Slavic Review 76, no. 3 (Fall 2017) © 2017 Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies doi: 10.1017/slr.2017.166 ____________________________________________ SPECIAL ISSUE: 1917–2017, THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION A HUNDRED YEARS LATER Anti-imperialism: The Leninist Legacy and the Fate of World Revolution Jeremy Friedman and Peter Rutland Political scientists moved on from studying the 1917 revolution some time ago. The collapse of communism meant that there was no longer a rival system to study, and hence less interest in understanding its origins in 1917. These days few political scientists study revolutions, 1917 or any other. 1 Instead, they are focused on the role diferent political institutions and social movements play in achieving generally-agreed goals of peace, democracy, and prosperity. For example, the Arab Spring is seen more as a social movement than a revolution (or a failed revolution). The 1917 revolutions created institutions that “failed” the test of history— a “workers’ state,” a ruling Communist Party, central planning—and the corresponding ideology of world revolution and the destruction of capitalism. Political scientists are more interested in studying the revolutions which created the institutions of liberalism and nationalism that dominate the contemporary world, at least as seen from Washington: the French Revolution, the American Revolution (Hamilton!), and even England’s Glorious Revolution of 1688. 2 But political scientists should be interested in 1917. It represents a unique case of total systemic breakdown, with sobering lessons for the stability of political and economic systems through to the present day. 1917 as a Black Swan Event We live in a world of increasing complexity and volatility. The revolution in transport and communications that began in the 1950s–60s radically accel- erated the share of trade in the world economy, which was followed by the deeper integration of fnancial markets. With the information revolution that coincided with the collapse of communism (the frst web site was launched 1. For an overview, see the book by sociologist James DeFronzo, Revolutions and Revolutionary Movements, 5 th ed. (Boulder, 2015). 2. As for example in Douglass North, John Wallis and Barry Weingast, Violence and Social Orders: A Conceptual Framework for Interpreting Recorded Human History (Cambridge, UK, 2009). Thanks to Philip Pomper, Yoram Gorlizki, Alexander Semyonov, and Vladimir Kontorovich for comments on an earlier version.