Three Historians Compare Revolts

Three members of the History Department criticized the discussion of the French, English, and Russian Revolts at a Lowell House Forum last night. Providing the topic for the forum, Richard S. Stewart '51 outlined the course of these uprisings in some detail; his thesis was that organization of "focus groups" initiated each of these outbreaks.

Elliott Perkins '23, instructor in History, emphasized the part that religious feeling and "matters of principle" played in swaying the middle classes during the English Civil War. "Look at the members of the Massachusetts Bay Colony," Perkins said. "Their motives came more from principles than from economics. In the seventeenth century, religion was the Englishman's intellectual food."

Russian Revolution

In examining the Russian Revolution, Michael Karpovich, professor of History, pointed out the importance of the first World War on the progress of the Soviet outbreak. The failure of the Czarist regime in 1917, he stated, gave the Bolsheviks an unparalleled opportunity for successful revolt.

Frank P. Gilmore, associate professor of History, added his remarks to the review of the French Revolution by Stewart. He pointed out the extreme decadence of the Bourbons immediately preceding the 1789 uprising, and added that without this situation the insurgents probably would have fared less well.