The Reception and Constitutional Consequences of the Russian Revolutions of 1917 in British, German, Swedish and Finnish Parliaments

October 23,  Professor of the University of Jyvaskyla (Finland) Pasi Ihalainen presented his paper 'The reception and constitutional consequences of the Russian Revolutions of 1917 in British, German, Swedish and Finnish parliaments' at the regular Research Seminar 'Boundaries of History' of the Center for Historical Research and the Department of History of the Higher School of Economics in Saint Petersburg.

If we view the history of modern Europe from the point of view of the history of democracy and parliamentarism, a major turning point was experienced during and after the First World War. The war, revolutions in Russia and Germany, suffrage reforms in a number of countries and constitutional changes elsewhere affected meanings assigned to ‘democracy’ and ‘parliamentarism’ in a variety of national and ideological contexts. Unlike previous revolutionary eras, ‘democracy’ was in widespread use: almost any political group wished to view themselves as democrats in 1917 – 19, though the understandings of democracy remained inherently diverse and tended to get more so in the ideological heat of constitutional debate.
This paper aims at reconstructing and analysing in comparative contexts the reception and indirect impact of the two Russian Revolutions of 1917 on these debates. The paper is based on the conceptual analysis of the most important plenary constitutional debates from four European countries experiencing different versions of democratisation: Britain, Germany, Sweden and Finland.