Political Economy Research Seminar ‘ Democratic Support for the Bolshevik Revolution: An Empirical Investigation of 1917 Constituent Assembly Elections ’

On March 13, an HSE/NES Political Economy Research Seminar will take place at HSE. Andrey Markevich (NES) will speak on ‘Democratic Support for the Bolshevik Revolution: An Empirical Investigation of 1917 Constituent Assembly Elections’

Abstract

Scholars have long-debated the causes of popular support for the Russian Revolution and how this support translated into successful regime change. We systematically investigate cross-district and cross-city variation in popular support for the Bolsheviks using voting outcomes of the All Russian 1917 Constituent Assembly elections, occurring right after the Bolsheviks seized power. We find that the Bolsheviks managed to mobilize more popular support in districts with more of a presence of industrial workers, Russian-speaking peasants and soldiers. However, we show that politics rather than fundamentals explain the variation in pro-Bolshevik voting and the policies that supported this coalition was hardly stable, forewarning the command economy to come.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3059131 

Start time: 5pm

Working language: English.

Address: 26 Shabolovka Ulitsa, Room 4322.

Everyone interested is welcome to attend!

If you need a pass to HSE, please contact the organizers via email at political.economy.hse@gmail.com, prior to 12pm, March 13.