Reform in Revolutionary Times

How does a state effectively mobilize its citizens for armed conflict? Why do citizens allow themselves to be placed in harm’s way? The military relationship between the state and its citizens, in terms of rights and obligations, remains as important today as it did when Europe first moved from under the shadow of the Ancien Régime. Reform in Revolutionary Times explores the evolution of the civil-military relationship during one of the more unique periods of modern European history. Born through revolution during the First World War, the Soviet state was plunged immediately into a civil war which included foreign intervention by American, British, French, Japanese, and Czech soldiers. The fires had not yet been extinguished when conflict with Poland further threatened its existence. Pragmatism vied with ideology, as the Soviets mobilized the population to unheard of levels through fundamental reforms, simply to survive these early years of revolution and war.

Author Biography

The Author: Vasilis Vourkoutiotis received his Ph.D. in history from McGill University. He was a Civic Education Project Visiting Faculty Fellow at Ural State University and St. Petersburg State University in Russia before moving to the University of Ottawa, where he is now Associate Professor of History. Dr. Vourkoutiotis was Post-Doctoral Scholar at the Centre d’histoire de l’Europe et des Relations internationales, Université de Paris IV – Sorbonne, and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society in the United Kingdom. He has delivered lectures throughout Europe and the United States, and is author of Making Common Cause: German-Soviet Secret Relations, 1919-1922 (2007) and Prisoners of War and the German High Command: The British and American Experience (2003).