It is a pleasure to invite you to
Russian Revolution: Theoretical approaches and open questions conference.
The conference is organized by a committee of academics and activists and will take place in
Athens Low School on 12-14 April 2019.
The anniversary debate on the October Revolution usually remains trapped in the context of a sterile, dogmatic and often self-assertive gesture of the various ideological-political trends claiming or rejecting the October (or part of the October) legacy. Critical thinking and practice finds difficult to reflect on a revolutionary period that has been catalysing to shape the modern world. Certainly there are significant contributions to this direction, but overall what seems to be dominating is, on one hand, sanctifications, mechanical replication, undeniable faith to different political dogmas, or on the other hand, its uncritical rejection.
In such a climate, important and critical aspects of the Russian revolutionary process, as well as its opposition and reversal, remain in the dark because they do not fit into the “established” narratives. As the burden of these narratives falls on parties and organizations, “holy” or “abominable” factions, state policies and geopolitical controversies, the enormous social movement of the millions of revolutionary protagonists as well as their original creative agency, but also their contradictions and the dramatic dilemmas they faced, they have not been adequately pointed out. The “preface” of this movement and the “rhizomes” in the Russian history that have allowed this innovative “blooming”, remains underscored.
Focusing therefore, on the history from below, on the dilemmas the protagonists confronted as well as on the solutions they devised, on the deadlocks they encountered as well as on the obstacles they could not overcome, we want to contribute, with this congress, to a topical reflection on critical questions related to the October Revolution.
Topics of interest
More specifically, the conference aims to focus on the following thematic axes:
- Social and political conditions in the Pre-Revolutionary Russia
- Problems of transition to a “stateless” state: revolution and democracy, self-organization and institutions, direct democracy and representation,
- The agricultural revolution: the legacy of the Russian rural community (mir)
- Revolution and Industrialization: factory, wage labor, cooperatives, market, state design
- Political “avant-guards”: Narodniks, Socialists-Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, anarchists
- Revolution and national issue: between ethnicities and nationalities
- Gender and identity issues during the transition.
PROGRAMME
FRIDAY 12/4
- 11:30 – 12:30 Registration
- 12:30 – 14:00 Session: Critical Approaches
Chair: Yiannis Kibouropoulos, Journalist
Revolution, Necessity and Ideological Reflection
Costas Galanopoulos, PhD
Concerning the development of the productive forces and other demons
Giannis Billas, Writer
The Power of Intellectuals
Charis Naxakis, University of Ioannina
Russian Revolution: The Ghost of 20th Century
Fotis Terzakis, Writer, Essayist
- 14:00 – 14:45 Session: Nations, Ethnicities, Anti-imperialist Struggles
Chair: Corina Vasilopoulou, Journalist
The Socialist Republic of Georgia and its Suppression by the Bolsheviks
Thanasis Drivas, ARMAZI, Hellenic-Georgian Cultural Association
International Causes, Consequences and today’s Relevance of the October Revolution (Lenin’s action as a turning point in Marxism)
Dimitris Konstantakopoulos, Journalist-Writer, Coordinator, Delphi Initiative (www.defenddemocracy.press)
- 14:45 – 15:00 Break
- 15:00 – 16:00 Session: Revolution’s Roots- Its Gestation and its Environment
Chair: Vicky Iakovou, University of the Aegean
The Drafts of Marx’s Answer to Vera Zasulich 1881
Thanasis Giouras, University of Crete
Russian Particularity or a Timeless Doctrine?
For a Dialectical Approach on the Formation of Bolshevism
Nikos Pelekoudas, PhD Candidate
Attempting to Raid the Sky: Narodnichestvo and Social Struggle
Polyzois Plastrakis, Historian-Social Anthropologist
- 16:00 – 17:00 Invited Speaker
Chair: Costas Papadakis, Lawyer
17th and 18th Century Rebellions in Russia and their Soviet Interpretations
Nikolas Pissis, Free University of Berlin
- 17:00 – 18:00 Session: Revolution’s Roots- Its Gestation and its Environment (2)
Chair: Vassilis Xidias, high-school teacher
Slavophiles and Westernizers in 19th Century Russia
Dimitris Baltas, PhD in Philosophy, University of Athens
Christianity’s Last Heresy
Father Antonios Pinakoulas, Vicar
Messianism and the Russian Revolution
Stefanos Rozanis, Panteion University
- 18:00-18:30 Break
- 18:30 – 19:00 Opening Ceremony
- 19:00 – 20:00 Invited Speaker
Chair: Thanasis Giouras, University of Crete
The Russian Revolution 1902-1922
Teodor Shanin, President of the Moscow School for the Social and Economic Sciences, Professor Emeritus of the University of Manchester
- 20:00 – 21:00 Invited Speaker
Chair: Stelios Elliniadis, Journalist
Evolution of the Soviets in 1917-1918
Alexander Shubin, Chief Researcher of the Institute of General history (RAS), Professor, Russian State University for Humanities
- 21:30 The Great Utopia, a film by Fotos Lamprinos
SATURDAY 13/4
- 10:30 – 11:30 Session: Utopia and Technology
Chair: George Papanikolaou, Associate Professor Harokopion University
Lenin and the Machine. Techno-sate Imaginary and the End of Politics
Yiannis Ktenas, KABOOM Journal, Panteion University
Giorgos Pertsas, PhD candidate
Craftmanship and Wage Labour: An Incompatible Relation
Andreas Kyranis, Architect
Russian Revolution and the Ghost of the Mega-machine of Technical Domination
Giannis Raouzaios, Film critic, Writer
- 11:30 – 12:30 Session: Labour and Socialism
Chair: Despina Koutsoumba, Achaeologist
From the Challenge of Worker’s Democracy to the “Lure” of Employer’s Authoritarianism. Worker’s Self-management and Taylorism in Post-revolutionary Russia
Vassilis Minakakis, Editor, Writer
Money Theory and Labour Legislation in the USSR
Dimitris M. Moschos, Historian-Anthropologist
Does Labour Emancipate?
Social Relations of Production and Worker’s Emancipation
Kostas Charitakis, BΙOME Cooperative
- 12:30 – 13:30 Invited Speaker
Chair: Sofia Adam, Heinrich Boell Stiftung Thessaloniki Office
The primary party organizations of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) as an aspect of state-society relations in interwar USSR: The case of the Putilov-Kirov plant in Leningrad
Yiannis Kokosalakis, Historian, University College Dublin
- 13:30 – 14:00 Break
- 14:00 – 14:45 Session: Socialist Economy
Chair: Nefeli Pandiri, Political Scientist
Planned Economy and Black Market: Forms of Informal Economy in the USSR
Yiannis Leventidis, University of Athens
“Socialist Planning” and Enterprise in the USSR, 1929-1989
John (Giannis) Milios, National Technical University of Athens
- 14:45 – 15:30 Session: The Greeks and the Revolution
Chair: Nikos Potamianos, assistant researcher, Institute for Mediterranean Studies, Foundation for Research and Technology
The Greek Communities in Russia during the Revolution
Andreas Zafeiris, University of Gorlovka
The Bolshevik Revolution through the Eyes of the Participants in the Greek Expeditionary Force
Tasos Kostopoulos, Historian-Journalist
- 15:30 – 16:30 Invited Speaker
Chair: Giorgos Nikolakakis, Associate Professor at the University of Crete
The chances, potential and reasons for the failure of the Social Revolutionary democratic alternative in 1917.
Konstantin Morozov, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration
- 16:30 – 17:30 Invited Speaker
Chair: Vaso Seirinidou, Assistant Professor in Modern History, University of Athens
Alternative Plan of Evolution of Social Revolution in Russia, 1918-1924
Yaroslav Leontyev, Moscow State University
- 17:30 – 18:00 Break
- 18:00 – 19:00 Session: Historical Issues
Chair: Costas Raptis, Journalist
Danger Sign. The Timely Anarchist Warnings: Proudhon, Bakunin, Kropotkin
Costas Despiniadis, Publishing house-journal “Panopticon”
Trotsky as Supporter of Compulsive Labour
Dimitris Belantis, PhD, Writer
Mensheviks: The Problem of Democracy from Tsarist Russia to the Soviet Union
Giannis Chatzhioannou, Lawyer
- 19:00 – 20:00 Invited Speaker
Chair: Dimitris J. Kyrtatas, Professor University of Thessaly
Reality and Legend of the Russian Revolution
Ettore Cinnella, University of Pisa
- 20:00 – 21:00 Invited Speaker
Chair: Spyros Dapergolas, Designer
The Evolution of the Political Position of Anarchists in the Russian Revolution of 1917-1922
Dmitry Rublev, Сandidate of Historical Sciences, Docent of Moscow State University (MSU)
SUNDAY 14/4
- 10:30 – 12:40 Session: The State and Revolution
Chair: Gianna Kurtovik, Lawyer
What is to be done with the State? Principles for the Formation of a Cooperative Justice
Giannis Efstathiou, PhD candidate
Jurists and Soviet Power
Jason Koutoufaris-Malandrinos, Lawyer
Abolishing the State: Direct Democracy or the “Management of Things”? Why the Bolsheviks managed to fool the Anarchists
Giorgos Lieros, Writer
Revolution and the Prospect of the State’s “Withering Away”: Lessons from the October Revolution up to Now
Giorgos Liodakis, Technical University of Crete
Constitutionalism, Proletarian Sovereignty and Rights: form the “Anomaly” of 1918 to the Orthodoxy of 1936
Dimitris Tsarapatsanis, University of York
Proletarian Justice?
Petros Petkas, Jurist
- 12:40 – 13:00 Break
- 13:00 – 14:00 Invited Speaker
Chair: Antonis Drakonakis, PhD candidate
Proletarian Culture against Proletkult: Alexander Bogdanov’s Idea and its Implementation in Soviet Reality
Alla Morozova, Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences
- 14:00 – 15:00 Session: Issues of Culture and Society
Chair: Fotis Kagelaris, Doctor of Psychopathology, Writer
Space and Time, Geography and History. The Epistemological Facet in the Conflict Between Anarchism and Marxism in the Environment of the Russian Revolution
Sotiris Lycourghiotis, University of Applied Sciences-Western Greece, Ηellenin Open University
The Dynamics of Space in El Lissitzky and the Subversion of the Master Signifier
Vicky Skoumbi, Αληtheia Journal
The Russian Revolution and Gendered Oppression
Dimitra Kyrilou, Engineer, Film Critic
Aleka Makri, Doctor, Member of the Feminist Collective “TO MOV”
- 15:00 – 15:30 Break
- 15:30 – 16:30 Session: Critical Approaches to the Theories on Totalitarianism
Chair: Nikos Katsiaounis, ERMA publications
Carl Schmitt and the Russian Revolution: Bolshevism’s influence on the German Radical Right
Giorgos Mertikas, Writer-Translator
October 1917: Lessons from the Bolshevik’s Coup and the Defeat of the Soviets
Υorgos Oikonomou, PhD in Philosophy-Writer
The State and Revolution in the Longue Durée: Critical Approaches to Orientalism
Dimitris Stamatopoulos, University of Macedonia
- 16:30 – 17:00
Chair: Leonidas Velissaropoulos, forester
The Period of Political Prosecutions in the Soviet Union (1936-1939). The ad hoc Dimensions of the “Great Terror” inside the Communist International
Nikos Papadatos, University of Geneva Clobal Studies Institute (GSI).
- 17:00 – 17:15 Break
- 17:15 – 18:00 Session: Farmers and the Revolution
Chair: Sotiris Papadimitriou, Writer-Director
Socialism in the Countryside: Political Aspects of the Worker-Farmer Alliance in the USSR (1917-1940) and in China (1927-1960)
Sotirirs Lapieris, Graduate of the National School of Public Administration and Local Government (ESDDA)
Giorgos Tsoutsouvas, Lawyer
New Economic Policy (NEP): The road to Communism or Tactical Retreat?
Dimitris Papafotiou, Mechanical Engineer
- 18:00 – 19:00 Invited Speaker
Chair: Filimonas Patsakis, Writer
A.V. Chayanov’s Theory of Peasant Economy as a Forsaken Way Towards Socialism
Renaud Garcia, philosophy teacher in secondary school
- 19:00 – 20:00 Invited Speaker
Chair: Chair: Nicholas Theocharakis, Associate Professor University of Athens
Peasant Revolution as a Moment of Truth of the Great Russian Revolution
Viktor Kondrashin, Head of the Center for Economic History, Institute of Russian History, Russian Academy of Sciences
FOR MORE INFO and essays here:
https://congress1917.gr/home_en
