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Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime |
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Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime
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by Richard Pipes
Sales Rank: 380598
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Discount: 20 %
List Price: $21.00
$16.80
At Amazon
on 6-21-2008.
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Features
Cover Type: Paperback with 608 pages
Published by: Vintage April 4, 1995
Written in: English
ISBN 10 Number: 0679761845
ISBN 13 Number: 978-0679761846
Book Dimensions:
9.2 x 6.1 x 1.2 inches
Weighs: 1.8 pounds
From Publishers Weekly
A sequel to The Russian Revolution, this latest effort from Harvard historian Pipes traces the formation of the Bolshevik state from the Russian civil war to the death of Lenin.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This new volume further confirms the author's preeminence as a historian of Russia, already established by his now-classic The Russian Revolution ( LJ 11/1/90) and earlier works. The Soviet Union's collapse lends a particular relevance to his work, which has benefited from access to long-closed archives. Covering the period from 1918 to Lenin's death in 1924, Pipes expands upon his indictment of the Soviet leader and his Bolsheviks with a mass of data and crushing evidence. Ending his narrative with the funeral of Lenin, he concludes with a judicious, fascinating essay, "Reflections on the Russian Revolution." This offers a reexamination of underlying trends and mythologies of the revolution, as well as a restatement of Pipes's belief in Russia's patrimonial legacy and its abiding influence. An important, valuable, passionate book for scholars and general readers. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/93.
- R.H. Johnston, McMaster Univ., Hamilton, Ontario
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Reader Reviews
This is an extraordinary book. It is an extremely important companion to Conquest's "The Great Terror", for it sets the table. And what a feast it is. Many of the people reading this will have grown up like I did in a cold war household. In those days, in Canada anyway, I actually had friends who ardently espoused communism. Who extolled Lenin and even Stalin. Who saw the western democracies as weak, rotten to the core and on their last legs. We all knew people like that. It was the western media, more than anything else that we had to thank for that. It was dominated by leftists, many of them (as hard as this is the believe) actually in the pay of, or beholden to, Russia. Those who weren't were hopelessly and wilfully blind. For me, one of the greatest mysteries of the 20th Century was how so many people came to be so thoroughly duped by a murderous gang of thugs who had hijacked the Russian people and sought to take over the world. How was it possible? Pipes tells this story. And he pulls no punches. He comes from the Thucydidean school of history. He is absolutely unafraid to pass judgement. The first part of the book covers the Russian Civil war from 1918 - 1920. This strange, complex struggle still has yet to have a book length study devoted to it. But Pipes provides the reader with more than enough. Like Conquest, Pipes is at pains to point out that there was nothing at all organic about the Russian Revolution. It was more of a coup d'etat, stage managed by a tiny cadre of Bolsheviks who had the army on their side. The workers and the peasants, and this is CRUCIAL for our understanding of what happened, had literally NOTHING to do with it. Once Lenin and his gang were in control (and I use the term "gang" advisedly because they behaved and operated very like a criminal gang), they turned their attention to the rest of the world. They actually believed that their "revolution" was to be followed by a world revolution - which they would supervise. Pipes chapter entitled "Communism for Export" will have you shaking your head in disbelief. The Russians knew they couldn't control what was written about them unless they controlled WHO did the writing. They did this by refusing the major press agencies access to Russia until Moscow had approved the journalist. The Sunday Times famously stood up to this bullying for decades. Not the New York Times. They sent a pre-approved journalist by the name of Walter Duranty. Ironically, Duranty was an out spoken anti-Communist. But he quickly realised that if he wrote what the Russians wanted, he would have access to inside information - with that would come influence and fame. Better yet for Duranty, he very early on identified Stalin as Lenin's likely successor (at a time which this was not at ALL obvious). He began to eulogise Stalin. He praised collectivisation, denied the Ukrainian famine - and resorted to lie upon lie upon lie. Such was the credulity of the western public and press that he was rewarded for his infamy with the Pulitzer Prize. He was not alone. Muggeridge reports that all the correspondents voluntarily took their wire stories to the censors to be censored. John Reed, virtually canonised by the movie Reds (a movie which is in and of itself largely a shocking lie), was nothing more than a fellow-traveller blind to every excess of the Bolsheviks. The portrait of him in these pages will have your blood boiling. Randolph Hearst in a signed editorial in 1918 described Lenin's regime as the "truest democracy in Europe." The point needs to be made bluntly. All of these journalists and fellow travellers have blood on their hands. Had the world stood up to first Lenin and later Stalin, millions, COUNTLESS millions could have been saved. I have so little room to extol this book. I can only hope that my enthusiasm will in some way prove infectious and draw you to read it. I have focused on one aspect of this book. There is so much more. For example. Pipes makes persuasive case that Communism, Fascism and National Socialism have common roots. That Russian communism was eerily similar to Tsarism (only the Tsarists were more compassionate!) Very importantly, Lenin comes in for the thrashing that he has so richly deserved all these long years. This zealot has escaped scrutiny for decades - largely because what came after him was so nightmarish. People for some reason like to think of Lenin as a benign philosopher - idealistic and pure - whose dreams were shattered by the evil that was to follow. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING could be farther from the truth. He was a murderer, a mass murderer, just like Stalin. The only difference was one of scale. The fact was that Lenin hated democracy - stamped it out - built a totalitarian dictatorship - and paved the way for one of the greatest monsters of all time. And it is small solace to know that Lenin and his gang of thugs reaped what they sowed. That years later Stalin would literally exterminate them with their own weapons. Read this Book. It is one of the most important books about the 20th Century you will ever read - and it is filled with lessons that we must take to heart. We CAN learn from history. History teaches us to see patterns - it helps us to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past.
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Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime
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