S. A. Smith, Revolution and the People in Russia and China: A Comparative History (Book Review‪)‬

S. A. Smith, Revolution and the People in Russia and China: A Comparative History. viii + 249 pp. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008. ISBN13 978-0521713962. $29.99. The literature that compares the Chinese and Russian revolutions is not large. Much of it has focused on macro structural explanations for the similarities and differences, as in the work of Barrington Moore, Theda Skocpol, and more recently, Mark Lupher's Power Restructuring in China and Russia. (1) As far I know, there has not been a comprehensive comparison at the level of the individual. S. A. Smith's new book is therefore a very welcome addition to the comparative scholarship on revolutions. It is about the transformation of the identities of peasant migrants as they became workers in a time of rapid social and economic change as well as revolutionary upheavals in St. Petersburg and Shanghai. In terms of time periods, the book mainly focuses on Russia from the 1880s to 1917 and on Shanghai from the 1890s to the late 1930s. An analytical introduction, "Capitalist Modernity and Communist Revolution," is followed by four chapters: one on the continued salience of native-place identities; a second on individualism and class consciousness; a third on gender identities; and a fourth on national and class identities. A concluding fifth chapter, "Workers and Communist Revolution," first compares the Bolshevik coup of October 1917 and its aftermath with Chinas prolonged rural road to power from 1928 on. The second part explores the postrevolutionary eras, ending in 1940 in the Soviet Union and in 1976 in China.