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> If Russia never had a culture of reading, then how does the Communist Manifesto drive an entire society, millions of people, to overthrow its familial leaders
by cat199 6y ago
> If Russia never had a culture of reading, then how does the Communist Manifesto drive an entire society, millions of people, to overthrow its familial leaders before the era of television?
not disagreeing with your premise, but -
assuming this to be accurate (leaving out alot of factors),
nothing says small number of people couldn't read it and then go around verbally agitating everyone else.
that said literacy was fairly high in those times and i agree reading was very common
- wahern 6y agoLiteracy in Russia was low during the Russian Revolution. The Russian Empire was one of the last to abolish serfdom in Europe, and the parts where serfdom was abolished earliest, industrialization the greatest, and literacy the highest (e.g. Poland) were parts that had separated by the time of the 1917 Russian Revolution. Also, the monarchy was toppled by an ideologically diverse group. The Bolsheviks would have to fight a civil war before they could institute the Soviet Union. It's really not plausible that any significant number of Russians were spurred into action by reading the Communist Manifesto. Now, undoubtedly some elite group of radicals did just that, but that doesn't require widespread literacy, let alone widespread consumption of sophisticated literature.