now become eminent professors and important diplomatic dignitaries around the world. The rich atmosphere of the greenhouse was very different from Cambridge, it was here that I learned the way of thinking and arguing that I use to this day. My colleagues and contemporaries are distinguished by an admirably tough manner of conducting discussions, although sometimes they are not so open to facts and materials available from world experience. I purchased positive features of this style, but no doubt inherited all its vices.

Looking back, I realize that much of my self-identification within French intellectual life was determined by my interactions with Annie Kriegel, the foremost authority on the history of French communism. I met her in Paris simply because she had written an entire book on my subject, her opus magnum: Aux origines du communisme français (On the Origins of French Communism). She insisted on a historical understanding of communism - as a movement, not an abstract idea; and it had a huge impact on me. In addition, Annie was an extremely charismatic woman. She, in turn, was also intrigued by meeting an Englishman who spoke decent French and was interested in socialism, and not at all in the then fashionable communism.

Socialism in those years seemed to be a completely dead branch of history. The French Socialist Party performed very poorly in the 1968 parliamentary elections and ceased to exist in 1971, after poor results in the presidential elections. For the sake of accuracy, it should be said that the party was timely revived by the opportunist François Mitterrand, but it was revived formally and mechanically: under a new name and completely devoid of its old spirit. In the early 1970s, the only long-term left-wing party was the Communist Party. In the 1969 presidential election, the Communists won as much as 21% of the vote, leaving all other left-wing parties far behind.

It seemed then that communism occupied a central place in the past, present and future of the French left. In France, as in Italy, not to mention more eastern territories, communism could consider itself a historical winner (and indeed considered itself): socialism seems to have been defeated everywhere, except for the far north of Europe. But I was not interested in the winners. Annie understood this and considered it a commendable quality for a serious historian. So, thanks to her and her friends - not least the great Raymond Aron - I found my way to walk through French history.

Snyder asks Judt to discuss the European political currents in which French interwar socialism existed.

We have already spoken of the emotional and intellectual appeal of Marxism and Leninism. Ultimately, the Popular Front is an anti-fascist phenomenon. But in order for anti-fascism to arise, fascism must first happen: the rise to power of Mussolini in 1922, the similar rise of Hitler in 1933, the growing influence of the Romanian fascists in the 1930s, and in France and Britain, of course, in a much weaker form, but there were features of fascist ideology.

So to begin with, I would ask you about something that you did not touch on in your dissertation. Why do we get along so easily without the fascist intellectuals of the 1920s and 1930s?

When it comes to Marxists, one can discuss concepts. And the Nazis, in fact, have no concepts. They have special characteristic reactions - to war, depression, economic backwardness. But they don't start with a set of ideas that are then applied to the world around them.

Perhaps the point is that their arguments, as a rule, were from the contrary: against liberalism, against democracy, against Marxism.

Until the late 1930s (or even early 1940s), when they began to get involved in realpolitik (I'm talking about passing laws against the Jews, for example), fascist intellectuals did not stand out much in the general background of political discussions. It is difficult, say, to separate the Frenchmen Pierre Drieux la Rochelle or Robert Brasilillac, obviously fascists, from the editors of the centre-right mainstream French press, judging by their views on key issues like the Spanish civil war, Popular Front, League of Nations, Mussolini or America.

Criticism of social democracy, liberalism, or Marxist-Bolshevik ideology - all this is rather difficult to distinguish. This is largely true even in pre-Hitler Germany, where a wide range of politicians had very similar views on foreign policy, ranging from, say, the liberal Gustav Stresemann all the way to the Nazis. And in Romania, the people we now call fascist intellectuals - Mircea Eliade, Emil Cioran - were not just mainstream, they set the tone, being representatives of influential intellectuals.

What could be called the intellectual traits of a fascist thinker?

Take the case of Robert Brasilillac. Contemporaries considered him a deep-thinking representative of the far right. Tellingly, he was young, coming of age in the 1930s. He wrote very well, which is generally characteristic of the Nazis. They were often wittier and more caustic than the ponderously serious left-wing intellectuals. They are distinguished by an aesthetic flair that promotes a sympathetic and cultural response to contemporary art. Brasilillac, for example, was a film critic, and a very good one. If you read his work with an open mind today, you will notice that his criticism of left-wing films of the 1930s, especially those that are now in vogue, was quite scathing. And finally, in the case of Brasilillac and many others, we are dealing with conscious individualism, which is quite natural for people of the right, but looks alien on the left flank. Right-wing intellectuals look more like critics in newspaper culture sections of the 1830s and 40s; this is a more recognizable and positive social type than the ideological left-wing intellectual of the next generations. People like Brasilillac do not identify themselves predominantly with politics. Many right-wing intellectuals - Junger, Cioran, Brasilillac - were not party members. And yet they were significant figures in the intellectual world.

After 1913 comes the First World War, the principles of national self-determination in action, then the Bolshevik revolution. How inseparable are these events and factors?

When viewed from our time, it seems that the level of violence during the First World War should have had a much greater effect, but surprisingly, this is not the case. It was the bloody, deadly side of war that was most praised by those for whom it became a key moment in their youth. Reading Ernst Junger, Drieu la Rochelle or angry responses to Remarque, you understand that the spirit of unity in a dangerous situation, then glorified in hindsight, gives the war a special heroic glow in the eyes of many. The veterans were divided into those who, until the end of their lives, carefully kept the memories of the harsh trench everyday life, and those who, on the contrary, forever distanced themselves from national-ilitaristic politics in any form. The latter were probably in the absolute majority, especially in France and Britain, but certainly not in intellectual circles.

The Bolshevik revolution happened at the end of 1917, that is, before the end of the war. This means that even then there was a vague threat of further unrest, a revolution in Europe, facilitated and prepared by military destabilization and unjust peace agreements (real or perceived as such). The example of many countries - starting with Italy - shows us that if it were not for the threat of a communist revolution, the fascists would have been much less likely to become guarantors of the preservation of the traditional way of life. In fact, the fascists, at least in Italy, did not quite understand themselves whether they were radicals or conservatives. And the shift to the right occurred in large part because the right-wing fascists succeeded in presenting fascism as an adequate response to the communist threat. In the absence of the specter of a leftist revolution, the leftist fascists might also prevail. However, instead they fell under the purges of Mussolini, and ten years later, Hitler. Conversely, the relative weakness of radical left movements in post-war Britain, France, and Belgium prevented the right-wing from successfully exploiting the specter of communism for the next decade. Even Winston Churchill himself was ridiculed for his obsession with the Red Menace and the Bolsheviks.

Many fascists admired Lenin, the Bolshevik revolution, and the Soviet state and viewed one-party rule as a model.

Oddly enough, the Bolshevik revolution and the emergence Soviet Union created more problems for the left in the West than for the right. For the first time post-war years v Western Europe very little was known about Lenin and his revolution. Accordingly, there were very many abstract interpretations of events in Russia depending on the local context: they were perceived as a syndicalist revolution, as an anarchist revolution, as Marxist socialism adapted to Russian circumstances, as a temporary dictatorship, etc. The left was concerned that the revolution in a backward agricultural country did not meet Marx's predictions and, therefore, could cause unintended consequences and even lead to tyranny. As for the fascists, Lenin's voluntarism and arrogant desire to force the course of history (what classical Marxists were most worried about) were just to their liking. The Soviet state was ruled from above, relied on violence and decisiveness: in those years, the future fascists were striving for this, it was precisely this that they lacked in the political culture of their own societies. The Soviet example confirmed that the party could make a revolution, seize the state and, if necessary, rule by force.

Those early years the Russian revolution had effective, even excellent propaganda. Over time, the Bolsheviks developed a certain talent for the use of public spaces.

I would go even further. Facades of fascism and communism were often strikingly similar. Some of Mussolini's projects to rebuild Rome, for example, are frighteningly reminiscent of Moscow University. If you do not know anything about the history of the People's House of Nicolae Ceausescu, how to determine what kind of architecture it is - fascist or communist? Both regimes were characterized (paradoxically at first glance) by conservatism in high art, which replaced the initial enthusiasm revolutionary years. Both communists and fascists were extremely suspicious of innovations in music, painting, literature, theater and dance. By the 1930s, aesthetic radicalism was as out of place in Moscow as it was in Rome or Berlin.

In 1933, Hitler comes to power, and soon after that, already in 1936, it becomes clear that Nazi Germany will be one of the strong players on the right flank among European states. How do fascists in other countries react to this?

As a rule, they again emphasize their connection with Italian fascism. Italian fascism, without outright racist connotations and not carrying (for most European countries) a special threat, becomes respectable, at the world level, the embodiment of the policy that they would like to implement at home. So it was in England, where Oswald Mosley bowed to Mussolini. Many of the French rightists had traveled to Italy, read Italian and had firsthand knowledge of Italian life. Italy even played a role in defending Austria from Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1936.

At the same time, during these years, many quite freely expressed their admiration for Hitler. Mosley's wife and his daughter-in-law traveled to Germany, where they met with Hitler and spoke with delight about his strength, determination and originality. The French also traveled to Germany, although to a lesser extent: French fascism developed along the nationalist model, and French nationalism in those years was by definition anti-German (as well as anti-British).

The Romanian fascists did not show much interest in Germany, at least until the war. They perceived their culture as a continuation of the Latin one, and they were much closer to the Spanish Civil War, in which they saw the cultural confrontation of the 1930s. In general, the Romanian fascists did not seek to affiliate with Hitler, and not so much because of political differences, but because of the anti-German sentiments typical of most Romanians after the First World War (although after the end of the war, Romania received its territorial contribution, being an ally of the Entente). Romania acquired a huge territory, primarily through Hungary, but only through an alliance with France and Britain. Since Hitler was determined to abolish the post-war order based on these peace accords, Romania had every reason to keep a low profile. As soon as Hitler demonstrated, starting in 1938, that he could move the borders within Europe, the Romanians had no choice but to negotiate. Indeed, they had no other choice after Hitler arranged for the transfer of part of the Romanian territories back to Hungary.

Sometimes (rather as an exception) the German character of German National Socialism showed its attraction. You can think of Leon Degrel, the Belgian fascist leader. Degrel, although he spoke French, was a representative of Belgian revisionism, more common in the Flemish regions of the country. The revisionists rightly regarded Germany as a greater ally than the French, the Dutch, or the British, who adhered to the status quo. The Belgian revisionists were primarily concerned with a minor territorial redistribution, as well as the recognition of the rights of the Flemish language. The Germans prudently gave the green light to all this in 1940, as soon as they occupied Belgium. However, the outstanding example of pro-German fascism was Quisling's party in Norway. These Norwegians saw their nation as an extension of the German essence, Germanness itself, and their country as part of the great Nordic space, within which, within the framework of Nazi ambitions, they could also get some kind of role. However, until the war itself, they had no political weight.

But the appeal of German National Socialism extended even wider, to the whole of Europe. The Germans had a scenario that the Italians did not: a post-democratic strong Europe in which Western countries life is not bad, but Germany is at the head of this association. Many intellectuals in the West were attracted to this idea, some even deeply believed in it. The European idea, however much we would like to forget it, was then a right idea. Of course, it was a counterweight to Bolshevism, but also to Americanization, it was a counterweight to industrial America with its "material values" and ruthless financial capitalism (which is supposedly run by Jews). New Europe with a planned economy would become a force, although in reality it could become strong only by crossing meaningless national borders.

All this was very attractive to young, more economic-oriented fascist intellectuals, many of whom would soon find themselves in charge of the occupied territories. After 1940, after the fall of Poland, Norway and especially France, the German model seemed incredibly attractive. But this must be countered by the "Jewish question." It was during the war that the racial problem arose in full measure, and many fascist intellectuals, especially in France and England, were unable to cross this line. It is one thing to speak endlessly about the delights of cultural anti-Semitism, and quite another to support the mass destruction of entire nations.

Hitler's rise to power brought with it, just a year later, a complete reorientation of the Soviet foreign policy(to the extent that it was expressed by the Communist International). The Soviets put forward the slogan of anti-fascism. The Communists have ceased to see enemies in those who are to the right. In 1934 in France they entered into an electoral bloc with the Socialists and won the elections as the Popular Front. The importance of the French Communist Party has grown, becoming more than its real weight. The German KPD ceased to exist ...

... And most of the other European Communist Parties did not mean anything. The only major figure was the French Communist Party (PCF). By 1934, Stalin realized that this was the only lever in the camp of Western democracies that he had left for himself. The PCF has suddenly evolved from a small, if noisy, player on the French left to an important world-class tool of political influence.

PCF was that desk. Its roots are in the old and primordially strong leftist tradition. It is important to understand that France - the only country where an open democratic political system is combined with a strong leftist revolutionary movement. So the PCF party from the very beginning, from 1920, was numerous. Then, all over Europe, the socialists had to choose between the communists and the social democrats under the influence of the Bolshevik revolution, and in many places the social democrats prevailed. But not in France. There, the Communists remained on horseback until the mid-1920s. Later, the party began to decline steadily: this was facilitated by the tactics imposed by Moscow, internal disagreements, and the inability to formulate rational arguments for the electorate. By the 1928 elections, the PCF parliamentary faction was very small, and after the 1932 elections it became completely dwarfed. Stalin himself was shocked by the disappearance of communism from the French political scene. By that time, only the superiority of the communists in the trade unions and in the municipalities of the Parisian "red belt" remained in France. However, to some extent, this was enough: in a country where the capital means a lot, where there is no television, but there are radio and newspapers, the constant flickering of communists on strikes, disputes and the streets of the radical suburbs of Paris did its job - gave the party much greater recognition than the one that could be claimed with such a number.

Stalin was lucky - PCF was extremely malleable. Maurice Thorez, an obedient puppet, took over at the head of the party in 1930, and the Communist Party, which had been marginal only yesterday, suddenly gained world significance in just a few years. When Stalin switched to the Popular Front strategy, the communists no longer had to declare the socialists, "social fascists", the main threat to the working class.

On the contrary, an alliance with Blum's socialists was now possible to protect the republic from fascism. This could largely be a political ploy by the USSR to defend against Nazism, but in that case it was a rather convenient ploy. The long standing readiness of the French left to unite against the right coincided perfectly with the new course of communist foreign policy of blocking with the USSR against the world right wing. The Communists, of course, did not enter the government formed on the basis of the united pre-election front in the spring of 1936, but they were perceived by the right as the most powerful and dangerous component in the Popular Front coalition (and in this they were not so far from the truth).

The Stalinist vision of the interests of the USSR changed and became consonant with the interests of the French state. And suddenly Thorez's constant remarks about the need to give Alsace and Lorraine to Germany (in accordance with the former line of the Soviets) are replaced by another concept - now Germany could become the main enemy.

Even more. Countries that, in a way, let France down by abandoning the idea of ​​a united "anti-German" front, have become countries that let the Soviet Union down by not guaranteeing free passage for the Red Army in case of war. Poland signed a non-aggression pact in January 1934, and everyone understood that Poland would never voluntarily allow Soviet troops to your territory. So the interests of the USSR and France were somehow intertwined, and quite big number The French were ready to believe it. It was also reminiscent of the Franco-Russian alliance that lasted from the 1890s until the end of the First World War and coincided with the last period in the history of France when it was strong in the international arena.

One should also take into account the special attitude of the French towards the Soviet Union, because when they think about Moscow, they always have Paris in some sense. The question of Stalinism in France is primarily a historical paradox: is the Russian revolution the rightful successor to the French? And if so, shouldn't it be protected from any external threat? The specter of the Great French Revolution was present all the time, making it difficult to really see what was going on in Moscow. Therefore, many French intellectuals, by no means all communists, saw in the show trials that began in 1936 the revolutionary terror of Robespierre, and not totalitarian mass purges.

Soviet terror was individualistic. And in the same way, individuals at show trials individually repented of incredible crimes, but they did it as individuals. We now know that in the period 1937-1938, about 700,000 people were shot, but mostly they were arrested under the cover of night, one by one. And this made it impossible for them or their families to understand what was happening. And this terrifying grayness, this uncertainty and uncertainty remain part of the landscape of Soviet memory right up to the present day.

So I think that when we think of Orwell simply as a man with open eyes, we don't see the whole picture. Like Koestler, Orwell had a good imagination, which allowed him to see conspiracies and other conspiracies - no matter how absurd - behind the scenes of what was happening, and then declare them to be a reality, thereby making them real to us.

I think this is the key point. Those who correctly perceived the 20th century, either anticipating it like Kafka, or like contemporaneous observers, must have had a rich imagination: for a world that had no precedent in history. They had to assume that this unprecedented and seemingly absurd situation was real, instead of considering it, along with everyone else, an unimaginable grotesque. It was incredibly difficult for contemporaries to learn to think about the 20th century in this vein. For the same reasons, many convince themselves that the Holocaust didn't happen, simply because it didn't make sense. Not for the Jews - it's just obvious. But for the Germans, it also made no sense. The Nazis, if they wanted to win their wars, of course, should have used the Jews, and not exterminated them, spending huge resources on this.

It turned out that applying rational moral and political calculation to human behavior, which is self-evident for people of the 19th century, is simply impossible in the 20th century - this principle no longer works.

Translation by Nikolai Okhotin

The history of the 20th century was full of events of a very different nature - there were great discoveries and great catastrophes in it. States were created and destroyed, and revolutions and civil wars forced people to leave their native places in order to go to foreign lands, but at the same time save their lives. In art, the twentieth century also left an indelible mark, completely renewing it and creating completely new trends and schools. There were great achievements in science as well.

World history of the 20th century

The 20th century began for Europe with very sad events - it happened Russo-Japanese War, and in Russia in 1905 there was the first, albeit ended in failure, revolution. This was the first war in the history of the 20th century, during which such weapons as destroyers, battleships and heavy long-range artillery were used.

This war Russian empire lost and suffered colossal human, financial and territorial losses. However, the Russian government decided to enter into peace negotiations only when more than two billion gold rubles were spent from the treasury for the war - an amount that is fantastic today, but simply unthinkable in those days.

In the context world history this war was just another clash of colonial powers in the struggle for the territory of a weakened neighbor, and the role of the victim fell to the weakening Chinese empire.

Russian Revolution and its aftermath

One of the most significant events of the 20th century, of course, was the February and October revolutions. The fall of the monarchy in Russia caused a whole series of unexpected and incredibly powerful events. The liquidation of the empire was followed by the defeat of Russia in the First World War, the separation from it of such countries as Poland, Finland, Ukraine and the countries of the Caucasus.

For Europe, the revolution and the civil war that followed it also left their mark. also ceased to exist Ottoman Empire, liquidated in 1922, the German Empire in 1918. The Austro-Hungarian Empire lasted until 1918 and broke up into several independent states.

However, even within Russia, calm after the revolution did not come immediately. The civil war continued until 1922 and ended with the creation of the USSR, the collapse of which in 1991 will be another important event.

World War I

This war was the first so-called trench war, in which a huge amount of time was spent not so much on moving troops forward and capturing cities, but on pointless waiting in the trenches.

In addition, artillery was used en masse, chemical weapons were used for the first time, and gas masks were invented. Another important feature was the use of combat aviation, the formation of which actually took place during the hostilities, although aviator schools were created a few years before it began. Together with aviation, forces were created that were supposed to fight it. This is how the air defense forces appeared.

The development of information and communication technologies has also been reflected on the battlefield. Information began to be transmitted from headquarters to the front ten times faster thanks to the construction of telegraph lines.

But not only the development of material culture and technology was affected by this terrible war. She found a place in art. The 20th century was a turning point for culture, when many old forms were rejected and replaced by new ones.

Art and literature

Culture on the eve of the First World War experienced an unprecedented rise, which resulted in the creation of a variety of trends in literature, as well as in painting, sculpture and cinema.

Perhaps the most striking and one of the most well-known artistic trends in art was futurism. Under this name, it is customary to unite a number of movements in literature, painting, sculpture and cinema, which trace their genealogy to the famous manifesto of futurism, written by the Italian poet Marinetti.

Along with Italy, futurism received the greatest distribution in Russia, where such literary communities of futurists as Gilea and OBERIU appeared, the largest representatives of which were Khlebnikov, Mayakovsky, Kharms, Severyanin and Zabolotsky.

As for the visual arts, pictorial Futurism had Fauvism as its foundation, while borrowing a lot from the then popular Cubism, which was born in France at the beginning of the century. In the 20th century, the history of art and politics are inextricably linked, as many avant-garde writers, painters and filmmakers drew up their own plans for the reconstruction of the society of the future.

The Second World War

The history of the 20th century cannot be complete without a story about the most catastrophic event - World War II, which began a year and lasted until September 2, 1945. All the horrors that accompanied the war left an indelible mark on the memory of mankind.

Russia in the 20th century, like other European countries, experienced many terrible events, but none of them can be compared in its consequences with the Great Patriotic War, which was part of the Second World War. According to various sources, the number of victims of the war in the USSR reached twenty million people. This number includes both military and civilian residents of the country, as well as numerous victims of the blockade of Leningrad.

Cold war with former allies

Sixty-two sovereign states out of the seventy-three that existed at that time were drawn into the fighting on the fronts of the World War. fighting were conducted in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and Asia, the Caucasus and Atlantic Ocean and beyond the Arctic Circle.

World War II and the Cold War followed one after the other. Yesterday's allies became first rivals, and later enemies. Crises and conflicts followed one after another for several decades, until the Soviet Union ceased to exist, thereby putting an end to the competition between the two systems - capitalist and socialist.

Cultural Revolution in China

If we tell the history of the twentieth century in terms of state history, then it may sound like a long list of wars, revolutions and endless violence, often used in relation to completely random people.

By the mid-sixties, when the world had not yet fully comprehended the consequences of the October Revolution and the civil war in Russia, another revolution unfolded on the other side of the continent, which went down in history under the name of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

The cause of the Cultural Revolution in the PRC is considered to be an intra-party split and Mao's fears of losing his dominant position within the party hierarchy. As a result, it was decided to start an active struggle against those representatives of the party who were supporters of small property and private initiative. All of them were accused of counter-revolutionary propaganda and either shot or sent to prison. Thus began the mass terror, which lasted more than ten years, and the cult of personality of Mao Zedong.

space race

Space exploration was one of the most popular areas in the twentieth century. Although today people have already become accustomed to international cooperation in the field of high technology and space exploration, while space was an arena of intense confrontation and fierce competition.

The first frontier for which the two superpowers fought was earth orbit. By the beginning of the fifties, both the USA and the USSR had samples of rocket technology, which served as prototypes for launch vehicles of a later time.

Despite the speed with which the Soviet rocket scientists were the first to put the cargo into orbit, and on October 4, 1957, the first man-made satellite appeared in Earth orbit, which made 1440 orbits around the planet, and then burned out in dense layers of the atmosphere.

Also, Soviet engineers were the first to launch the first living creature into orbit - a dog, and later a man. In April 1961, a rocket was launched from the Baikonur cosmodrome, in the cargo compartment of which was spaceship Vostok-1, in which Yuri Gagarin was. Taking the first man into space was risky.

In the conditions of the race, space exploration could cost the cosmonaut his life, since in a hurry to get ahead of the Americans, Russian engineers took a number of rather risky steps. technical point decision vision. However, both takeoff and landing were successful. So the USSR won the next stage of the competition, called the Space Race.

Flights to the Moon

Having lost the first few stages in space exploration, American politicians and scientists decided to set themselves a more ambitious and difficult task, for which the Soviet Union could simply not have enough resources and technical developments.

The next frontier that had to be taken was the flight to the Moon, the natural satellite of the Earth. The project, called "Apollo", was initiated in 1961 and aimed at carrying out a manned expedition to the moon and landing a man on its surface.

As ambitious as this task may have seemed by the time the project began, it was accomplished in 1969 with the landing of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. In total, within the framework of the program, six manned flights to the Earth's satellite were made.

Defeat of the socialist camp

The Cold War, as is known, ended with the defeat of the socialist countries not only in the arms race, but also in the economic competition. There is a consensus among most leading economists that the main reasons for the collapse of the USSR and the entire socialist camp were economic.

Despite the fact that in some countries there is widespread resentment regarding the events of the late eighties and early nineties, for most countries of Eastern and Central Europe, liberation from Soviet domination turned out to be extremely favorable.

The list of the most important events of the 20th century invariably contains a line mentioning the fall of the Berlin Wall, which served as a physical symbol of the division of the world into two hostile camps. November 9, 1989 is considered the date of the collapse of this symbol of totalitarianism.

Technological progress in the 20th century

The 20th century was rich in inventions, never before had technological progress progressed at such a speed. Hundreds of very significant inventions and discoveries have been made over a hundred years, but some of them deserve special mention because of their extreme importance for the development of human civilization.

To inventions without which it is unthinkable modern life definitely applies to aircraft. Despite the fact that people have dreamed of flying for many millennia, the first flight in the history of mankind was only possible in 1903. This achievement, fantastic in its consequences, belongs to the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright.

Another important invention related to aviation was the backpack parachute, designed by the St. Petersburg engineer Gleb Kotelnikov. It was Kotelnikov who received a patent for his invention in 1912. Also in 1910, the first seaplane was designed.

But perhaps the most terrible invention of the twentieth century was nuclear bomb, a single use of which plunged humanity into a horror that has not passed to this day.

Medicine in the 20th century

One of the main inventions of the 20th century is also considered the technology of artificial production of penicillin, thanks to which mankind was able to get rid of many infectious diseases. The scientist who discovered the bactericidal properties of the fungus was Alexander Fleming.

All the achievements of medicine in the twentieth century were inextricably linked with the development of such areas of knowledge as physics and chemistry. Indeed, without the achievements of fundamental physics, chemistry or biology, the invention of the X-ray machine, chemotherapy, radiation and vitamin therapy would have been impossible.

In the 21st century, medicine is even more closely connected with high-tech branches of science and industry, which opens up truly fascinating prospects in the fight against diseases such as cancer, HIV and many other intractable diseases. It is worth noting that the discovery of the DNA helix and its subsequent decoding also give hope for the possibility of curing inherited diseases.

After the USSR

Russia in the 20th century experienced many catastrophes, among which were wars, including civil wars, the collapse of the country and revolutions. At the end of the century, another extremely important event happened - the Soviet Union ceased to exist, and sovereign states were formed in its place, some of which plunged into civil war or into a war with their neighbors, and some, like the Baltic countries, quickly joined the European Union and started building an effective democratic state.

Igor Nikolaevich Sukhikh (born in 1952) is a critic, literary critic, Doctor of Philology, professor at St. Petersburg State University. Author of books: "Problems of Chekhov's Poetics" (L., 1987; 2nd ed. - St. Petersburg, 2007), "Sergey Dovlatov: time, place, fate" (St. Petersburg, 1996; 2nd ed. - St. Petersburg. , 2006), “Books of the XX century: Russian canon” (M., 2001), “Twenty books of the XX century” (St. Petersburg, 2004). Winner of the Zvezda magazine award (1998) and the Gogol Prize (2005). Lives in St. Petersburg.

Published in the Zvezda magazine in 2005-2007. the textbook “Literature of the 19th century” was approved by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation for teaching in the 10th grade.

Igor Sukhikh

Russian literature. 20th century

Twentieth century: from Russia to Russia

Calendar and history: short 20th century

First of all, let's agree on the difference between calendar and historical the concepts of the century. Calendar ages (centuries) are equal to each other, historical ages ( era) are determined by turning points and can be shorter or longer than a calendar century.

The beginning of the 19th century in Russia almost coincided with the calendar: with the accession to the throne of Alexander I (1801), a new era began. European historians begin their century a decade earlier, with the French Revolution (1789-1794).

The calendar border of the 20th century was noticed and marked. At the beginning of 1901
M. Gorky writes to a friend: “I met the new century excellently, in a large company of people who were alive in spirit, healthy in body, cheerfully disposed. They are a sure guarantee for the fact that new century will truly be an age of spiritual renewal. Faith is a powerful force, and they believe in the inviolability of the ideal, and in their own strength to firmly go towards it. All of them will die on the road, hardly any of them will be happy, many will experience great torment, many people will die, but the earth will give birth to them even more, and - in the end - beauty, justice will overcome, the best aspirations of man will win ”(K. P. Pyatnitsky, January 22 or 23, 1901).

People of the nineteenth century.

How they hastened to part with their age!

How did you regret it later...

However, the historical 19th century ended almost a decade and a half later than the calendar one. The boundary between epochs, the beginning of the “Real Twentieth Century”, about which A. A. Akhmatova wrote, was, as we remember, the First World War (1914).

The last historical frontier (scar) was formed quite recently, before our eyes. It was defined by such events as the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany, the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the end cold war and the emergence of a new world order.

Thus, in the background long 19th century historians speak of short 20th century. His calendar was only three quarters of a century (1914-1991).
In Russian history, two world wars and a civil war, three (or four) revolutions, collectivization and modernization, the “Gulag Archipelago” and space flights fit in three quarters of a century.

At the turn of the 1980s and 1990s, the world conflicts and threats that determined the atmosphere of the 20th century seemed to have disappeared. Popular at this time became the formula “ end of story". Many philosophers and sociologists have argued that the tragic history of the twentieth century, full of conflicts, has ended, and a long period of peaceful, evolutionary development begins, which can hardly be called historical in the usual sense. “History has stopped its course,” as if M.E. Saltykov-Shchedrin parodied such theories a century earlier.

But history quickly took revenge on complacent historians. “The End of History” lasted only a decade. On September 11, 2001, the whole world looked in horror at the same television picture: planes hijacked by terrorists crashed into the skyscrapers of the World Trade Center, one of the symbols of US power. These events forced us to talk about the beginning of the “real twenty-first century”, which will determine clash of civilizations. A new era has begun, history has again moved into an unknown future, new confrontations and problems have arisen, the witnesses or participants of which will be the people of the 21st century.

The short twentieth century, after a decade of interval, suddenly became not only a calendar, but also a historical past. There was an opportunity to look at it as a completed era.

Russia: last years imperial power

There are two irreconcilable views on the last decades of imperial Russia “Everything was going well and right in the country, it was rapidly moving along the European, bourgeois path, and only random circumstances and the Bolshevik coup prevented this evolutionary development”, say some historians.

“No, the revolution was inevitable, its origins lie in the incomplete reform of 1861 and even deeper - in the Petrine reforms that split the country into two irreconcilable cultural classes,” say others.

A. I. Solzhenitsyn ironically reproduces the dispute “who started it first”:

“Like two mad horses in a common harness, but deprived of control, one pulling to the right, the other to the left, shunning and satane from each other and from the cart, they will certainly smash it, turn it over, knock it off the slope and destroy themselves - so the Russian government and Russian society, since the fatal distrust, anger, hatred settled between them and everything grew, they dispersed and carried Russia into the abyss. And to intercept them, to stop them - it seemed that there was no daring one.

And who will now explain: where did it start? who started? In the continuous flow of history, the one who cuts it in one cross section and says: here it will always be wrong! it all started from here!

This irreconcilable strife between the government and society - did it begin with the reaction of Alexander III? Isn't it more true then - from the assassination of Alexander II? But even that was the seventh attempt, and the first was Karakozovsky's shot.

There is no way we can recognize the beginning of that discord - later than the Decembrists.

Is it not because of that dissension that Paul has already perished?

There are those who like to divert this gap to the first German disguise of Peter - and they are very right. Then to the cathedrals of Nikon” (“Red Wheel”, node two, “October 16th”, chapter seven, “Cadet origins”).

According to Russian literature, the second point of view looks more reasonable. The revolution was expected, foreseen, feared, warned about it for many years, but it was still approaching at an alarming rate.

The reign of the last Russian Emperor Nicholas II (1894-1917) was filled with numerous omens and catastrophic events. Unexpectedly ascended the throne at the age of 26 ( full of energy father, Alexander III, died suddenly, although he could “freeze Russia” for several more decades), Nicholas, by his nature and upbringing, turned out to be ill-prepared for governing the country in a critical era.

He inherited from his father the idea of ​​a firm autocratic power, an absolute monarchy. “The owner of the Russian land,” he answers the question about occupation during the All-Russian census (1897). In one of his speeches (1895), he calls “meaningless dreams” the hopes for participation in the government of the country that has grown up after the peasant reforms (this was a meaningful reservation, the text of the speech read: “groundless dreams”).

But in his character and upbringing, Nikolai did not answer much for the role he had taken on. S. Yu. Witte, one of the most useful (and unloved by the Tsar) figures of the Nikolaev era, who was both the Minister of Finance and the Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers, condescendingly asserted that the emperor had “the secondary education of a guards colonel of a good family.” A similar impression was formed by his simple subject, but a great writer, who only briefly saw the king. “For some reason, the conversation turned to Nicholas II. Anton Pavlovich<Чехов>said: └They say wrongly about him that he is sick, stupid, evil. He is just an ordinary guards officer. I saw him in the Crimea. He has a healthy appearance, he is only a little pale "" (S. L. Tolstoy. "Essays of the past").

“The law of autocracy is this: / The kinder the tsar, the more blood flows. / And Nicholas II was the kindest of all,” the poet M.A. Voloshin bitterly ironized after the death of the emperor (“Russia”, 1924). Malfunctions in the economy of the Guards officer began immediately, and after a few years the economy completely went haywire.

The beginning of a new reign marked Khodynka. During the coronation in Moscow (1896), due to an oversight by the police, about three thousand people were trampled, strangled, mutilated at the Khodynka field during the distribution of cheap royal gifts. The emperor found out about this, but the gala dinner and evening ball were not cancelled. (“One drop of royal blood is worth more than millions of corpses of serfs,” a faithful wife, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, will write in her diary a few years later.)

The next symbolic image of kingship was Bloody Sunday. On January 9, 1905, a peaceful demonstration of St. Petersburg workers went to the Winter Palace with a petition to the Tsar-father, but was shot (several hundred people died). The emperor noted in his diary: “A hard day! Serious riots broke out in St. Petersburg as a result of the desire of the workers to reach the Winter Palace. The troops had to shoot in different parts of the city, there were many killed and wounded.” Who gave the order, according to which the troops "should have fired," remained unclear. But the name of the Russian autocrat was also associated with this tragedy.

To divert attention from internal problems, a “small victorious war” was started with Japan (1904-1905). However, despite the heroism of ordinary soldiers and officers (the song about the proud “Varyag” and the waltz “On the Hills of Manchuria” remained from this campaign), it ended in a humiliating defeat of a huge empire, the loss of the fleet and the southern part of Sakhalin (the roots of the “territorial issue”, which and today Russia and Japan cannot decide, they go back to the very beginning of the twentieth century).

On October 17, 1905, under the pressure of circumstances, the tsar was forced to sign a manifesto that gave Russian society "the unshakable foundations of civil freedom." A representative institution (the State Duma) appeared in Russia, and censorship was abolished. The country moved along the path of a constitutional monarchy. However, this did not stop the first Russian revolution, which raged in the empire for about two years (1905-1907).

After its suppression-fading, Nicholas II again tried to rule autocratically. The first two compositions of the State Duma were dissolved, the most active and talented statesmen (moreover, supporters of the monarchy) were removed from power, and they were replaced by inept but obedient people. The tsar and the government were increasingly losing their footing in society. “May I ask if the government has friends? And the answer is quite confident: no. What kind of friends can fools and boobies have, robbers and thieves, ”-
A. S. Suvorin, a conservative, a major publisher, and a long-term companion of Chekhov, writes in his diary with deep pain (November 14, 1904).

September 1, 1911 in the Kiev theater, during the intermission of the performance, which was attended by the king, was mortally wounded P. A. Stolypin, one of the most useful statesmen Nicholas era. With his name, many writers and historians associate the possibility of a different, evolutionary, and not revolutionary, development of Russia. Stolypin belong famous words, pronounced in the State Duma on May 10, 1907 in a dispute with liberal deputies: “You need great upheavals, but we need great Russia”(they will be written on a monument in Kiev, which will be installed in 1913 and destroyed in 1917). However, there were fewer and fewer people left in the Russian government and society who could and wanted to withstand the great upheavals. And the country has not managed to move away from the great upheavals in Europe.

World War: The Fall of an Empire

On June 15, 1914, in Sarajevo, the heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne and his wife were killed by a Serbian terrorist student. With these shots, a four-year world war began, in which millions will die (contemporaries do not yet know that it is - first and not the bloodiest). July 19 (August 1), 1914 Germany declares war on Russia. The empire, together with many European countries, is drawn into a completely unnecessary and senseless world slaughter.

The Germans "started first." The war for some time causes universal enthusiasm and the illusion of the unity of the autocrat and subjects, the state and society. The State Duma, almost in its entirety (except for the Social Democrats), votes for military credits. Workers' strikes are over. Zemstvo bodies help in the mobilization and medical support of the army. Poets compose patriotically inspiring poems, although, like many intellectuals, they are exempt from mobilization (of the major Russian writers of the 20th century, only N. S. Gumilyov and M. M. Zoshchenko participated in hostilities). Even Igor Severyanin, forgets about “pineapples in champagne” and writes “Poetry of Indignation”, in which he swears by the names of Goethe and Schiller and threatens the German emperor Wilhelm with retribution, in essence - with a revolution:

Traitor! marauder! reckless warrior!

The Hohenzollern family will die with you forever...

Retribution to you - solemn and terrible

People's scaffold!

("Poetry of Indignation", August 1914)

However, such sentiments did not last long. Already at the beginning of the war, the Russian army suffered a terrible defeat in the territory of East Prussia (the current Kaliningrad region). There were not enough shells and cartridges at the front. Thousands of refugees filled the central regions of the country. It turned out that Russia (like other European countries) is not ready for a long war and, most importantly, does not understand its purpose and meaning.

The illusion of national unity (the model here was Patriotic War 1812) is rapidly disappearing. This war, even more than the revolution of 1905, splits, crushes Russian society. Hatred changes address, is directed not at an external enemy, but at internal enemy which liberal figures see in the autocracy, the government, merchants-speculators, generals and officials - in troublemakers-Bolsheviks and liberals, junior officers - in mediocre generals, peasants called under arms - in officer drill and exactingness.

Vladimir Mayakovsky seems to respond to the leavened patriotism of Igor Severyanin:

To you who live for an orgy orgy,

having a bathroom and a warm closet!

Shame on you for being presented to George

subtract from newspaper columns?!

Do you know, mediocre, many,

thinking, it's better to get drunk, -

maybe now the bomb feet

tore out the lieutenant of Petrov? ..

If he, brought to the slaughter,

suddenly saw, wounded,

how you smeared in a cutlet lip

lustfully sing Northerner!

(“To you!”, 1915)

The protracted war led to a major catastrophic consequence. The destruction of moral standards collapse of humanism from an abstract theory becomes common practice. Tired, desperate, millions of ordinary people are getting used to the fact that all issues are resolved by violence, murder, blood. Having received a weapon in their hands, they could use it at their own discretion.

Trying to personally influence the course of hostilities, Emperor Nicholas makes another, as many historians believe, a fatal mistake. In 1915, he assumes the duties of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief and goes to headquarters in Mogilev. Now all military failures are directly associated with the tsar, at the same time, far from Petrograd (the city lost its “German” name in the patriotic excitement immediately after the start of the war), he understands the situation in which Russia finds itself less and less. Nikolai calls the warnings of an impending revolution "nonsense" even a few days before it.

When in February 1917 the news of the unrest in the capital reaches Mogilev, the imperial train sets off, but gets stuck near Pskov at the Dno station: the soldiers do not let it through. On March 2, 1917, two members of the State Duma arrive at the station (ironically, monarchists), and Nicholas II writes and gives them the text of his abdication. So suddenly and prosaically ends the rule of the Romanov dynasty, whose tercentenary was celebrated quite recently, on the eve of the war (1913).

“Rus faded away in two days. The most is three.<…>There is no Kingdom left, no Church left, no army left. What is left? Strangely, literally nothing. There remained a vile people, of which here is one, an old man of about 60 years old, “and so serious”, of the Novgorod province, put it: “from the former tsar it would be necessary to pull the skin one by one.” That is, not immediately rip off the skin, like the Indians scalp, but you need to cut ribbon after ribbon from his skin in Russian. And what did the tsar do to him, to this “serious peasant”,” the conservative philosopher, monarchist V. V. Rozanov bitterly lamented. However, he was also forced to utter the words about the “Kingdom rotten through and through”. Rozanov blamed the incident primarily on Russian literature, which endlessly criticized the state and idealized the Russian people: “Here is Dostoevsky ... Here you have Tolstoy, and Alpatych, and └War and Peace“” (“Apocalypse of Our Time”, 1917-1918 ).

However, another writer, who, by the way, greatly appreciated Rozanov, expresses the exact opposite opinion. M. M. Prishvin learns from the servant of the writer A. M. Remizov, an illiterate Belarusian Nastya, “news” about the death of Russia, which she apparently picked up in street conversations from some “one-thinker” Rozanov. “... Russia is dying. “It’s not true,” we tell her, “as long as Leo Tolstoy, Pushkin and Dostoevsky are with us, Russia will not perish.” The servant with difficulty memorizes unfamiliar surnames, calling Tolstoy “Leu”,
and taking for him the poets appearing in the house - M. Kuzmin, F. Sologub. A few days later, the story continues. “Somehow, people gathered in the street opposite our house and the orator told the people that Russia would perish and would soon be a German colony. Then Nastya, in her white headscarf, made her way through the crowd to the speaker and stopped him, telling the crowd: “Do not believe him, comrades, until Leu Tolstoy, Pushkin and Dostoevsky are with us, Russia will not perish” ”(Diary. 1917, December 30).

For some, Russian literature was the cause of the death of Russia, for others - the hope for a revival. But in both cases, great guilt or hope was placed on the Word.

V. V. Nabokov, an emigrant writer, esthete, son of the Minister of the Provisional Government V. D. Nabokov, will give the hero of the novel “The Gift” (1937-1938) full of “tasteless temptation” and yet a seductive pun that connects the reign of grandfather and grandson , guilt and retribution in the history of post-reform Russia: “He vividly felt a certain state deception in the actions of the └Tsar-Liberator“, who very soon got tired of this whole story with the granting of freedoms; royal boredom was the main shade of the reaction. After the manifesto, people were shot at the Abyss station, and the epigrammatic vein in Fyodor Konstantinovich was tickled by a tasteless temptation to consider the further fate of government Russia as a stretch between the Abyss and Dno stations.

Historians, who have been figuring out what happened for almost a century, explain and are perplexed: “When Nicholas II finally set off from Mogilev to Petrograd, he was stopped at the Dno station. The symbolism of the station names reinforces the irrational nature of what was happening. Historians have convincingly proved that in Russia there were all the conditions for a revolution: unwillingness to continue the war, decomposition imperial court, the growth of the proletariat and its demands, the ossified framework of the old regime, which interfered with the young bourgeoisie. No one, however, proved that the autocracy was bound to collapse without resistance in February 1917.” (M. Geller. “History of the Russian Empire”).

In a situation of uncertainty, irrationality, it may be worth listening to the simple and wise explanation of the poet:

Universal experience says

that kingdoms perish

not because life is hard

or terrible ordeals.

And they die because

(and the more painful the longer)

that the people of their kingdom

no longer respected.

(B. Sh. Okudzhava, 1968)

The thousand-year "kingdom-state" (if you count the time from Ancient Russia) and the three-hundred-year-old dynasty at the beginning of the "Real Twentieth Century" finally lost the respect of their subjects. Therefore, they had to die. Not in February, so in March or April. However, it soon became clear that this did not bring people the expected happiness.

1917: let's drive the horse of history

Karl Marx considered revolutions locomotives of history. In 1917, Russia quickly changed as many as two locomotives. "Universal experience", however, says that these locomotives are not always driven in the right direction. Bottom turned out to be the end of one and the beginning of a new segment historical path. “When we finally reached the bottom, they knocked from below,” the Polish aphorist S.E. Lets bitterly joked about this. The terminal station of the revolutionary locomotive in the spring of 1917 was not visible to anyone.

February-March events were bourgeois democratic revolution. After the abdication of Nicholas and the refusal of his brother to take the throne, Russia became a republic, perhaps the freest country in the world. The revolution took place not only instantly, but almost bloodlessly. It was welcomed and accepted by almost all social groups and strata - workers, military, intellectuals.

The hero of Yu. V. Trifonov's novel "The Old Man" (1978), one of the best works devoted to Soviet history, meets the spring of 1917 as a high school student: “And the first days - March, drunken spring, thousands of crowds on wet, snow-soaked Petrograd avenues, wandering from dawn to dawn.<…>
AND absolute freedom from everything, from everyone! You don’t have to go to school, there are continuous rallies, elections, discussion of the “school constitution”, Nikolai Apollonovich talks about the French Revolution instead of a lecture on great reforms, and at the end of the lesson we learn the “La Marseillaise” in French, and Nikolai Apollonovich has tears in his eyes ".

Further in the novel, an episode from school life. In an anatomy lesson, a rat should be dissected. But established after the revolution student council arranges a meeting to discuss her fate. On it, some students, forgetting about the unfortunate rat, talk about historical expediency and the Paris Commune. Others fiercely defend the rights of the doomed Fenya
(the rat even has a name): “Great goals require sacrifice! But the victims do not agree to this! And you ask a rat! And you use dumbness; if she could speak, she would answer!” The issue is resolved by democratic voting: the rat is pardoned, the “failed victim of science” is taken out into the yard and released from the cage. “The finale darkens the mood a little: our Fenya, being at liberty, is confused, gapes, and she is immediately grabbed by some cat running around the yard ...”

In this seemingly ridiculous episode, Trifonov subtly demonstrates the irony of history. Justice triumphed democratically by universal suffrage, but the rat did not have time to take advantage of its results and still died. Idea and reality, intentions and results did not coincide dramatically. Such was the fate of not only the Feni rat, but also the February Revolution.

After the abdication of Nicholas, a Provisional Government was formed, consisting of major industrialists, professors, and well-known zemstvo figures. After several rearrangements, it was headed by A.F. Kerensky (1881-1970), an active participant in revolutionary movement, lawyer, speaker, producing a magnetic effect on the crowd. At the same time, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies was created, in which the Bolsheviks played a leading role. A dangerous dual power was established in the country, although the main burden of governing the country lay with the Provisional Government.

The movement by inertia continued in the same direction: the new government advocated a war to a victorious end, soldiers died at the front, speculators grew fat in the rear, peasants dreamed of landowners' land, the Bolsheviks, guided by the ideas of Marx, called for a socialist revolution, after which power would pass into the hands of the proletariat.

In April 1917, V. I. Lenin arrived in Russia from a long emigration and put forward the idea of ​​the development of the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist revolution. In the summer, the Provisional Government is uncertainly trying to cope with the Bolsheviks, Lenin is hiding in Finland, near Lake Razliv.

The brilliant orator Kerensky turns out to be a bad politician. The new democratic government is losing confidence even faster than the tsarist government. The path that took three hundred years for the Romanov dynasty was covered by the Provisional Government in ten months. When in October 1917 the Bolshevik Party began preparing for an armed uprising, the Provisional Government had practically no defenders left. The capture of the Winter Palace on October 25, 1917, which is considered the main, symbolic event Great October Socialist Revolution, was simple and easy: armed soldiers and sailors, almost without resistance, entered the palace, arrested the ministers of the Provisional Government and sent them to the Peter and Paul Fortress.

In the "October poem" "Good!" (1927) V. V. Mayakovsky will depict this revolution in poster form as an instantaneous rebirth, a leap into another historical time. At the beginning of the sixth chapter, the wind is blowing, cars and trams are still rushing “under capitalism”, and at the end, after the storming of the Winter Palace, “trams continued their race / already - under socialism”. Even earlier, in The Left March (1918), the poet joyfully shouts: “Hush, orators! / Your / word, / comrade Mauser. / It’s enough to live by the law / given by Adam and Eve. / Let’s drive history to hell. / Left! / Left! / Left!”

But, looking from a historical distance, the young Trifonov's hero sees in what is happening not the joy of victory, but another act of tragedy: “A hungry, strange, unprecedented time! Everything is possible and nothing can be understood.<…>So many people have disappeared. There comes a great cycle: people, trials, hopes, killing in the name of truth. But we don't know what's coming."

To be continued

Lot interesting events contains the history of Russia. The 20th century is a new era in the annals of our state. As it began with an unstable situation in the country, so it ended with it. Over these hundred years, the people have seen great victories, and great defeats, and miscalculations of the country's leadership, and tyrants in power, and, conversely, ordinary leaders.

Russian history. 20th century. Start

How did the new era begin? It would seem that Nicholas II is in power, everything seems to be fine, but the people are revolting. What does he lack? Of course, factory legislation and decisions land issue. These problems will be the main causes of the first revolution, which will begin with the execution at the Winter Palace. A workers' demonstration for peaceful purposes was sent to the tsar, but a completely different reception awaited it. The first Russian revolution ended with the violation of the October Manifesto, and the country again plunged into confusion. The second revolution led to the overthrow of the sole reign - the monarchy. The third - to the establishment of a Bolshevik policy in the country. The country turns into the USSR and the communists rise to power: under them, the state flourishes, overtakes the West in terms of economic indicators, and becomes a powerful industrial and military center. But suddenly the war ...

Russian history. 20th century. Trial by war

During the twentieth century there were many wars: this is the war with Japan, when royal power showed its failure to the full, and the First World War, when the successes of Russian soldiers were extremely underestimated; this is an internal civil war, when the country plunged into terror, and the Great World War II, where the Soviet people showed patriotism and courage; this is the Afghan one, where young guys died, and the lightning-fast Chechen one, where the toughness of the militants knew no bounds. The history of Russia in the 20th century was filled with events, but the main one is still the Second World War. Do not forget about the Moscow battle, when the enemy was at the gates of the capital; about the Battle of Stalingrad, when soviet soldiers turned the tide of the war; about the Kursk Bulge, where Soviet technology surpassed the powerful "German machine" - all these are glorious pages of our military history.

Russian history. 20th century. The second half and the collapse of the USSR

After the death of Stalin, a fierce struggle for power begins, in which the extraordinary N. Khrushchev wins. Under him, we were the first to fly into space, created a hydrogen bomb and almost led the whole world to nuclear war. Many crises, the first visit to the United States, the development of virgin lands and corn - all this personifies his activities. After was L. Brezhnev, who also came after the conspiracy. His time is called the "era of stagnation", the leader was very indecisive. Yu. Andropov, who replaced him, and then K. Chernenko, were hardly remembered by the world, but M. Gorbachev remained in the memory of everyone. It was he who "destroyed" a powerful and strong state. The instability of the situation at the turn of the century played its role: as it all began, so it ended. Default, dashing 90s, crisis and deficits, the August coup - all this is the history of Russia. The 20th century is a difficult period in the formation of our country. From political instability, from the arbitrariness of power, we have come to a strong state with a strong people.

Since the end of the sixties, a new tight knot of Russian history has been tightened. The second Alexander era ended on March 1, 1881 with the explosion of two bombs on the Catherine Canal. As a result of the seventh assassination attempt, the emperor was mortally wounded, the terrorists were executed (although L.N. Tolstoy, in a letter to the new tsar, asked for mercy on them, hoping that as a result of this act of Christian mercy, future terrorists would abandon their goals and the history of Russia would go on a peaceful, evolutionary path) , and the new emperor Alexander III, returned to the policy of "freezing" Russia, containing and curtailing any transformations.

The view of the reign of Alexander III is very unsettled. Under him, Russia did not fight, industry developed, the outskirts of the empire were mastered. But the emperor completely abandoned political and liberal changes, quickly removed the officials who worked under his father from power, and pursued all manifestations of free thought. This time is called era of counter-reforms.

If the era of Alexander II was somewhat reminiscent of "the days of Alexander, a wonderful beginning," then the time of Alexander III was their sad end. This is the second dead-end era, Chekhov's time of "gloomy people", life "at twilight", a time of confusion, the search for new ideals

Looking already from another time, but relying on the judgments of his contemporaries, the poetic image of time was created by A. Blok in the unfinished poem "Retribution" (1911), Here Russia appeared as a fabulous beauty, enchanted evil forces, and the main villain-sorcerer turned out to be the Chief Prosecutor of the Synod K.P. Pobedonostsev, an implacable conservative, the closest adviser to the emperor.

In those distant, deaf years, Sleep and darkness reigned in the hearts: Pobedonostsev over Russia Spread owl wings, Alexander III died suddenly on October 20, 1894. The transfer of power, unlike in 1825 or 1881, this time seems to have taken place naturally, without conflicts and disasters. But really last reign almost immediately it began to turn into an endless chain of conflicts and disasters, culminating in the death of both the imperial family and the empire itself. And besides, the human will is powerless, ”Nicholas II admitted in a difficult moment to one of his faithful comrades-in-arms, P.A. Stolypin. The last tsar was an excellent family man, but a weak, short-sighted, much mistaken ruler of Russia. He insisted on the inviolability of the principle of autocratic power. At the very beginning of his reign, he spoke out against “meaningless dreams about the participation of representatives of the zemstvos in matters of internal administration” (the tsar made a symptomatic reservation: in fact, the speech spoke about baseless dreams). Nicholas blindly believed the myths about the unity of the tsar and the people, did not take into account the realities of the "industrial age", refused liberal reforms, yielding to society only under the pressure of the revolutionary movement that was gaining strength. Already the Moscow coronation of the new emperor led to a tragedy: during the distribution of royal gifts on Khodynka field on May 18, 1896, a terrible stampede arose in which more than 1300 people died. The decade of Nicholas's reign was marked by the January "Bloody Sunday", when a peaceful deputation of workers was shot at the Winter Palace and the first Russian revolution of 1905, the culmination of which was the December armed uprising in Moscow. In this struggle, society won back some democratic institutions (primarily the State Duma). But the result of another irreconcilable clash between society and the state was a new round of terror after Narodnaya Volya, in which hundreds of dignitaries died, including some members of the royal family, and thousands of terrorists, and often innocent people executed by the verdict of courts-martial. From this era in the twentieth the century passed the concepts of "Stolypin's tie" (gallows) and Stolypin's carriage (the carriage carrying the arrested). Chairman of the Council of Ministers P. A. Stolypin, who gave his name to these terrible “inventions”, was one of the most devoted people to the emperor, and also died at the hands of a terrorist. Another decade passed in catastrophes and heavy forebodings of the future. The last shock of the reign of Nicholas was August 1914, the beginning of the war with Germany, into which Russia entered unprepared and from which it emerged only four years later, through two more revolutions, the death of the royal family, a change social order, civil war. But these were already the catastrophes of the new century, which revealed the illusory nature of many things and phenomena, theories and principles. The nineteenth century was thus given another one and a half calendar decades. The First World War turned out to be a frontier, the end of a former era. Such is the sinusoid of Russian history of the 19th century, its rapid rises and no less catastrophic falls.

Questions and tasks

1. How did contemporaries assess the outgoing 18th century? What explains these ratings?

2. What are not calendar, but historical boundaries of the "real, not calendar" "Nineteenth century"? What kind historical events mark its beginning and end?

3. What emperors ruled Russia in the 19th century?

4. Slavophil A. S. Khomyakov at the beginning of the reign of Alexander II deduced a playful law of historical alternation: “In Russia, good and bad rulers alternate after one: Peter III was bad, Catherine II was good, Paul I was bad, Alexander I was good, Nicholas I bad, this one will be good! Was this pattern justified in the subsequent Russian history of the nineteenth century? And in the twentieth century?

5. What eras of Russian history are designated as twenties, thirties, forties, sixties, seventies, eighties? What is the main meaning of these eras?

6. What is the meaning of the definitions “people of the twenties”, “people of the thirties”, “people of the forties”, “sixties”, “seventies”, “eighties”?

7. Rebellion cannot end in success.

Otherwise, his name is different.

8. What is the meaning of the controversy between Chaadaev and Pushkin about the fate of Russia? Who, in your opinion, was right in this dispute?

9. In which of the epochs of the 19th century did the dispute between Westerners and Slavophiles unfold? How did these social camps differ?

10. In 1856, L. N. Tolstoy wrote the story "Father and Son", which receives the final title "Two Hussars". The story begins with a huge sentence-period (193 words), representing the characteristics of an entire era.

« In the 1800s, at a time when there were no railroads or highways, no gas or stearin light, no spring sofas, no unlacquered furniture, no frustrated young men with glass, no liberal female philosophers, nor the lovely camellia ladies, of whom there are so many divorced in our time - in those naive times, when leaving Moscow, leaving for St. believed in fire cutlets, in Valdai bells and bagels - when long autumn evenings tallow candles burned, illuminating family circles of twenty and thirty people, wax and spermaceti candles were inserted into candelabra at balls, when furniture was placed symmetrically, when our fathers were still young, not only by the absence of wrinkles and gray hair, but they shot for women and from another angle rooms rushed to pick up accidentally and not accidentally dropped handkerchiefs, our mothers wore short waists and huge sleeves and settled family matters by taking out tickets; when the lovely camellia ladies hid from the light of day - in the naive times of Masonic lodges, Martinists, Tugendbund, in the times of the Miloradovichs, Davydovs, Pushkins - in the provincial town of K. there was a congress of landowners and noble elections ended.

Comment, based on dictionaries and encyclopedias, subject realities and names of this fragment ( camellia ladies, fire cutlets, martinists, Miloradovich etc.).

Try, based on the details of this passage, to determine what time Tolstoy's father and son live in (the second half of the story is dedicated to him).

What Tolstoy's intention does this characterization of the era predict?

What work of Russian literature of the sixties predicts the original Tolstoy title?

Try, imitating Tolstoy, to give a description of our time in one sentence-period.

11. In a historical poem and two historical novels by remarkable Russians

writers of the twentieth century, created about a century after the events described, in

tolstoy style encyclopedic period characteristics are given

post-reform Russia.

B. L. Pasternak Nine hundred and fifth year (1936)

drum roll
They muffle the signals of the cast iron.
Thunder of shameful carts -
The rumble of the first platforms.
Fortress Russia
coming out
With a short string
To the wasteland
And it's called
Russia after the reforms.

These are the people
Perovskaya,
March first,
Nihilists in underwear
dungeons,
Students in pince-nez.
The story of our fathers
Like a story
From the age of the Stuarts,
More distant than Pushkin
And it seems
Just in a dream.

Yes, you can't get any closer.
Twenty-five years - underground.
The treasure is in the ground.
On the ground -
A soulless kaleidoscope.
To dig up the treasure
We are the eyes
We strain to the point of pain.
Submitting to his will
We go down into the ditch.

Dostoevsky was here.
These recluses
Do not tea
What do they have
Whatever the search,
That export of relics to the museum,
Went to execution
And for that
So that the beauty of their underground worker Nechaev
Hidden in the ground
concealed
From times and enemies and friends.

It was yesterday,
And, if we were born thirty years earlier,
Come from the yard
In the kerosene haze of lanterns,
In the midst of the flickering retorts
We would find
What are those laboratory assistants -
Our mothers
Or
Mothers' friends.