Iuzovka and Revolution, Volume II

Politics and Revolution in Russia's Donbass, 1869-1924

Theodore H. Friedgut

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9780691601496, 9780691653983
• eBook ISBN: 9781400887316
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Russian History
• Index: History

In 1870 the Welsh ironmaster John James Hughes left his successful career in England and settled in the barren and underpopulated Donbass region of the Ukrainian steppe to found the town of Iuzovka and build a large steel plant and coal mine. Theodore Friedgut tells the remarkable story of the subsequent economic and social development of the Donbass, an area that grew to supply seventy percent of the Russian Empire's coal and iron by World War I. The first volume of this two-volume study focused on the social and economic development of the Donbass, while the second volume is devoted to political analysis. While revealing the grand and tragic sweep of revolutionary events in this region, Friedgut also offers a fascinating picture of the heterogeneous population of these frontier settlements. He analyzes the instability of the revolutionary movement, and in particular the absence of a significant stratum of "worker-intelligentsia," and the inhibiting effect that this had on the development of an indigenous workers' movement. In addition, he reinforces the theory that World War I intensified existing social tensions in the Russian Empire, cutting short the slow but steady modernization of Russia's society and politics and creating the social crisis that led to the collapse of the old regime.

Originally published in 1994.

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Table of contents

• Cover
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• List of Tables
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Part I Political Forces in the Donbass
• Part II Years of Contention: 1900-1917
• Part III Revolution, Civil War, and Reconstruction
• Glossary of Russian Terms and Abbreviations
• Bibliography
• Index