The Bolshevik Revolution 1917-23

A History of Soviet Russia #3

by Edward Hallett Carr

“E. H. Carr’s History of Soviet Russia holds a unique position in the vast literature on Bolshevism and Soviet Russia. No other work on this subject comparable in scope and scale exists in English or in any other language, including the Russian.” ― Times Literary Supplement In Volume III, Russia’s geographical position as both a European and an Asian power and her twin aims of promoting world revolution and establishing normal relations with capitalist governments led to severe stresses in Soviet foreign policy. This volume analyzes these strains and their domestic and international ramifications.

Genres: History, Russia, Politics, Russian Revolution, Nonfiction, Russian History, Soviet Union

614 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1953

About the author

Edward Hallett Carr was a liberal realist and later left-wing British historian, journalist and international relations theorist, and an opponent of empiricism within historiography.

Carr was best known for his 14-volume history of the Soviet Union, in which he provided an account of Soviet history from 1917 to 1929, for his writings on international relations, and for his book What Is History?, in which he laid out historiographical principles rejecting traditional historical methods and practices.

Educated at Cambridge, Carr began his career as a diplomat in 1916. Becoming increasingly preoccupied with the study of international relations and of the Soviet Union, he resigned from the Foreign Office in 1936 to begin an academic career. From 1941 to 1946, Carr worked as an assistant editor at The Times, where he was noted for his leaders (editorials) urging a socialist system and an Anglo-Soviet alliance as the basis of a post-war order. Afterwards, Carr worked on a massive 14-volume work on Soviet history entitled A History of Soviet Russia, a project that he was still engaged in at the time of his death in 1982. In 1961, he delivered the G. M. Trevelyan lectures at the University of Cambridge that became the basis of his book, What is History?. Moving increasingly towards the left throughout his career, Carr saw his role as the theorist who would work out the basis of a new international order.

Reviews

[Ali · Rating 4 out of 5]

سیاست خارجی بلشویک‌ها در سال‌های ابتدایی انقلاب مبتنی بر دو اصل بود: گسترش انقلاب در سایر ممالک به‌ویژه کشورهای پیشرفته صنعتی اروپا و تثبیت حکومت شوروی در روسیه. شاید چندان معقول نباشد که حکومتی که در صدد تثبیت حاکمیت خویش پس از انقلاب است در پی اشاعه انقلاب به سایر ممالک باشد، ولی تفکر بلشویک‌ها چنین نبود. ایشان خالصانه معتقد بودند که بقای یک دولت سوسیالیستی (به‌ویژه در روسیه به لحاظ صنعتی واپس‌مانده) در میان کشورهای سرمایه‌داری جز با انقلاب در حداقل یکی از این ممالک و در سایه حمایت آن امکان‌پذیر نیست. ایمانشان به وقوع انقلاب پرولتاریایی هم دست کمی از ایمان حواریون به ظهور قریب‌الوقوع مسیح نداشت؛ به هر حال مارکسیسم بیشتر از هر مکتب فکری مدرنی رنگ و بوی مذهبی دارد و نبایستی هم از مسلم گرفتن پیش‌بینی‌هایش توسط پیروان آن چندان تعجب نمود. ترکیب این اندیشه‌ها با واقعیات اروپای در حال جنگ و پس از جنگ و آوار مشکلات گوناگون داخلی، شکل‌دهنده سیاست خارجی حکومت شوروی است که هم در پی ترویج انقلاب است و هم در پی سازش با کشورهای پیشرفته و اخذ امتیازات تجاری؛ گاهی این کم‌رنگ‌تر است و گاهی آن.

پروفسور کار در مجلد سوم به بررسی سیاست خارجی حکومت شوروی می‌پردازد. کتاب بسیار مفصل است و پیداست که حاصل کار تحقیقاتی عظیمی است. البته همین تطویل و ذکر تمامی جزئیات بعضا باعث شده مطالعه کتاب خسته‌کننده هم باشد اما چیزی از ارزش آن به عنوان مرجع نمی‌کاهد.

[Victor Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very lengthy and thorough explanation of Bolshevik foreign policy in the aftermath of the October Revolution. Particularly enjoyed the discussion of the Genoa Conference and Rapallo Treaty between Russia and Weimar Germany. In the West there is often a great deal of misunderstanding as to why the early Soviet Union made many moves that are considered as merely self-serving (such as the Soviet Union's peculiar relationship to the COMINTERN or Soviet wars in Ukraine against the foreign backed governments that were replacing eachother in quick succession) or irrational (like the brutal wars between the Poles and Russians and the insistence on a drive towards Warsaw) make far more sense understanding that the world's first worker's state was also a pariah. In hoping to break the crippling isolation and preserve a flawed yet hopeful revolutionary experiment, pragmatic politics became the order of the day.

I personally didn't enjoy this last volume compared to the other two (which discussed politics and economics in the new regime), but it definitely gives the reader hoping to learn Soviet history a good orientation around the important moments that defined the early years of the Soviet Union.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thorough review of the policies and political moves in the early years of Bolshevik rule. As a new government they come across as chaotic and ill prepared. They say history repeats itself.

[Neal Maro · Rating 4 out of 5]

The third volume of E. H. Carr's History of Soviet Russia is about the early foreign policy of the RSFSR and its entry into international relations. Carr draws paraellels between the transition from War Communism to NEP as manifesting in the sphere of international relations. The thread of the pursuance of international socialism is compared to the needs of the RSFSR to establish itself in the international community. On one side ComIntern (The Third International) was established, on the other side the RSFSR signed various treaties (Rapallo, Anglo-Soviet Trade Agreement) in order to secure itself against imperialism. The failure of world revolution in the period following World War One forced the RSFSR to enter into relations with the capitalist world. Soviet foreign policy reflects this fact.

[Andrew Stone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Puts the exhausting into exhaustive, but it's hard to imagine a more carefully curated account of the first years of revolutionary Russia and the USSR. Carr covers not just the politics but also the economics and the foreign affairs with scrupulous but sympathetic analysis. Hindered somewhat when written by closed ans selective Russian archives, but still miles ahead of many later accounts without that drawback.

[John Devlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Does an admirable job of sifting through the competing claims of just who started and led the early years of the Bols in Russia.