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A study of the German influence on the Russian Revolution in 1917, including the German-Bolshevik conspiracy and the treaty of Brest-Litovsk.

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In this thesis, the records of the Menshevik ” Martov Club” for the years 1931–1932 are exploredthrough a microhistorical approach. These records are analyzed using the conceptual lens ofdesire and the self. Through this analysis, it becomes clear that the Menshevik ”self” experiencedan identity crisis in these year that was the result of sharply contested ideas around the nature ofthe social revolution and the historical role of the Bolshevik revolution. Debates around historyand the interpretation of the present were synthesized into prescriptions for political action thatcould not be reconciled, resulting in an analysis paralysis.

The course of history has been greatly defined by political and social events of tremendous significance; revolutions. Several of the most influential international alliances and feuds of the twenty-first century were generated by these occurrences, and states such as Russia and Iran have managed to deeply impact the international world order through their revolutionary behavior and ideology. It is due to its complexity and historical impact that the study of revolutions has informed the theoretical analyzes of political scientists. This study discusses prominent theories of revolution to provide an analytical framework: Marxism, Modernization, Relative Deprivation, and Mobilization. The thesis then assesses these theories by applying them to two of the most influential revolutions of the twentieth century: The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in Russia and the Muslim Revolution of 1979 in Iran. Each case study addresses the economic, social, and political conditions present prior to each society’s respective revolution. A final comparison of both case studies, based on revolutionary theories, reveals the specific variables necessary for the formation and success of revolutionary movements.

Scholarship on politics and popular culture is constantly evolving in the field of media and communications. Analyzing diverse types of mediated texts, especially the ones that are structured as narratives, such works aim to show how the cultural evolves from the political and vice versa. While storytelling in social media has attracted many scholars, it is mostly neglected from the perspective of politics and popular culture. The probable reason for this is that social media for long time have not introduced any new types of popular culture mediated texts, which would be impossible to imagine without the opportunities of Web 2.0. Through examining “1917. Free history” – a project dedicated to the anniversary of the Russian revolution – this study aims to fill the research gap and expand the scholarship on politics and popular culture to the storytelling in social media. It examines the theoretical paradigm of mediated historicity with the help of content analysis, and the concepts of narrative, myth and ideology with the help of narrative analysis. For the former, the results show how remediation in pursuit of immediacy, expressed in implicitly hiding the initial contexts of production of the texts, constructs the mediated historicity of the project. For the latter, the results show that the political narratives of “1917” are constructed as agoras holding different competing myths which make equipollent ideologies appear natural. These practices are mutually beneficial and their interconnections are understood by applying a theory of the Russian identity which corresponds to the notion of identity as a national mythscape. This work could have a potential impact on narrative and discourse methodologies for the popular culture mediated texts in social media. It could also contribute to the theoretical debates on mediated historicity and research on national identity, cosmopolitan identity and nationalism in social media.

This dissertation describes and analyzes the financial boom that made Russia the largest net international debtor in the world by 1914, as well as the Bolshevik default of 1918 -- one of the biggest in international financial history. For the Bolsheviks the default was a highly significant attack on "finance capital." Yet few historians have paid much attention to the financial history of the Russian Revolution. This study focuses in particular on the decision-making of the small but influential group of financiers and government officials who acted as the "gatekeepers" of international finance, channeling international capital to Russia in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. / History