POLI 212 Lecture Notes - Autocracy, Path Dependence, Social Democracy
6 Jun 2012
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Document Summary
The obvious earlier turning point is the russian revolution, which caused state socialism, which in turn caused the soviet led bloc on eastern europe after 1945. The russian revolution"s ideology was closely connected to marxism, but it is a revolution inspired by marx"s political though but occurs on the peripheries of what could be called the political and economic heartland of europe. The revolution it inspired occurred in russia when it was assumed it would occur in western europe. Agrarian economy, relatively late industrializers, and a small industrial proletariat did not seem like fertile ground for this marxist revolution. Revolution is connected to political backwardness in the context of the russian. Pipes is treating late tsarist empires as a patrimonial regime. The main themes of the reading: the argument that the essential quality of russian politics stems from the identification of political sovereignty and economic ownership. Russia was a giant royal estate, which is a way to identify its distinction.
