A Concise History of the Russian Revolution Book

A brutally painful book to read and at times just genuinely hard to process. The history of 1917-23 nightmare that Russia was subjected to under Lenin and the Bolsheviks has no precedent in history, and at times it reads like a caricature of a mad theory. But theory it was not. From dictatorship of proletariat and red terror to war communism, collectivization and largest European famine since Black Death the book describes the practice quite systematically.

What makes this history particularly poignant is that to this day, I still detect a surprisingly common tendency to frame Stalin as a monster who perverted a slightly naïve but otherwise well-intentioned vision of Lenin's communism. Pipes' work will disabuse one of any such notion, and if only for that reason alone it is a must read. Lenin was the true mastermind of Soviet tragedy: he setup the Soviet system and had no illusions about its methods and intent. In fact by many accounts Lenin was more inhumane than Stalin, but Lenin's time was limited, while Stalin had 30 years to take Lenin's system and run it on a mass scale.

The rest are side notes to self, feel free to skip.

- Need vanguard professional intellectual class to morph protests/revolts into actual revolutions. Alleged "beneficiaries" of revolutions (e.g. peasants, workers) are typically perfectly content with sensible incremental reforms.
- Russian revolutionaries took the ideas of progress and humans as blank slates in the face of environment to their logical conclusions (Locke and Helvetius on steroids)

- Stolypin reforms and handling of Duma transitions had its challenges but largely stabilized the country by 1910, assassinated in 1911.
- Great War and tensions between Nicolas II and Duma, Duma using the war to weaken the monarchy. Kerensky, Milyukov.
- Post February 1917 "dual power" of Soviets (appointed) and Provisional Gov't (elected).
- War was supported by all parties besides Bolsheviks who needed it to consolidate power.
- Lenin heavily assisted and sponsored by Germans who wanted Russia to withdraw from the war. Meanwhile in internal meetings Lenin openly advocated transforming imperial war into civil war between classes.
- September 1917 Kornilov affair. Kornilov - popular, patriotic general, ready to take control of the war. Kerensky feared his popularity and feared a coup from the right. Manipulates Kornilov and charges with treason, and then on top of it releases Bolsheviks from jail! Lenin is ecstatic and can't believe his luck.

- February '17 revolution is simply a putsch by Lenin allegedly in the name of the Soviets who in theory represent the people. Calling it a farce is charitable. SRs, Mensheviks and Bolsheviks in cahoots technically but Lenin outmaneuvers them all pretty rapidly.
- First in history totalitarian regime through one-party dictatorship (imitated later by the Nazis). Lenin/Bolsheviks takes over all shared political organizations in 2 weeks! Rule by decree just like the tsar before 1905 revolution. Calls constitutional assembly, Bolsheviks loose the elections, so declares them illegal. By Jan 1918 it is all over - all power officially and unofficially is in Bolshevik's hands.

- March 1918 Brest-Litovsk peace with Central Powers and Germany, massive loss of territory and people.
- But later after Central Powers are defeated, Lenin renounces the treaty gains territory back.
- 1922 Germany-Russia Rapallo Treaty restores pre-war boundaries and sets framework for massive economic and military cooperation. Kybosh on cooperation only in the 30s with Hitler's rise to power.

- 1918-21 War Communism. Was never meant as an emergency measure (as later claimed), but a deliberate set of policies to destroy capitalism. Abolition of money, market, private property. Nationalization across the board. Predictable results - inflation, huge loss in productivity, massive loss in output, rapid de-industrialization. (Ironically, Bolsheviks actually boasted about their inflation rate, proclaiming they beat the French in currency erosion)
- Lenin's war against the village, failed attempt at crop extraction and class warfare inducement (kulaks). See more below, under NEP.
- Pipes "Lenin's hatred for bourgeoisie can only be compared with Hitler's hatred for the Jews."

- Red Terror of 1918 (50-140K dead). Kicked off with murder of tsar and family (no charge, no trial naturally).
- Cheka created by Lenin with explicit mandate for terror.
- State outlaws law! Rule by "revolutionary conscious". Terror must be indiscriminate. Creation of concentration camps.

- Civil War. Reds - ethnic Russians, united, centralized, unified ideology. Ran by ex-Tsar generals (Budyonny, Tukachevsky) and staffed by ex-tsar military men, reluctantly recruited and/or forced by the Bolsheviks (Trotsky, Kamenev)
- Whites - ethnic minorities, peripheral fronts, no central command or ideology, outnumbered and outgunned (Denikin, Kolchak, Wrangel, Udenich). Fighting for Provisional Govt and Constitutional Assembly, not monarchy.
- Whites were bad tacticians, who unlike Reds didn't use situation on the ground to their advantage. Alienated Finns and Poles. In contrast Reds promised Finns and Poles whatever they wanted but of course reneged on all promises after the war.
- Antisemitism. Tsar-time pale of settlement dies with revolution and appearance of hated Reds is conflated with sightings of the Jews in rest of country; locals (especially Cossacks and Ukrainians) hate both. 50K-100K die in pogroms.
- "Foreign Intervention" Mostly Brits and soon even they withdrew their support. Churchill the only one aggressively advocating to fight the Reds and presciently warning of future Bolshevik danger.

- Empire. Turn of century Russia about 12 ethnic minorities of political significance. Prior to 1905/6 little drive for independence, after 1906 seeds of nascent nationalism.
- Feb 1918 Lenin advocates "self-determination" and Poles, Ukrainians, Finns, Baltics, Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan all take off, not without some influence by Germany, Austrian and Ottoman Empire.
- Later on Lenin shifts to "federalism" and quickly reacquires Armenia/Azerbaijan/Georgia (Georgia welcomed it due to being attacked by the Turks at the time). Ukraine is occupied and reacquired during civil war. So from 1918-39 Soviet Union is 6 republics (Arme/Azer/Geo/Ukraine/Belor/Russ)

- Exporting communism. Lenin views Russia as a springboard for world revolution. Establishment of "Comunist International" (1919-43). Failures to export to Germany (Rosa Luxemburg), Hungary (Bela Kun), or Austria.
- Polish-Soviet war, initiated by Poland to make independent Ukraine (Pilsudksi-Petlura); Russia should have won but miserably failed at offense, a significant signal for Lenin to avoid using Red Army in international arena.
- ComIntern split communists from socialists in Europe, weakening the latter and providing for fertile ground for nationalism and fascism. Maybe. Here I'm also sympathetic to Karl Polanyi thesis of early 20th tension between increasingly disjoint spheres of market economy and political power within a modern state serving as a catalyst for fascism to emerge.
- Reliance on "fellow travelers" and "useful idiots" in ideological warfare. That practice is still with us today, just watch Oliver Stone's "Putin Interviews". Huge subsidies to foreign "friendly" press plus internal TASS monopoly. Systematic propaganda.

- Culture/Religion (18-22). Lunacharski. Culture converted to propaganda. First decree - abolition of free press. Futurism and Constructivism very much in line with early communism. Agit-theater blending reality, fantasy and propaganda. Irony of culture having zero effect on intended audience (peasant, workers) who came from conservative religious background.
- "Separation" of church in state in the form of church's possessions being appropriated by the state. Clergy shooting and breakup from within.

- Crises. Tail end of civil war and war communism - economic collapse, food shortages etc. Peasants blame Bolsheviks who in turn respond with crop extraction attempts. Massive revolts (Tambov) - civil war morphs into class war with peasants (guerilla warfare, chemical weapons, terror, concentration camps). Gov't waging war on its citizens. Tambov rebellion (1920-21) resulted in more casualties than civil war itself! In the end crop extraction was subverted, collectivization would have to wait till Stalin…
- Kronshdat mutiny against the Bolsheviks. Demanded elections, freedom of press, right of assembly. Brutally suppressed.
- In the face of economic collapse plus Tambov and Kronshdat uprisings Lenin has to institute NEP (soft economic liberalization).
- NEP as a false "Thermidor". Unlike French it was self-initiated and limited to liberalization of economy only. But coupled with increased repression of politics, culture, law (e.g. due process gone).
- War communism plus Lenin's collectivization attempt brings us 1921-23 famine, 5M dead. Till then it was possibly the worst disaster in European history since Black Death (other than wars). Hoover's massive relief effort saves 9M people.

- Pipes concluding thoughts/remarks:
- Lenin: always treated politics as literal warfare, promised everything to everybody, mastermind of first totalitarian regime.
- Views Bolsheviks as non-utopian. Once they realized the goals are unattainable they resorted to violence and continued.
- Views Bolsheviks as non-Marxist, unlike say Mensheviks. This is a stark contrast with Martin Malia who views Lenin's program as the only practical implementation of Marxism.
- Finds perfect parallels between Lenin's and Tsar's regimes (autocracy, ownership of resources, ownership of people, extensive police state)
- Lenin and Stalin main difference: scale. Also Stalin's outgroup was wider, systematically killed fellow communists. Aaron Haspel suggests that both of these differences are simply a function of Lenin's historical time constraints.