Reforming to Survive: The Bolshevik Origins of the Welfare State

• In Event: The Dynamics of State-Building Across Time and Space

Abstract

The Bolshevik revolution was one of the most profound social changes in the modern world. For the first time in history, a worker-led revolution, which primary aim included the abolishment of private property and with aspirations far beyond the country of origin (Russia), became a credible threat to ruling elites around the world. Building on extant work, we specify and further develop a theory of elite concessions in terms of redistributive policies when these elites face a credible threat of revolution. We highlight that extensive suffrage is often insufficient for ensuring redistribution, and that elites will be much more likely to provide redistributive schemes in the face of a truly credible revolutionary threat. In extension, we draw on new data in order to provide estimates of the Bolshevik revolution on social policy expansion. We do so by using a country’s number of party- and union representatives at the 1919 Comintern meeting as an indicator of the credibility of the domestic revolutionary threat. We find that the number of social groups covered in welfare programs, the regulated number of working hours, as well as the size of the welfare budget became more generous in states faced with a more credible threat. This is corroborated by instrumental variable regression, using invitations to the first Comintern meeting as a predictor of actual representation. Further, and also in line with our theory, states from which the mainstream left parties sent representatives to Comintern experienced greater expansion of the welfare state, even when controlling for domestic left representation in national politics.

Authors

• Magnus Bergli Rasmussen, University of Oslo

• Carl Henrik Knutsen, Department of Political Science, University of Oslo