ABSTRACT
The centenary of the Russian Revolution has brought this question of the lasting significance of the Revolution sharply into focus. Scholars and pundits debated how the Russian Revolution should be commemorated, which was followed soon after by how it actually was. Russia’s revolutionaries began to talk about the global impact of their revolution almost as soon as the tsar abdicated in March 1917. The Soviet system itself affected global politics as the leading example of a Communist state. The Soviet Union would export its model of a one-party state with a centralized economy that attempted to use its state power to intervene and transform society. The global impact of the Russian Revolution can be stretched even further if people count how countries and their citizens reacted to Soviet policies or regimes and economic systems set up from the Cold War. The interview with the historian S. A. Smith that concludes this volume underscores how the Russian Revolution has impacted individuals.
