Czars, Soviets & Mennonites

Discontinuity characterized the Russian Mennonite experience during the first half of the twentieth century. By 1900 rapid industrialization and steady markets for agricultural products produced considerable affluence for many segments of Mennonite society. But the "golden age" was not to be. World War l and the subsequent upheavals generated by the February and October Revolutions of 1917 swept away this new Mennonite world before it had really begun. Over the next three decades the tyranny of events catapulted Russian Mennonites into situations destined to erode every vestige of their identity.