A Concise History of the Russian Revolution

Book Description

The author of the classic two-volume study, The Russian Revolution and Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, now distills those works into an authoritative new chronicle of Russia between 1900 and the death of Lenin. "A deep and eloquent condemnation."--The New York Times.

Customer Reviews:

A "must read" for anyone living in the Modern Age.......2007-09-17

There are boring books about history, but there is no boring history, according to Richard Pipes. I understand him to believe that what happens matters; that life is significant. (Something many modern historians seem none too sure about.) History carries meaning and its dynamism affects us in the present and on the other side of the world. With this level of respect and sensitivity he approaches his subject. And so this book--albeit of a difficult subject matter--is a pleasure to read.

Pipe's approach helps the reader to stay open to discoveries and insights about what may be considered the "Red Elephant" in the room. The "Red Elephant" is a topic we can no longer avoid and yet still hope to progress in the worldview often simply called "modernity." Even though the proper care and role of capitalism is highly contested in our day, denial of the deeper realizations to be gleaned from this socialist experiment is not an option.

Pipes emphasizes the uniqueness of Russia throughout his study. Only by deeply and thoroughly understanding Russia can we truly weigh the behavior of the Revolution's actors, or should I say bullies and beasts. That this history is ugly and deeply disturbing is an understatement.

To understand the uniqueness of the Russian monarch, the Tsar, necessitates understanding the uniqueness of the Russian peasants. This is the central duality that the Bolsheviks had to contend with. Neither fit into Marx's Hegelian critique, the central player of which was supposed to be the proletariat--only 1% of the population, and only a tiny percentage of this 1% were ever central players.

Pipes challenges the conventional view adopted uncritically from the Enlightenment of the "oppressed" peasants who simply need to be freed from monarch, church, and all other authorities, and modernism will triumph. Actually the main problem for the peasants was they were in their own world, isolated from education and technology and were a law and society onto themselves, with no real political or national awareness.

Surprisingly, peasants "owned" 9/10 of the arable land--but communally, not individually. They believed that all the rest of the land was their due from God, and, through the Tsar, soon to be totally theirs--revolution or not. A humorous note: the peasants looked down on city dwellers and men without beards.

Everyone seemed to be terrified of the peasants partly because they were 80 percent of the population and were taxed but barely communicated with or even acknowledged. They often rebelled, and are described as Hobbesian anarchist--without respect for law; yet they often responded with an attitude of fatalism--understandably so since edicts would drop down on them out of nowhere. (This did not change with the Revolution.)

The peasants were the wild card for the Revolutionaries. Everyone wished they would just go away; they didn't fit the formula. Whether they were destined for the Gulag or not very much depended on where they lived. Those in the wealthier bread-basket areas could and would be considered by the Bolsheviks petty bourgeoisie or kulaks, peasants with some ownership interests, capitalists, hence "enemies of the people"--believe it or not. Their socialistic traditions of always breaking up the land and sharing equally in everything kept anyone from really developing a strong system of agriculture for even one generation. (Orlando Figes' book, "A People's Tragedy," fleshes out peasant life with numerous fascinating examples, and I highly recommend it.)

The Bolsheviks would not be stopped merely by reality, but rather forced reality into their Marxist critique or changed the critique as they took control. Pipes seems to give Marx more of a pass than I would, in terms of responsibility for crazy thinking masquerading as scientific reason.

A belief in history as inexorable was at the heart of the Marxist-Leninism ideology. In his chapter "Spiritual Life," Pipes describes this belief as a primitive faith rooted in much deeper layers of human psychology than the relatively recent traditions and beliefs the Bolsheviks sought, in the name of modernity, to utterly eradicate. In seeking to deny and escape faith, the Revolutionaries became a fanatical example of what they hated.

Though I cannot agree with the author's conservation politics and economics--conclusions he may have drawn from his studies--nevertheless, his writing should be challenged only on its truth and rigor: He leaves you plenty of room to draw your own conclusions.

Dr. Pipes seems to apologize for his emotional responses and judgments--highly educated as they obviously are. But I think he simply is not willing to check his humanity at the door when seeking to understand and interpret a subject that is central to the health and development of modern thought. He is leading the way not just to an educated scientific understanding of the events of the Russian Revolution, but to a wise and deeply human one.

excellent guide to understanding the Russian Revolution.......2006-10-04

This book is Richard Pipes own consolidation and abridgement of his two masterworks, "Russian Revolution" (1990) and "Russia under the Bolshevik Regime" (1994). The two volumes total 1,300 pages supported by 4,500 references.

The "Concise History" redaction is 406 pages and includes a glossary, chronology, one page of references, and a very good index. It also has 76 photos and five maps. Although it is a work of impeccable scholarship, it is also highly readable and accessible to the average reader.

Pipes is a virtuoso historian and perhaps the greatest chronicler of Russian history of all time. If you decide to read this history, you will learn a great deal about the most important event of the 20th Century (which spanned the two World Wars), and certainly the greatest experiment in utopian social engineering ever. In the process you will gain an extensive knowledge about the greatest foe the United States faced in the last Century, and how that foe came to its defeat.

Pipes concludes that "the Russian Revolution appears as the unfolding of a tragedy in which events follow with inexorable force from the mentality and character of the protagonists." And his lifetime of study of these events has left him "...less sanguine about humanity's capacity to change itself."

Recommended companion read: Aleksander Zolzhenitsyn's "The Gulag Archipelago 1918-1956," HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 2002. This is a one volume abridgement by Zolzhenitsyn from the original seven volumes, which have now been remaindered.

Like it was.......2006-09-01

I am not an expert but have read a fair amount about the Russian Revolution and Stalinism. This history by Pipes lays responsibility exactly where I think it belongs. There were many issues in this complex mix of cultures, motives, challenges and histories. I do believe that the root cause of the horrendous cruelty Russians inflicted on themselves was hatred and power and I think this one the ideas in this book. Mayber this is simplistic of me but there is no evidence in the history of the period and its people that love of Russia or the well-being of its people was ever considered by Lenin or Trotsky. I think that it's great that Pipes lays this bare using historical facts. Even if Pipes is biased against them, the results of the Russian revolution speak for themselves --- a destroyed economy built on a holocaust of slave labor and the psychic destruction of a people, especially the Russian man.

The last chapter is an absolutely superb summary, especially the point that the main challenge of serfs was not their oppression but it was their isolation. It's a very very interesting and sublte interpretation of different driving causes in Russian revolution far beyond what I could describe.

Well worth the time to read.

A compelling short history.......2005-09-23

This book is an abridged version of two much longer books Pipes has written (RUSSIA UNDER THE OLD REGIME and RUSSIA UNDER THE BOLSHEVIK REGIME). And it feels abridged. On many topics, I wanted more details, and there was a lack of endnotes. However, the details and VERY extensive endnotes are found in the extended volumes. It was written in a very matter-of-fact manner, without much narrative flair.

Which is why I find it suprising how I was nearly moved to tears on more than one occasion. This has to be one of the saddest stories in history. How one of the largest nations on Earth could be subjegated by a pack of dillusional intellectuals and then terrorized by the most brutal regime the world has ever seen should scare us all.

Pipes's longer book (of which this is the abridged version) is one of many recent histories, including Service's LENIN, and many Russian language histories, to utilize the many Soviet documents made available since the collapse of the USSR. An examination of the primary historical record only makes the Bolsheviks look worse than we thought.

This should be a must read for all. That there are still Communists and fellow-travellers out there with all we have recently learned of the Soviet regime is a stunning indictment of the failure of our educational system.

An Excellent Introduction to the Topic.......2004-09-13

I wanted to understand just how the 300 year reign of Tsarist Russia ended and transformed into the Communist regime that dominated that land for 70 years.

After looking at the books available on this topic, I chose A Richard Pipe's Concise History of the Russian Revolution to answer my questions. It proved to be an excellent choice.

Don't let the word Concise in the title fool you. It is not concise in that it is short or brief. All the details are here to present a well fleshed out picture of the tumultuous events of 1917.

The necessary background of Nicholas II and Alexandra is presented. The moves of Lenin and his supporting cast are provided in detail. One also learns that the foundations murderous regime of Stalin were all put into place and utilized by Lenin himself.

The book ends with Lenin's death, and provides a glimple into Stalin and how he came to succeed Lenin.

Pipe's work is a very worthwhile work. For reading only one book on this subject, I have yet to have come across one that would better replace it.

Russian Conservatism and Its Critics: A Study in Political Culture

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How Can You Understand Russia if you Don't Understand Orthodoxy
The Continuity of Authoritarian Government in Russia
Scratch a Russian and find a Tatar
NOT EVERYTHING SHOULD BE CONSERVED

Russian Conservatism and Its Critics: A Study in Political Culture
Richard Pipes
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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ASIN: 0300112882

Book Description

Russian Conservatism and Its Critics provides the first account of Russia’s immemorial commitment to the theory and practice of autocracy, the most formative and powerful idea in Russia’s political history. Richard Pipes considers why Russian thinkers, statesmen, and publicists have historically always argued that Russia could prosper only under an autocratic regime.

Beginning with an insightful study of the origins of Russian statehood in the Middle Ages, when the state grew out of the princely domain but was not distinguished from it, Russian Conservatism and Its Critics includes a masterful survey of Russia’s major conservative thinkers and demonstrates how conservatism is the dominant intellectual legacy of Russia. Pipes examines the geographical, historical, political, military, and social realities of the Russian empire—fundamentally unchanged by the Revolution of 1917—that have traditionally convinced its rulers and opinion leaders that decentralizing political authority would inevitably result in the country’s disintegration. Pipes has written a brilliant thesis and analysis of a hitherto overlooked aspect of the Russian intellectual tradition that continues to have significance to this day.

Customer Reviews:

How Can You Understand Russia if you Don't Understand Orthodoxy.......2007-07-29

Like so many other Western scholars, Pipes sees monarchy and autocracy as retrograde, a "system" that impeded Russia's transition to an enlightened, modern state. This has resulted in an ongoing dynamic between those forces that sought to integrate Russia into a broader European culture and those that saw Western Europe as anti-Christian. Unfortunately, to understand this dynamic properly, one has to first understand Orthodoxy and how it differs metaphysically and ontologically from what would eventually become Roman Catholicism and Protestantism. Many of the ideas credited to the Enlightenment and initiated by the Renaissance by men like Ficino, Pico, and Bruno were esoteric in nature, having their roots in Gnostic and Christian Kabbalism. The degree to which Orthodoxy took root in Russia meant that it was immune from these ideas and their apotheosis in the Englightenment. While Peter and Catherine were sympathetic to the Philosophes, the peasants and Church resisted them because they introduced distortions into what can only be called a Christian, Trinitian anthropology of Man. This is reflected in the reviewer below who quotes the Declaration of Independence -- that all Men are created equal. For the Orthodox, the first most basic truth is that all Men are created in the image and likeness of God. A specific Trinitian anthropology follows this, one involving ancestral sin, the nous, the soul, and what is possible in a fallen world - not a specifically ordered political reality geared towards what the "pure practical rules of Reason" determine to be just. Orthdoxy is not interested in creating Rawlsville but in creating a Christian society. The ideal for Orthodoxy is theosis -- not a "this worldly" ideal of social justice and the like. I would argue that one can't properly understand the Slavophiles' critique of the West or the writings of Dostoyevsky and Pobedonostsev without undestanding why they prefer monarchy to democracy. Since monarchy ideally represents the Law of God and the Law of God provides for the salvation of Man, social inequalities are simply not as relevant. Of course it is worth pointing out that while the Founding Fathers penned the Declaration of Independence, it didn't necessarily translate into a more just system that what was in place in Russia at the time. The federal government slaughtered the Indians, gave them the Trail of Tears, enslaved blacks, and embraced a doctrine of Manifest Destiny that was as jingoistic as anything that ever came out of Russia. In fact, Russia introduced more meaningful reforms for its peasants and disenfranchised than the US or Britain in the 19th century. Had the world revolutionary forces not assassinated Stolypin, who knows how the 20th century would have turned out. But one thing is clear: after the kings of Europe, Asia, and Russia had been sacrificed on the altar of freedom, equality and liberty, the world would become drenched in blood thereafter. Stick that in your "Pipes" and smoke it --

The Continuity of Authoritarian Government in Russia.......2007-05-01

Russian Conservatism and Its Critics, by Professor Richard Pipes, traces the intellectual history of Russian political thought from the late middle ages through the twentieth century. As Pipes observes early in the book, one must be careful to define what one means when using the terms such as "conservative" or "liberal". In his context, Russian conservatism connotes the pattern of strong, centralized, authoritarian government that has dominated Russia's history from early Muscovy to Vladimir Putin, with brief respites in period between the 1905 and 1917 revolutions and under Boris Yeltsin. Pipes demonstrates the strong degree of continuity in Russian political thought and practice across 500 years. Both the totalitarian nature of the Soviet regime and Putin's increasingly centralized and authoritarian rule can be better understood as directly descended from centuries old Russian political patterns. A few key points from Russian Conservatism include:

* Early Muscovite Tsars did not differentiate between the state and their personal property - they literally "owned" Russia, including both the land and it people. As late as the early 19th century, political thinkers wrote that the nobles were the slaves of the tsar and the serfs were the slaves of the nobles.
* Peter the Great westernized Russia by opening it to western ideas, but he and subsequent "liberal" rulers neither accepted nor tolerated even the most limited concepts of popular sovereignty. Western concepts such as Natural Law were actually used to justify the Tsar's absolute power.
* Peter also created the Table of Orders which established the hierarchy of the state bureaucracy. Under this scheme, the highest levels automatically became nobles, regardless of their prior social status, thereby diluting the exclusiveness of the old nobility. This process created a split in the nobility which effectively prevented it from presenting an effective challenge to the Tsar's absolute authority. Perhaps it also set the precedent for the bureaucracy's dominance in the Soviet era.
* In the west, the Catholic Church acted as a brake on the power of the monarchies by insisting that kings should rule (at least in part) in the interest of their subjects. In Russia, the church was co-opted into supporting tsarist autocracy. In the debate between the non-possessors and the possessors over whether monasteries should possess property, the tsar sided with the possessors, allowing them to retain their landed estates. In return, the church supported unlimited tsarist power.
* Western feudalism was a two-way street: the feudal lord could expect service from his retainers but was also obligated to provide them with protection - failure by either party could be grounds for termination of the feudal obligations of the other party. In Russia, feudalism was a strictly on-way street: Everyone owed service to the Tsar, who owed nothing to his subjects.

Russian Conservatism touches on themes that Pipes presented in his previous books, Russia Under the Old Regime and Property and Freedom. His newer book presents these themes in the context of the history of Russian political philosophy and its main contributors. I found it to be a useful addition to his prior works and a framework for understanding current political trends in Russia.

I suspect that another key to understanding modern Russia may lie in the concept of nationalities. In Western Europe, the multinational empires largely gave way to nation states in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The 1991 disintegration of the Soviet Union into its 15 constituent republics might be viewed as the latest manifestation of this trend. Even in its currently reduced form, which resembles Russia's borders circa 1600, Russia appears to contain a diverse collection on nationalities, characterized by differing ethnic, linguistic, cultural, and religious affiliations. Conflict between nationalities is most apparent in the Chechen war, but may exist in less violent forms among other groups within today's Russia. Perhaps Professor Pipes will be able to contribute our understanding of this issue as well.

Scratch a Russian and find a Tatar.......2006-02-16

Pipes' view of Russian history is the classical one which finds everything Russian non-European, barbaric, autocratic, and incorrigible. There is plenty of evidence supporting this view. Many Russian thinkers have concurred. Yet objective observers have to call this view of Russia "Polonophile," that is to say pro-Polish. This is what the Poles always said about the Russians, often with justification but not always. The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was the exact opposite of Russia: it had powerful nobles and gentry, a Catholic as opposed to a Byzantine Church, political institutions, an openness to the West and its intellectual and religious diversity. But with all these advantages the Poles could not maintain their world, they treated the peasantry no better than the Russians did theirs, and the Poles never achieved the cultural heights of Russian literature and music. The Germans who also had all the cultural advantages of the West fell into a despotism even more degenerate and evil than the Russians. So one has to agree with Pipes that Russia is not good liberal material, but then neither are many other nations with more advantages than the Russian ever had.

In sum, one does learn much about the Russian proclivity towards authoritarianism but the book does not prove that the Russians cannot change. We may yet be surprised by Russia.

Pipes is also known for his belief that Soviet Communism simply replayed the traditional Russian proclivity for autocracy. This ignores the real achievements, the positive achievements of the Soviets: education, science, culture, literacy, modernity. Tsarist Russia was making progress by 1914 but it is hard to know what it would have achieved without the Bolsheviks.

NOT EVERYTHING SHOULD BE CONSERVED.......2006-01-16

It is perhaps sufficiently self-evident by now that we will not stand accused of mere jingoism when we say that most of the ideas necessary to the End of History were encapsulated in less than a paragraph some two hundred and thirty years ago:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Indeed, that's such idea-rich terrain that we're unlikely to be able to address them all, but let's pluck out just a few of the key ones:

(1) Human dignity comes from our Creation by God.

(2) As a result of that Creation, all Men begin life as moral equals.

(3) God grants us Rights that precede any human institutions and can not be justly compromised by any such.

(4) Governments are, in fact, created by Men in order to safeguard human dignity and vindicate those Rights.

(5) Legitimate government, then, can be said to serve God's ends and to require the consent of the governed. Any government that does not do both is by its very nature illegitimate.

So pervasive are these ideas that, for instance, I just happened to be reading a book, The Case for Goliath, by a rather non-partisan/non-ideological foreign policy wonk, Michael Mandelbaum, wherein he states as a fact:

Government is not the essence of social life. In human affairs it is secondary, emerging from, and playing a supporting role for, what is primary: the social relations and the norms they embody that make up society.

Thereby he dismisses, quite correctly, all of the competing ideologies of government to our own ideal of liberal/parliamentary/republican democracy.

The recent competitors--well worth dismissing--have been Nazism, communism/socialism, and Islamicism. But the original competitors were autocracies, which not only viewed government as primary but located that government in the person of one ruler. The longest lived of these despotisms, at least in the West, was the tsardom of Russia and it is this tragic phenomenon that Mr. Pipes explores here.

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Lovely memoir of an extraordinary life
The best book I've read in a long time
Alive and kicking!
A Hero in his own mind
Wonderful and thoughtful autobiography..

Vixi: Memoirs of a Non-Belonger
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Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0300109652

Book Description

Sixteen-year-old Richard Pipes escaped from Nazi-occupied Warsaw with his family in October 1939. Their flight took them to the United States by way of Italy, and Pipes went on to earn a college degree, join the U.S. Air Corps, serve as professor of Russian history at Harvard for nearly forty years, and become adviser to President Reagan on Soviet and Eastern European affairs. In this engrossing book, the eminent historian remembers the events of his own remarkable life as well as the unfolding of some of the twentieth century’s most extraordinary political events.
From his youthful memories of bombs falling on Warsaw to his recollections of the conflicts inside the Reagan administration over American policies toward the USSR, Pipes offers penetrating observations as well as fascinating portraits of such cultural and political figures as Isaiah Berlin, Ronald Reagan, and Alexander Haig. Perhaps most interesting of all, Pipes depicts his evolution as a historian and his understanding of how history is witnessed and how it is recorded.

Customer Reviews:

Lovely memoir of an extraordinary life.......2006-02-11

Those born into Polish Jewry did not expect or want extraordinary lives, but if they escaped the conflagration, as Richard Pipes and his parents did, they involuntarily gained such lives.

Pipes writes with his usual eloquence, such a rare trait among today's inept and jargon-fouled academics, and fascinatingly tells of the vanished multiethnic Poland he knew, acclimation to college in Ohio, and his distinguished academic career.

It is a shame that this page is being abused by paltry detractors -- undoubtedly resentful over the loss of their political dreams -- to attack him personally.

The best book I've read in a long time.......2005-10-26

I always admired Pipes for his excellent writing, amongst other qualities. Depite its hugeness, I've read his Russian revolution in one week. This time, I just could not stop reading this great memoir and my biggest problem is that the book is too short ! Please, Mr Pipes, expand it for another 200 pages for the next edition, especially the chapter 3 ! I wish I was an american student in Harvard when you taught there... Those kind of specialists are desperately lacking nowadays, especially in Europe. I thank God for saving you from certain death in Poland to share with us, simple mortals, all these inspiring books and ideas.

P.S. As for pnotley, the only intelligent remark you made concerns the too old source for the german casualties in Poland. Mr Pipes, please correct that. But even then, it doesn't change the picture: 45 000 casualties is much more important than the idea that is too often on people's minds about this episode. For the other stuff, you sound like a frustrated liberal. Cool off. This is an autobiography, which means the author has the right to express his views the way he wants, this is NOT a scholar work. He is entitled to his opinions, even he takes time to explain his generalization of the german spirit (see for yourself page 57). You're free to accept them or not, but this is the genre of the book. As for me, I think there's too much leftist historians of the USSR, and not enough people like Malia and Pipes.

Alive and kicking!.......2004-06-17

When Ronald Reagan called the Soviet Union 'the evil empire', much of the western left stood up on its hind legs and howled in dismay - but today, after the Soviet Union had collapsed, people in Moscow commonly refer to their past as 'the evil empire'. Prof Pipes, a leading Russian expert, was one of few westerners who saw through the farce of communism and urged the hard and sensible line against the USSR, which ultimately led to its collapse. It is pathetic how some reviewers are still fighting an ideological fight they had lost - 'swinging their fists after the fight is over' to use a Russian expression - and viciously pan Prof. Pipes' beautifully written book.

The flaw of most memoirs is that they have a high point - usually the beginning or the middle, and then they trail off. Pipes is as alive and intellectually vigorous at 80 as he seems to have been in his youth and his autobiography is a pleasure to read to the last page.

His many asides are charming - on the academe, on the personalities in the Reagan White House, on the kaleidoscope of people he meets, works with, loves, hates. I wish I could have taken a course with him.

A Hero in his own mind.......2004-03-10

When I heard that Richard Pipes' memoir would be subtitled "Memoirs of a Non-Belonger", I thought to myself, great, another conservative who acts as though voting for the Republicans was an act of profound moral courage. And sure enough, whether it is his debates with the revisionists and the Sovietologists, or his stance as an arch-opponent of détente, or during his brief tenure as a member of Reagan's National Security Council, Pipes consistently portrays himself as an isolated figure armed with nothing but the truth on his side. One would not know from his account that for several decades Pipes was a prominent contributor to such eminently respectable journals of the centre as "Encounter" "The New Republic" or "The Times Literary Supplement."

Yet in a way that he would not appreciate, Pipes is a non-belonger. At one point he comments "Until adolescence, everything I experienced other than my own thoughts and feelings seemed to lie outside of me and to be not quite real." Reading this book one feels this problem did not go away with adolescence. The only son of relatively prosperous middle-class Polish Jews, Pipes says he was thoroughly bilingual in Polish and German from an early age. Yet he was unable to speak with his maternal grandmother, who almost certainly would have spoken Yiddish. Unlike most Polish Jews he is assimilated, so assimilated in fact that his family is not only able to escape Poland in 1939 but spend a surprisingly pleasant six months in Italy thanks to the intervention of the Polish ambassador there. (This incidentally is the best part of the book). But unlike most assimilated Jews he never doubts God's existence. Indeed while the Holocaust weakened his father's faith, Pipes says it only strengthened his. He describes himself as "non-observant Orthodox." Although he was 16 in 1939, Pipes showed no interest in the struggles within the Jewish Community between Bundists and Zionists, Communists and the Ultra-Orthodox. It is rather odd that he did not hear about the Holocaust until 1945. True, many other Jews were slow to grasp the truth, but then relatively few of them had been recently exiled from Poland. There is no realization that Pipes finds any of this odd or unusual. There is a certain isolation around Pipes, a lack of curiosity in and sympathy for other people.

How does this affect Pipes' stature as a historian? Early on Pipes proudly argues that the Poles killed 91,000 Germans and wounded 63,000 more in their brief war. Actually Gerhard Weinberg's seminal "A World at Arms" and Ian Kershaw's biography of Hitler claim total casualties were only 45,000. But then they did not rely like Pipes did on statistics published in Communist Poland. Later Pipes will quote Nietzsche out of context, apparently believes that before Columbus Europeans thought the Earth was flat and suggests, quite wrongly, that Yuri Andropov was involved in the attempt on the Pope's life. But this carelessness with detail is not Pipes' biggest weakness as a historian At one point Pipes says feminism "treat[s] all men as would-be rapists," and reduces Third World Revolution to the Soviets' promotion of "political subversion and creating economic dependence." Such opinions do not show a particularly open or generous mind. Indeed, he resorts to simple-minded chauvinist stereotypes: Palestinians are hate filled and destructive, Germans have no sense of humour and care more about hygiene than basic decency. Russians "require a `strong hand' to regulate their public lives." Nor is Pipes' dislike of Russia confined to its rulers. To visit the Soviet Union after a cruel and savage war and to say of Moscow's residents that they "were culturally and even physically the most backward elements of Russia's rural population" or "like barbarian invaders" who had usurped its urban civilization reveal not pity, nor sympathy nor compassion, but a heartless snobbery.

He cares little more for his colleagues. Rather strikingly in his acknowledgements to "The Russian Revolution," he did not mention or thank a single individual. Indeed he appears to have learned nothing from his professional colleagues and indeed is so ungracious as to complain that the poor style of his colleagues hampered the sales of the textbook he helped write in the sixties. One is reminded of how he preposterously accused Orlando Figes of plagiarism. He is cool towards his own students (they are illiterate and ill-informed), and does not mention any of his graduate students (we do see a picture of Daniel Orlovsky and Nina Tumarkin). His accounts of Sovietology and Revisionism are abusive caricatures where he damns his critics as appeasers and pro-Soviet sympathizers but does not bother to seriously criticize them. Conservatives may like this, but no fair-minded person will think he has refuted Raymond Garthoff, Frances Fitzgerald, Archie Brown, Stephen Cohen, Ronald Suny or Alexander Rabinowitch. He argues that anything less than his cold war stance was appeasement, and explicitly rejected both arm control and negotiation. How his cold war stance supposedly encouraged Gorbachev is not clear, since Pipes' main activity during his short government tenure was to push for sanctions that George Schultz quickly revoked. There is a smug self-righteousness that cannot bear too close an examination. It is striking that he can condemn Russians for indulging anti-Tsarist terrorism, while the assassins of Bernadotte, let alone those of Deir Yassin, escape his censure. He can conclude "Property and Freedom" with a screed against affirmative action and the welfare state: does he think the Israeli settlements that his son is a devoted apologist for arose because of the workings of a free West Bank land market? Ultimately, everyone who challenges his views or criticizes him is always wrong, whether it is Malia or Solzhenitsyn, or whether it is Haig or Schultz. The only historian who gains his unqualified admiration is himself.

Wonderful and thoughtful autobiography.........2004-02-18

..and it even has a little good humor thrown in. Most satisfying for me, as a political science Ph.D., were his attacks on the lefty Sovietologists who downplayed the sheer evil of the Soviet regime for so long. I only wish Dr. Pipes mentioned more of their names so they can be more thoroughly discredited. But they know who they are.

The other particularly interesting section was on his service in the Reagan administration during the height of the nuclear freeze/peace movement in the U.S. and Europe. Hmmm...a tough, principled President, domestic know-nothings, peacenik Europeans, undependable allies, rampant anti-Americanism...how little has changed! But of course we were right then, and we're right now. One point Pipes discusses repeatedly is the tendency of those in academia and government toward shirking away from confronting enemies and viewing the world as they wish it to be instead of as it really is.

The book also works as a great life story as well as an intellectual autobiography. Dr. Pipes truly lead an interesting life, one inspiring to many others. I'm particularly inspired by his unending and seemingly boundless curiosity. My only complaint is that he might have added a little more about his family life, particularly about his wife and sons.

I'm a little puzzled by the review of academician Ravitch below. First, it should be made clear that Dr. Pipes' "disillusionment" with service in the Reagan Administration did not stem from its aims but from bureaucratic politics and personality clashes, such as with Alexander Haig and Richard Allen. He wholeheartedly supported Reagan's desire to move beyond detente and adopt a tougher line toward the Soviets. Second, with regard to the Holocaust, Pipes states quite clearly in the book that while it had a great role in shaping his personality, thinking and religious beliefs, he refrains from writing more on it simply because so many others have done so, and there is not much he can add. Gee, humility from a Harvard professor! Pipes is indeed a wise man. Finally, I see no reason for attacking Dr. Pipes and/or his son Daniel as "uptight," "fanatics," or "crazy." These are personal attacks completely outside the scope of the book. How regrettable.

Russia under the Old Regime: Second Edition (Penguin History)
Average customer rating:

Very Informative Look at Pre-Revolutionary Russia

Brilliant Read

Best of the Set

An Excellent Treatment

Amazing interpretation of Russia's history

Russia under the Old Regime: Second Edition (Penguin History)
Richard Pipes
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Russian Revolution

Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime

A Concise History of the Russian Revolution

Three " Whys" of the Russian Revolution

Communism: A History (Modern Library Chronicles)

ASIN: 0140247688

Book Description

One wants to talk about the evolution of the Russian state, but that's the problem: there virtually was none, from the Middle Ages to WW I. Then the communists added 60 more years in the deep freeze. Only today is progress a possibility.

From his vantage point at Harvard, Professor Richard Pipes sees in Russia's history a sweeping epic that helps us better understand the Russia of today.

"Brilliant, provocative analysis." (The Times, London)

Customer Reviews:

Very Informative Look at Pre-Revolutionary Russia.......2007-04-16

Richard Pipes does a good job at laying out the workings of Russia's Tsarist Regime. What I found to be most interesting and persuasive is Pipes' frequent contrasts between Russia and Western Europe. For instance, he looks at the status of the nobility and the strength of the church. In both instances, Pipes draws a clear path as to how, in Tsarist Russia, these institutions became virtual extensions of the state bureaucracy (in sharp contrast to Western Europe, where they often served as brakes on royal power). In addition, Pipes places Russia squarely in the sphere of Asian (specifically Mongol) influence. As evidence, he points to close similarities between the Khanate and Tsarist "patrimonialism." In doing so, he de-emphasizes the oft-stated argument that Russia was the close heir to Byzantium. Finally, Pipes continally demonstrates how Tsarist policies laid the groundwork for the Soviet system (though the latter took those policies to a far bloodier and more extreme conclusion). My only criticism of the book is that Pipes does not deal directly with the issue of Russia's "national minorities" (beyond a quick mention of the Jewish Pale of Settlement and several Polish rebellions against Russian rule) and the attempts by the Tsarist regime to "Russify" those groups. I think that this would have been quite relevant to look at in Russia during this period. I am looking forward to reading Pipes' writings on later events in Russia.

Brilliant Read.......2004-10-12

This is indeed a brilliant book. Any one who wants to understand Russia should read it. I can not praise it highly enough. Please get a copy and learn and enjoy.

Best of the Set.......2003-12-28

I think this is the best of what I guess you would call Pipes' "Revolutionary Trilogy." "The Russian Revolution," perhaps two or three times the length, is impaired a bit by Pipes' sometimes tedious moral-pointing. "Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime" seems a bit less ambitious than the other two, and in any event it is surely the one least likely to survive the torrent of new material that is becoming available after the fall.

What distinguishes Russia in Pipes' eye is the tradition of "patrimonialism" -- as a political category, a coinage of Pipes' own, though with its roots in Weber, in Hobbes and Bodin, even in Aristotle. Pipes means to denote "a regime where the rights of sovereignty and those of ownership blend to the point of becoming indistinguishable, and political power is exercised in the same manner as economic power."

"Despotism," Pipes continues, "has much the same etymological origins, but over time it has acquired the meaning of a deviation or corruption of genuine kingship, the latter being understood to respect the property rights of subjects. The patrimonial regime, on the other hand, is a regime in its own right, not a corruption of something else."

This is a brave assertion, and Pipes remains faithful to it. Indeed, the core of the book is perhaps his chapter entitled "The Anatomy of the Patrimonial Regime," where Pipes tries to show how utterly different is the tradition of governance in Russia from the tradition in the West -- even in Western nations that we might think of as "reactionary."

There are other virtues to this book. His introductory chapter on the environment is perhaps worth the price of admission, as he retails the grim arithmetic of topsoil and grain production. His discussion of serfdom provokes all kinds of questions about the relationship between serfdom in Russia and slavery in the West.

A work of just 318 pages can hardly pretend to be the last word on the history of a great nation, and Pipes maintains no such pretention. I take it as given that much more could be said to inform, expand upon, or criticize, Pipes' perspective. But as a framework for approaching the study of Russia, it is hard for me to see how it could be bettered. As a provative contribution to the literature of political analysis generally, I should think its claim is equally strong.

An Excellent Treatment.......2003-09-08

When I purchased this title in a used bookstore for two dollars, I was somewhat apprehensive about its scholarly quality, author biography not withstanding. Upon reading, however, I must say that I felt Pipes admirably illumined what is a very complex economic, social, and cultural subject. Specifically, his thesis concerns the manner in which the Russian state, under various formative influences, developed an essentially proprietary attitude towards land and subject alike. In Pipes' view this has been the primary determinant of all Russian history following Mongol domination. I myself make no pretenses to be an authority on the subject, but Pipes' use of evidence generally convinced me of the credibility of his claim. I would recommend this title to anyone interested in a general account of the pre-revolutionary Russian state apparatus.

Amazing interpretation of Russia's history.......2001-06-16

This book is an absolute must-read! Before I read this book the history of Russia was a weakly connected sequence of contradictory events to me - that I wasn't able to organize in my mind in any comprehensible way. After reading this book I see a clear picture of my country's history. I suddenly understand what is going on. Every historical event, every action of a historic person suddenly falls into place, I see their meaning. This book provides you with an understanding of the real issues that have been troubling Russia for the past 1200 years. You will understand Russia and you will understand its people. The mext time Russia is on the news, and you have some Russians making a statement or conducting some action - you will understand where they are coming from when they are doing that.

The Degaev Affair: Terror and Treason in Tsarist Russia

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People's Will versus the Russian Secret Police.
A Straightforward Telling of an Intriguing Story
A look into the mind of a terrorist (and model citizen)

The Degaev Affair: Terror and Treason in Tsarist Russia
Richard Pipes
Manufacturer: Yale University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Russian Conservatism and Its Critics: A Study in Political Culture
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ASIN: 0300107722

Book Description

This book tells for the first time the extraordinary story of Sergei Degaev, a political terrorist in tsarist Russia who disappeared after participating in the assassination of the chief of Russia’s security organization in 1883. Those who knew and admired Alexander Pell at the University of South Dakota never guessed that he was actually Degaev, a revolutionary who had reinvented himself as a quiet mathematics professor.
“An amazing story, part Dostoevsky, part Conrad. . . . Remarkable.”—Michael J. Ybarra, Wall Street Journal
“One of the most distinguished historians of Russia . . . [gives] us a real-life thriller that is also a cautionary tale rich with insight into depths of the human psyche.”—David Pryce-Jones, Commentary
“Absorbing, brilliantly researched. . . . [A] fascinating display of scholarly detective work.”—Raymond Carr, Spectator
“Pipes is the finest historian of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Russia. . . . [His] Degaev Affair takes the reader through the dark and terrifying alleyways of the historical underworld. As a story, it ranks as a true-life version of Conrad’s Under Western Eyes.”—Nikolai Tolstoy, Literary Review
“A brilliant history of treason, deception, terror, and academe in the underworld of Imperial Russia and the respectability of midwestern U.S. universities.”—Simon Sebag Montefiore, Financial Times
“Fascinating.”—Orlando Figes, New York Review of Books

Customer Reviews:

People's Will versus the Russian Secret Police........2004-02-01

A great little book about the war between the Russian Secret Police and the terrorist organization People's Will. The Russian Secret Police was headed by Lieutenant Colonel Sudeikin and the People's Will by Vera Figner. The People's Will was executing high Tsarist officials and the Russian Secret Police decided to destroy the People's Will from within. They turned members of this terrorist party against the organization and destroyed it. Sergei Degaev was turned and betrayed his comrades. When he finally came to terms with himself, he confided his betrayal to the People's Will and they helped him kill Sudeikin. He then emigrates to the United States where he becomes a Professor of Mathematics at the University of North Dakota.
This is an interesting and quick read. I find it fascinating that some of the Russian Secret Police actually collaborated with the People's Will. For a similar story of betrayal, see
Comrade Valentine, The True Story of Azef the Spy-The most dangerous Man in Russia at the Time of the Last Czars by Richard E. Rubenstein.

A Straightforward Telling of an Intriguing Story.......2003-10-29

Considering the limitations that existed about its subject, The Degaev Affair is surprisingly informative. The story of a key Russian revolutionary would be interesting enough. But, Degaev's many role changes, including informant, murderer, and professor, lends a fascinating psychological aspect to the story that leaves the reader wanting to know more about his motivations. To satisfy this curiosity, Pipes would have had to venture into the realm of speculation. Fortunately, he recognized that he didn't have enough primary research material to allow him to justify random speculation. Instead, he chose to rely on the story's intrinsic strength by simply relating its facts. In taking this path, Pipes treats his subject with a respect that wouldn't have existed had he engaged in casual conjecture.

Some may bemoan the book's brevity given the story's interesting qualities. But, those who look past the length will find rewards that belie the book's briefness. One will find a well-written retelling that highlights one person's role in shaping both the Russian revolutionary movement and the government's response to that movement. Additionally, enough material is presented to allow the reader to draw parallels with current events. Thanks to Pipes' uncomplicated presentation, The Degaev Affair stands as a distinctive look at a unique case.

A look into the mind of a terrorist (and model citizen).......2003-05-02

Although this book is offered as a portrait of a young Russian terrorist who eventually became a beloved professor of mathematics at the University of South Dakota, it is also an invaluable look into the minds of terrorists.

Russia, in the latter half of the nineteenth century, consisted of a newly educated commercial and industrial class that was rising in wealth and power -- perhaps 10 percent of the population. The other 90 percent were peasants, totally dedicated to the monarchy with an absolute trust the Czar would solve all of their problems.

The self-made newly rich, frustrated by the status quo, wanted revolutionary change that would make everyone rich. Sergei Degaev, the son of a doctor, was frustrated by the lack of social progress in Russia. Pipes explains, "When life offers little so that the results of ideological work are not yet evident, the activist wants to see some concrete, palpable manifestation of his will, his power."

If it sounds familiar, think of the well-educated middle class Palestinian youth who volunteer to be suicide bombers, plus the support they receive from other Palestinians. Pipes cites similar attitudes in Russia in the 1880's. Terror was born as the original "shock and awe" campaign; assassinate the Czar, and Russia would rise up in glorious revolt that would bring democracy, justice and prosperity for all.

Pipes writes, "For some dimly understood reason, in modern societies from time to time, a sizable body of the young is seized by an overpowering destructive urge which, at the same time, exhibits self-destructive symptoms."

Degaev became part of a terrorist network dedicated to changing the entire social structure and attitudes of Russia by means of a few assassinations. Terrorists killed Czar Alexander II in 1881. But when US President James Garfield was assassinated the same year, Degaev's group wrote to Americans, "In a country where individual freedom offers opportunities for honest ideological struggle, where the free will of the nation determines not only the law but also the personality of those who govern -- in such a country, political assassination as a means of struggle is a manifestation of the same despotic spirit, the destruction of which in Russia is our goal . . . . . violence is justified only when it is directed against violence."

Keep in mind the vast social changes the world was seeing in the second half of the nineteenth century through industrialization and global trade; America fought a bloody civil war pitting the new industrialism against the old slave-owning mentality. For many, whether in America with the new industrialization or in Russia with the overthrow of the Czar, the future held unlimited promise and opportunities.

It's hardly new. Eric Hoffer in 'The True Believer' illustrates the rage of those who expect instant utopia and will blindly follow anyone who promises fulfillment. Pipes explains that ". . . since in our imperfect world there are always matters that can be improved, 'causes' can always be found to justify the urge to destroy and murder."

Degaev helped kill the head of the Czar's secret police. Then, he fled to America where, in a society that offered him unlimited opportunity, he became a model citizen. If you can understand Degaev, and Pipes offers an extraordinary study of his character that will fascinate anyone, you will get an insight into the mind of a terrorist.

After Sept. 11, 2001, Americans asked, "Why do they hate us?" Pipes never addresses that issue directly, but by looking into the motives of Degaev, he suggests the underlying target of terrorist hatred is their own limitations and powerlessness. If people feel limited in their opportunities, terrorism is one response.

Pipes doesn't address the issues of Sept. 11, 2001; nor of protecting our society from terrorism. It's not the purpose of his book. Instead, he looks at the "Why" of terrorism and suggests answers that also explain recent events.

Amazon.com

Since the fall of Communism in Russia, the Kremlin archives have yielded a hitherto hidden history of the Soviet regime. Richard Pipes, emeritus professor of Russian history at Harvard and author of Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, is the principal editor of this first collection of secret Lenin papers published in English. The collection reveals sides of the Bolshevik leader long guessed at in the West but never proven, particularly his efforts to subvert the West. Such revelations make this volume an invaluable historical tool that helps part the Iron Curtain of silence and disinformation.

Book Description

Lenin the man, the revolutionary, and world leader has remained an enigma, part myth arising from the tumult of the Russian Revolution and part image carefully controlled for nearly seventy years by the leaders of the Soviet Union and their sympathizers abroad. The Unknown Lenin, containing long concealed documents from the Soviet archives, helps correct the myth and revise the image. Lenin emerges here as a ruthless, manipulative leader who used terror, subversion and persecution to achieve his goals.

Customer Reviews:

Simply anti-communist.......2006-09-05

I read this book and I felt dissapointed. The author (who I later discovered is a well-known anti-communist in America) simply shows a serie of notes and documents that, according to him, say how ruthless Lenin was. I am sayin "according to him" because sometimes he dare to guess what those notes say, even when you can't possibly read them (some are illegible). The book has a total lack of impartiality and it reminds me to those books by Dmitri Volkogonov, whose hate against communism blinds him from doing a good and impartial book. My opinion is that if you want to read a good book on a political personality (or on any other theme) try to find an author that has no direct implication in the story (like Volkogonov) or that has not a blinding hate to the topic (like Pipes).

Provides Documentation of the True Character of Lenin.......2003-11-15

While this is a slender volume, it provides very important documentary evidence of what had been hinted at and alluded to previously. The criminal nature of the Soviet Union can no longer be explained away as a corruption by Stalin of the pure and noble ideology of Lenin. The documents provided here clearly demonstrate Lenin's criminality and his role in building the terror state that was the USSR.

Dr. Richard Pipes, a great scholar on Soviet history, has done a great service for us in putting this material together so concisely and powerfully. It is another important volume in the Annals of Communism series that I cannot praise enough.

Dr. Pipes provides an introduction and a biographical sketch of Lenin, a few pictures, commentary on the importance of each document. The documents themselves are often excerpts while many are presented in full translation. There are a couple of them also provided in the original by a photograph of the actual document.

This is a vital book in understanding the origins of the Soviet Union and the nature of the relationships among the founders of what led to so many horrors and so many deaths.

Necessary correction........2002-11-15

For many people from the left, Stalin was the ultimate gravedigger of the Revolution (Trotsky).
The first one was Lenin, by creating a one party state ruled by him.
One should remember that in the free elections of 1919 in Russia, the bolshevik party got only a good 17% of the votes. But Lenin kept his power. As Tomsky said : there was only one party, the others were in prison.
Pipes' picture is all too real: Lenin was - and there are reasons for it : his brother's death for instance - a cynical, ruthless, aggressive agitator, who despised humanity and the workers to whom he told he was to create a paradise for them.
He understood that farmers and industrial workers saw only their own interests, not his: to create a new society with new human beings.
The results of his policies were dreadful: the USSR stopped to communicate health statistics to the WHO in the seventies, because they were too disastrous.
When I was in Moscow, an important person in Russia (I saw recently a quote from him in an international newspaper) told me the following joke: why are Lenin's statues on the market place of every village? Because his arm indicates where vodka is sold. That was the future of the country.
No, Julia Voznesenskaya is more than right: communism was the power of the soviets and the alcoholisation of the country (The women's Decameron).
I recommend this necessary political essay to everybody.

More misplaced 'info' from an old Cold Warrior.......2002-06-15

Richard Pipes was in Ronald Reagan's administration, simple facts state that he is an old cold warrior. Through his hatred for the communists and Lenin (no doubt Lenin was a ruthless man), he gives too many one-sided and biased accounts of Lenin. Perhaps Pipes should know that Lenin tried to please non-Russian nationalities of his empire programs such as Ukrainization, he even forgot communist ideology for one moment when he set up the New Economic Policy allowing his starving countrymen to sell their products and keep the money. The main thing Pipes is good for is history of Russia before the October Revolution where he is deprived of his prejudices.

Lenin speaks for himself.......2000-07-25

Richard Pipes' presentation of archival material concerning Lenin is of great value to anyone interested in the paper trail leading from the millions of corpses scattered across Soviet history to the feet of comrade Lenin. The reviews of this book are interesting since, speaking literally, Pipes did not write the book: Lenin et. al did. Lenin himself and his various murderer flunkies, wrote the documents that comprise the book. So those that squeal like a stuck pig over this book do so in the face of the fact that Pipes did not write it -- Lenin and his accomplices are the authors of most of the material. Pipes selected documents that demonstrate Lenin's hand in various murderous terror campaigns (the persecution of the Orthodox Church), his creation of a police-terror state, and his subversive work with the Germans. This is Lenin, these are the things he did. Others suggest that somehow Pipes' selection is 'unbalanced.' Hmmm . . . Does that mean that somewhere in all the archival material there is something like an order taken by Lenin's assistant asking that flowers be sent to his wife; a photograph of Lenin passing out candy to children; a letter where the diligent Lenin promises to come over to a common prole's house to roll up his sleeves himself and fix his leaking pipes? Better yet, perhaps in the Soviet archives there is a heartwarming birthday greeting Lenin sent to Dzhirnsky: 'Happy birthday! Don't gas too many peasants in the woods on this, your special day!" Did Pipes select only those documents that portray Lenin in a bad light? It is nonsense to suggest that Pipes purposely left out documents that allow a kind, gentle, loving, zany Lenin to come through. This book testifies to the fact that Lenin was simply a nihilist, someone who did not believe in anything and simply wanted to destroy out of hatred. There is no intellectual substance to communism. It is nihilism pure and simple and thrives on darkness. Read the book for yourself and don't let those who condone murder and destruction try and make it sound as if this book is somehow 'biased.' Lies beget lies and this is what nihilists live for.

The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917-1923, Revised Edition (Russian Research Center Studies)

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Suprisingly well written, flows wonderfully
A great book

The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917-1923, Revised Edition (Russian Research Center Studies)
Richard Pipes
Manufacturer: Harvard University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Communism: A History (Modern Library Chronicles)

ASIN: 0674309510

Book Description

Here is the history of the disintegration of the Russian Empire, and the emergence, on its ruins, of a multinational Communist state. In this revealing account, Richard Pipes tells how the Communists exploited the new nationalism of the peoples of the Ukraine, Belorussia, the Caucasus, Central Asia, and the Volga-Ural area--first to seize power and then to expand into the borderlands.

The Formation of the Soviet Union acquires special relevance in the post-Soviet era, when the ethnic groups described in the book once again reclaimed their independence, this time apparently for good.

In a 1996 Preface to the Revised Edition, Pipes suggests how material recently released from the Russian archives might supplement his account.

Customer Reviews:

Suprisingly well written, flows wonderfully.......1999-05-14

In the exceedingly complex series of events that went into the making of the Russian Revolution and its subsequent devolution into the communist government of Felix and Vladimir, Pipes makes another foray into clarity and meaning, and succeeds wonderfully.

While this book might not interest the causal reader on Comunist Russia and her sattellites, it is as close to seamless reading as we will ever find for the ethnographer of violence in the Russian landscape.

And what the hell, it still might interest the causual reader- I guarantee you will go away with a complete picture of an important period of time.

A great book.......1998-11-28

As a history student I found this book a really good source to write my essay on the methods of terror used by the Bolsheviks. This book is designed to all of those that study the history of nationalities after October of 1917. I think this should be one of the first books of Pipes on the. subject of the Bolsheviks. It is really interesting that Pipes provides a lot of information in an era (1950's) when there was little information about the Soviet Union. I have also read from Pipes, The Russian Revolution, Russia under the Bolshevik Regime, The Unknown Lenin and Russia under the Old Regime.

Russia and the World Since 1917-1991 (International Relations and the Great Powers Series)

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A must-have book for Sovietology's students
A comprehensive foreign history of Soviet Union and Russia

Russia and the World Since 1917-1991 (International Relations and the Great Powers Series)
Caroline Kennedy-Pipe
Manufacturer: Arnold Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Book Description

The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 had a profound effect upon the nature of international relations. From being a considerable imperial power, the USSR quite literally shrunk to the nineteenth-century borders of Czarist Russia. This book looks at all the main phases of Russian foreign policy from 1917 to 1991. It pays attention to major events such as the impact of the Second World War on Russia and the emergence of the Cold War after 1945. Looking beyond the traditional story of great power rivalry (although that forms an important theme), the book highlights the importance of technological, strategic and domestic factors in the making of Russian foreign policy. In particular, it questions whether, given Russia's history, insecurity, and the commitment to revolutionary change, we could actually conceive of a past without confrontation between Russia and the external world. The book also examines the nature of the Kremlin's troubled relationship with its superpower rival, the United States, and focuses on the arenas of conflict in the developing world, the Middle East, and Europe.

Customer Reviews:

A must-have book for Sovietology's students.......2003-02-10

A very comprehensive and insightful book on Soviet Union as well as Russia's foreign policy. People who are interested in the origin of Soviet foreign policy-making but not familiar with it in detail should read this book as a starter.

Therefore, people who are also interested in international theories might find a good illustration of combination of historic and theoretical approaches in this book.

A comprehensive foreign history of Soviet Union and Russia.......2003-01-31

This book offers not only a well-ordered historic events sequence, but also an insight of how historic study of foreign policy could be integrated with theoretical explorations. I agree the author who emphasised the domestic factors of foreign policy-making were mutually embedded with the external conditions.
Therefore, people who are also interested in international theories might find a good illustration of combination of historic and theoretical approaches in this book.

Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia: A Translation and Analysis (Ann Arbor Paperbacks for the Study of Russian and Soviet History and Politics)
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Karamzin's Memoir on Ancient and Modern Russia: A Translation and Analysis (Ann Arbor Paperbacks for the Study of Russian and Soviet History and Politics)
Richard Pipes
Manufacturer: University of Michigan Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0472030507

Ancient Greeks (Reading About)
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Ancient Greeks (Reading About)
Jim Pipe
Manufacturer: Franklin Watts Ltd
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0749650842

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