Suchergebnisse

The object of this article is to revisit the themes originally explored in this journal thirty-five years ago in a discussion somewhat misleadingly entitled, "The Problem of Social Stability in Urban Russia, 1905-1917."' As older readers of the Slavic Review may recall, this discussion set off heated debates centered on the theses presented in this article about the dual processes of polarization that I distinguished in the dynamics of the political and social crisis in urban Russia even before the outbreak of war: polarization between the industrial workers employed in Russia's urban centers and the well-to-do strata of urban "society," including those of the professional intelligentsia; and polarization between both the upper and lower strata of Russia's urban centers and the bureaucratic circles that sought to represent the interests and will of the sovereign.

Alfred Rieber and William Rosenberg have greatly contributed by their respective commentaries to broadening the scope of the issues addressed in my discussion of "The Problem of Social Identities in Early Twentieth Century Russia" (see Slavic Review [Spring 1988]: 1-20). They have also helped bring out the complexity of the processes involved, after the outbreak of the Revolution of 1917, in the shaping and reshaping of the representations that individuals and groups entertained of themselves, of one another, and of the body politic as a whole.