An Anxious Life: Shortages and Losses in Revolutionary Russia

The shortages, deprivations, and losses that the population of Russia experienced between 1914 and 1921 — during the acute phase of internal crisis, political conflicts, and the 'long world war' — were catastrophic. The lack of materials and food caused problems with market exchanges, prices and inflation, production and distribution, and generally destabilized the entire tax and budget policy of the state. However, the shortage also had an emotional side: the economic crisis revived discussions about justice, sacrifice, and social differences, linking them to concerns related to the sphere of 'food vulnerability', and fears about the well-being of family and society. Using archival documents and primary sources, W. Rosenberg offers a look at how first the Tsarist, and then the liberal-democratic and Bolshevik regimes unsuccessfully fought against the forms and consequences of shortages. According to the author of the book, studying the emotional aspects that conceal the real consequences of hunger and human losses, deciphering historical emotions, as well as paying attention to the languages of description through which events and feelings acquire coherence, contribute to a better understanding of the social and cultural foundations of revolutionary upheavals.

William Rosenberg — historian, emeritus professor of the Department of History at the University of Michigan, USA.