Revolutionary Russia:1891 to 1991 A History by Orlando Figes
In October I read The Crimean War by Orlando Figes. I am very interested in Romonov era Russian History, especially the last days of the dynasty, so when his history of the Russian Revolution was on sale as a Kindle for $2.95 I acquired it. (It is now back up to $12.95.)
The central thesis of the work is that Russian History from 1891 up to 1991 can best be understood as a working out of radical changes brought to society by the Revolution.
Figes,as one would expect, lays out very well the huge social inequities that created the conditions that brought about the revolution. He shows how the completely incompetent leadership of Czar Nicholas during World War One, his marriage to a German Princess, the involvement of Rasputin and his belief in his divine right to rule greatly aided the arguments of anti-Tsarist ideologues. When peasants attempting a peaceful protests were gunned down by Cossacks the fate of the Romonovs was sealed. Figes goes into detail about the infighting between different Revolutionary groups, leading to the rule of Lenin, 1917 to 1924
Lenin wanted to create a Marxist state where there was no private property. Upon the ascension of Stalin to power (1924 to 1953) the government began the collectivation of farms owned by farms owned by Kulaks, rich peasants. Soon, for reasons Figes explains, this lead to a disastrous food short. In May of last year I read a highly regarded book by Anne Applebaum, Red Famine: Stalin's War on The Ukraine in which she shows that Stalin made a decision to take food from the Ukraine and divert it to Russia, thus preventing Russians from turning on the government. I was shocked by this from Figes:
"In the reported words of Lazar Kaganovich, who oversaw collectivization and grain procurements in Ukraine, the death of a ‘few thousand kulaks’ would teach the other peasants ‘to work hard and understand the power of the government’.9 But no hard evidence has so far come to light of the regime’s intention to kill millions through famine, let alone of agenocide campaign against the Ukrainians. Many parts of Ukraine were ethnically mixed. There is no data to suggest that there was a policy of taking more grain from Ukrainian villages than from the Russians or other ethnic groups in the famine area. And Ukraine was not the only region to suffer terribly from the famine, which was almost as bad in Kazakhstan."
This is the polar opposite of Applebaum's very thoroughly documented conclusions.
Figes made another remarkably inaccurate remark that undermined my reliance on his insights into Russian society:
"Russia is no longer an aggressive state. It does not start foreign wars. Economically it is a pale shadow of the powerhouse it was on the eve of the First World War. Seventy years of Communism ruined it. Yet the authoritarian state tradition has revived in Russia in a manner unexpected twenty years ago. This resurgence, based on Putin’s reclamation of the Soviet past, demands that we look again at Bolshevism—its antecedents and its legacies—in the long arc of history"
This is totally wrong, of course. Figes does provide a lot of information about the structure of government under Stalin.
I am glad I read this and would read other books by Figes if they were on sale.
ORLANDO FIGES is the author of numerous books on Russia, including A People’s Tragedy, Natasha’s Dance, The Whisperers, and The Crimean War. His works have been translated into twenty-seven languages. A professor of history at Birkbeck, University of London, and a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books, Figes is the recipient of the Wolfson History Prize, the W. H. Smith Literary Award, the NCR Book Award, and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, among others.
Mel Ulm
