The Russian Revolution
Richard Pipes
Language: English
Pages: 976
ISBN: 0679736603
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Mr. Pipes writes trenchantly, and at times superbly....No single volume known to me even begins to cater so adequately to those who want to discover what really happened to Russia....Nor do I know any other book better designed to help Soviet citizens to struggle out of the darkness."
-- Ronald Hingley, The New York Times Book Review
Ground-breaking in its inclusiveness, enthralling in its narrative of a movement whose purpose, in the words of Leon Trotsky, was "to overthrow the world," The Russian Revolution draws conclusions that have already aroused great controversy in this country-and that are certain to be explosive when the book is published in the Soviet Union. Richard Pipes argues convincingly that the Russian Revolution was an intellectual, rather than a class, uprising; that it was steeped in terror from its very outset; and that it was not a revolution at all but a coup d'etat -- "the capture of governmental power by a small minority."
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right, which by now had also joined the opposition, by contrast, dwelled on personalities. In its view, Russia’s crisis was the fault, not of the system, but of the individuals in charge, notably the “German” Empress and Rasputin. Once these two were out of the way, all would be well. It was not possible to get at the Empress directly, since this would have required a palace coup, but some monarchists believed they could attain the same end by isolating her from Rasputin. Alexandra’s well-known
Government: “I primarily remember an atmosphere in which everything experienced seemed unreal.”156 One of the difficulties in understanding the course of the February Revolution lies in the ambivalent nature of dvoevlastie, or dual power (dyarchy). In theory, under dvoevlastie the cabinet functioned as the combined executive and legislative, being in both capacities subject to the veto power of the Soviet as represented by the Ispolkom. But in practice, the Soviet not only controlled the
through full-blown capitalism, which would vastly expand the ranks of the proletariat and, at the same time, bring the benefits of “bourgeois” freedoms, including a parliamentary system under which Russian socialists, like the Germans, could gain political influence. Once the “bourgeoisie” had swept autocracy and its “feudal” economic foundations out the way, the stage would be set for the next phase of historic development, the advance to socialism. In the mid-189os these ideas captured the
was as yet no civil war in Europe there was already one in Russia. From the perspective of time, Lenin can be faulted for underestimating the internal difficulties of the Central Powers and their need for a quick settlement: Russia’s position in this respect was stronger than he realized. But his assessment of the internal situation in Russia was perfectly sound. He knew that by continuing in the war he risked being toppled from power either by his domestic opponents or by the Germans. He also
Peasantry, 144. 44. A. Leroy-Beaulieu, The Empire of the Tsars and the Russians, II (New York-London, 1898), 7. 45. K. Zaitsev, I. A. Bunin (Berlin, [1933]), 101–2. 46. “Vlasl’ zemli,” in Gleb Uspenskii, Polnoe sobranie sochinenii, VIII (Moscow, 1949), 25. 47. E.g., Efimenko, Issledovaniia, I, 136–38. 48. Bohdan Kistiakovskii in Vekhi (Moscow, 1909), 143. 49. Efimenko, Issledovaniia, I, 174–75. 50. Stepniak, Russian Peasantry, 86. 51. A. N. Engelgardt, Iz derevni (Moscow, 1987), 430–31.