Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991: A Pelican Introduction (Pelican Books)

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A panoramic history of nineteenth-century European culture told through the entangled lives of the Russian writer Ivan Turgenev, the singer and composer Pauline Viardot and her husband Louis Viardot, a great connoisseur,The Europeans has been published to critical acclaim in the UK and US: Drawing upon a wide range of first hand sources, Figes expertly utilizes humourous, painful, and illuminating insertions from public discourse to highlight the reception of the furious changes that shook the territories of the Soviet Union in the seven and a half decades of its existence as the world's largest proto-socialist state. Russia had been a relatively stable society until the final decades of the nineteenth century. It was untroubled by the revolutions that shook Europe's other monarchies in 1848–9, when Marx called it ‘the last hope of the despots'. Its huge army crushed the Polish uprisings of 1830 and 1863, the main nationalist challenge to the Tsar's Imperial rule, while its police hampered the activities of the tiny close-knit circles of radicals and revolutionaries, who were mostly driven underground. Orlando Figes succeeds in presenting a short political history of Russia 1891-1991. He shows the political changes, social upheaval and economic catastrophe but does not flesh out his thesis that Russia was been in a 100 year revolutionary cycle.

The Church retained a powerful hold over rural Russia, in particular. In many villages the priest was one of the few people who could read and write. Through parish schools the Orthodox clergy taught children to show loyalty, deference and obedience, not just to their elders and betters but also to the Tsar and his officials.With aplomb Figes states that ‘the real test of a successful revolution is whether it replaces the political elites’. I humbly think this a rather diffident vision on the essence of what a revolution means (which also implies systemic and idea changes and changes in social structures, not merely a political change in leadership), as Figes rather succeeds in proving that the foremost solicitude of the Bolsheviks after their seizure of power, was to hold on to it with all means, instead of demonstrating the permanent existence of revolutionary momentum. If you do nothing, you will be auto-enrolled in our premium digital monthly subscription plan and retain complete access for 65 € per month. Like Simon Schama, Orlando Figes is a historian whose popularity has extended beyond academia and into general readership. Perhaps because of this – or possibly for other reasons – Figes has come in for criticism from his fellow academics. He has been described by some as a ‘historical journalist’ and accused by others of taking creative liberties with evidence. One of Figes’ approaches is to focus on the cultural aspects of revolution: words, language, symbols, propaganda, mood and other psychological devices. A revolution may start with political events and ambitions – but Figes’ work is also concerned with understanding how revolutionary ideas reach, affect and motivate ordinary people. His writing style employs a sweeping narrative, striking a balance between describing important events of great significance and examining their impact on individuals. Figes gives less time and attention to political ideology than other historians: his main concern is with ordinary Russians and their motivations and conditions. Because of this, Figes does not rely on the writings and ramblings of Marx and Lenin as a point of reference. That only began to emerge at the Second Party Congress, which met in London (at the Communist Club at 107 Charlotte Street)* from August 1903. The result was a split in the Party and the formation of two distinct SD factions. The cause of the split was seemingly trivial: the definition of Party membership. Lenin wanted all members to be activists in the Party's organization, whereas Martov thought that anyone who agreed with the Party's manifesto should be admitted as a member. Beneath the surface of this dispute lay two opposing views of what the Party ought to be: a military-revolutionary vanguard (tightly controlled by a leader such as Lenin) or a broad-based party in the Western parliamentary style (with a looser style of leadership). Lenin won a slender majority in the vote on this issue, enabling his faction to call themselves the ‘Bolsheviks' (‘Majoritarians') and their opponents the ‘Mensheviks' (‘Minoritarians'). With hindsight it was foolish of the Mensheviks to allow the adoption of these names. It saddled them with the permanent image of a minority party, which was to be an important disadvantage in their rivalry with the Bolsheviks. The Russian Revolution was long expected but came as a surprise in February 1917. None of its 'leaders' expected it to happen how and when it did. Most revolutions are like that. That's what makes them revolutionary.

Change the plan you will roll onto at any time during your trial by visiting the “Settings & Account” section. What happens at the end of my trial? Demonstration St Petersburg, 23 February 1917, Origins of the Russian Revolution, February Revolution, 1917A primer intended for readers unfamiliar with the territory, it sparkles with ideas, vivid storytelling, poignant anecdotes and pithy phrases... Fresh and dramatic." (Victor Sebestyen, Sunday Times) From the author of A People's Tragedy, an original reading of the Russian Revolution, examining it not as a single event but as a hundred-year cycle of violence in pursuit of utopian dreams Here, then, were the roots of the monarchy's collapse, not in peasant discontent or the labour movement, so long the preoccupation of Marxist and social historians, nor in the breakaway of nationalist movements on the empire's periphery, but in the growing conflict between a dynamic public culture and a fossilized autocracy that would not concede or even understand its political demands. When does a ‘revolutionary crisis' start? Trotsky answered this by distinguishing between the objective factors (human misery) that make a revolution possible and the subjective factors (human agency) that bring one about. In the Russian case the famine by itself was not enough. There were no peasant uprisings as a consequence of it, and even if there had been, by themselves they would not have been a major threat to the tsarist state. It was the expectations of the upper classes—and the Tsar's refusal to compromise with them—that made the famine crisis revolutionary.