The Russian Revolution Book

This volume is both a rigorous history and critique of Communism. Dr. Pipes thesis, largely a consensus view among historians now, is that the revolution was not a revolution at all, but a coup d’état. The biggest surprise for me was the detailed story of how the Bolsheviks crushed all the other socialist groups (Soviet Revolutionaries, Mensheviks, Left SRs, etc) until they alone remained in power. But that was later. For after the collapse of the Provisional Government, left in place by the abdicated Tsar, the Bolsheviks were just one of many soviets and the way forward was the ballot box. Imagine the frustrated Lenin losing committee vote after committee vote until the only way he could win was by threatening to quit.

Lenin would also pack the committee with Bolshevik friends or invalidate the entire vote (sound like anyone we know?) when he could not get his way. And the story of the Russian surrender to Germany ending World War I in the east will curl your hair. I had not known, for instance, that Germany tripled in size with the signing of the Brest-Litovsk treaty, nor that Lenin became “the most reviled man in Europe” because of his complicity in accepting the treaty. Moreover, this long book refutes the strange materialist/ utilitarian/ positivist (Marxist) ideology that underlay Bolshevism. It is not a disinterested book. At the same time, its arguments are clear and reasoned, animated perhaps at times as all compelling writing can be, but always insightful.

Upon the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 Pipes, still a child and his parents fled the country, eventually settling in the U.S. After the war Poland became a Warsaw Pact nation. In time Pipes found himself at Harvard where he worked and taught for more than 35 years, except for a two year stint during which he advised President Ronald Reagan on whose watch the Soviet Union crumbled, 1990/91. It’s going too far to call Pipes an old Cold Warrior. He is first and foremost a scholar. But his lifelong study of the subject, not to mention the long-term subjugation of his native country, and his ability for a short but decisive time to affect U.S. foreign policy, means he has a unique perspective on the history of the now defunct USSR.

May we never see its like again.