A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924 by Orlando Figes

May 11, 2015 Matt rated it it was amazing

Shelves: history, russian-history

“The Russian Revolution launched a vast experiment in social engineering – perhaps the grandest in the history of mankind. It was arguably an experiment which the human race was bound to make at some point in its evolution, the logical conclusion of humanity’s historic striving for social justice and comradeship. Yet born as it was of the First World War, when Europe had been brought to the brink of self-destruction, it was also one that many people believed was essential at the time…The experim ...more

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Oct 07, 2016 Warwick rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, russian-revolution, folio-society, first-world-war, russia

While I was halfway through this, an ‘inspirational quote’ from Lenin happened to come up on my reddit feed. Something from one of those early speeches, about equality for all. I left a comment to suggest – I thought quite mildly – that it was, perhaps, ethically questionable to be quoting with approbation someone responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people – only to be downvoted into oblivion by other users. ‘You're probably thinking about Stalin,’ said one. ‘Fuck off,’ clarif ...more

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Dec 26, 2016 Ahmad Sharabiani rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: political, non-fiction, 20th-century, russia, historical, british, literature, revolution

‭A people's tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924, Orlando Figes
A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891–1924 is an award-winning book written by British historian Orlando Figes and published in 1996. According to Figes "... the whole of 1917 could be seen as a political battle between those who saw the revolution as a means of bringing the war to an end and those who saw the war as a means of bringing the revolution to an end."
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و نهم ماه آوریل سال 2011 می ‭A people's tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924, Orlando Figes
A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891–1924 is an award-winning book written by British historian Orlando Figes and published in 1996. According to Figes "... the whole of 1917 could be seen as a political battle between those who saw the revolution as a means of bringing the war to an end and those who saw the war as a means of bringing the revolution to an end."
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیست و نهم ماه آوریل سال 2011 میلادی
عنوان: تراژدی مردم: انقلاب روسیه از سال 1891 میلادی تا سال 1924 میلادی؛ نویسنده: اورلاندو فایجس؛ مترجم: احد علیقلیان؛ تهران، نشر نی، 1388؛ در 2 مجلد؛ شابک دوره: 9789641850465؛ شابک جلد 1: 9789641850441؛ جلد 2: 9789641850458، موضوع: تاریخ روسیه - نیکلای دوم - از سال 1891 میلادی تا سال 1924 میلادی
مجموعه ی دو جلدی «تراژدی مردم»، روایت «اورلاندو فایجس»؛ استاد تاریخ دانشگاه «کمبریج»، از تحولات داخلی روسیه، در بین سالهای 1891 تا 1924 میلادی است. از دیدگاه «فایجس»، انقلاب روسیه، دستکم از نظر تاثیراتش بر دنیای پیرامونی، یکی از بزرگترین رخدادهای تاریخ جهان به شمار میآید. گستردگی و ژرفای این تاثیرگذاری، تا حدود دو دهه پیش نیز، مشاهده و احساس میشده است. نگارنده، برای نشان دادن دامنه ی انقلاب، به شیوه هایی اشاره میکند، که انقلاب با آنها جان انسانها را گرفت: دهها هزار نفر را، بمبها و گلوله های انقلابیون کشت، و دستکم همین تعداد پیش از سال 1917 میلادی، در سرکوب رژیم تزاری، جان باختند. آن سالها هزاران نفر، در جنگهای خیابانی، جان خود را از دست دادند، صدها هزار نفر، در حکومت وحشت «سرخ»ها و طی سالهای پس از آن – اگر قربانیان قتل عام یهودیان را هم در نظر بگیریم – همین تعداد نیز، در حکومت وحشت «سفید»ها، به هلاکت رسیدند، بیش از یک میلیون تن، در جنگ داخلی کشته شدند، از جمله غیرنظامیان پشت جبهه، و با این همه، شمار مردمانیکه از گرسنگی، سرما و بیماری هلاک شدند نیز، از جمع اینها بیشتر بود. «فایجس»، روایت خود را از «انقلاب» از سال 1891 میلادی، که واکنش خیابانی مردم، به حکومت تزار، نسبت به بحران قحطی رخ داد، آغاز میکند، و در سال 1924 میلادی، که «لنین»، از دنیا میرود، به نگارگری پایان میدهد. یعنی زمانی که «انقلاب» به نقطه ی آغازین خود بازمیگردد، و نهادهای «استالینی» مستقر میشوند. به نظر نگارنده، لحظه هایی تعیین کننده پیش از انقلاب سال 1917 میلادی، و در طی آن، در تاریخ «روسیه» وجود داشت، که میتوانست سبب شود، روسیه راه دمکراتیکتری را در پیش بگیرد، اما چنین نشد و هدف از نگارش «تراژدی مردم»، تبیین همین موضوع است، که چرا انقلاب در هیچیک از لحظه های خود آن مسیرها را طی نکرد. از دیدگاه استاد دانشگاه «کمبریج»؛ برهان شکست دمکراسی روسیه را، باید در فرهنگ سیاسی، و تاریخ اجتماعی آن جستجو نمود. نبود نیروهای متعادل کننده ی دولت، در برابر استبداد «تزار»، شکنندگی جامعه ی مدنی «لیبرال»، عقب ماندگی مردمان در روستاهای روسیه، و خشک اندیشی روشنفکران تندرو «روسیه»، از جمله مولفه های این فرهنگ هستند. «فایجس»، در صدد بوده، تا نقش مردمان عادی را، به عنوان بازیگران اصلی نمایش انقلابی، برجسته سازد: دهقانان، کارگران، سربازان، و اقلیتهای ملی، و قومی، در این کتاب، به عنوان قربانیان انقلاب، معرفی نشده اند، بلکه خود جزو بازیگران اصلی نمایش بوده اند. نگارنده در تلاش برای تبیین تلویحی این نظریه، که مردمان، شایسته ی حاکمانی هستند، که بر آنان فرمان میرانند، نیست، بلکه از: تایید نظریه های «کل به جزء»، که در آنها مردمان عادی، آلت دست بی اراده ی حکومتگران، شمرده می شوند، گریزان است. ایشان با استفاده از آثار مکتوب غنی، و گسترده ای که در بایگانیهای دولتی، و شخصی موجود بوده، کوشیده، تا تصویری پیچیده تر، و باورپذیرتر از رابطه ی حزب با مردم، به خوانشگر خویش نشان دهند، و خیال «اصول کلی»، که بلشویکها (اکثریتیها) بر سرتاسر روسیه، تحمیل کرده اند را بزداید. آنچه نام انقلابی مردمی به خود گرفت، سرانجامی جز سقوط، در بستر خشونت و دیکتاتوری با خود به همراه نداشت. نگارنده در این کتاب، تنها به تحلیل عرصه ی عمومی نپرداخته، که هر جا نیاز دیده، پای درد دل زندگی خصوصی آسیب دیدگان از جنگ، و انقلاب نیز، نشسته است. دفترچه های خاطرات، نامه ها و دیگر نوشته های افراد نیز، جملگی به یارس نگارنده، برای سازماندهی روایتش آمده است. ایشان با دنبال کردن سرنوشت شخصیتها، خواسته است، تا آشوب آن سالها را، به تصویر بکشد، آشوبیکه با تراژدیهای ژرف انسانی همراه بود، و رژه ی نیروهای نظامی، و ایدئولوژیهای اجتماعی- سیاسی، تنها نمایش لایه ی بیرونی آن بود. نگارش کتاب، شش سال به درازا انجامید، و نگارنده آنرا در سال 1995 میلادی به پایان رسانید. کتاب در چهار بخش، و شانزده فصل، به انجام رسیده است. بخش نخست: در برگیرنده ی تاریخ روسیه، در دوره ی رژیم کهن است. بخش دوم: بحران قدرت در فاصله ی سالهای 1891 تا 1917 میلادی را، مورد بررسی قرار میدهد. بخش سوم: روسیه در انقلاب، در فاصله ی ماه فوریه ی سال 1917 میلادی تا ماه مارس سال 1918 میلادی مبحث این بخش را تشکیل میدهد. بخش چهارم: جنگ داخلی و برپایی نظام شوروی، در فاصله ی سالهای 1918 میلادی تا سال 1924 میلادی در این بخش مورد بازنگری قرار گرفته است. کتاب با رخدادهای دوره ی «لنین» و ماجرای درگذشت ایشان به پایان راه خویش میرسد. نتیجه گیری، کتاب شناسی، نمایه و تصاویر تاریخی متعدد و دیدنی، ضمیمه ی مطالب اصلی کتاب است. «تراژدی مردم» مجموعه ای خواندنی برای علاقمندان به تحولات انقلاب روسیه به شمار میرود. ا. شربیانی ...more

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Oct 08, 2016 David Gustafson rated it it was amazing

Recent memory, modern memory and then history - We are all living in recent memory. The oldest generation is the eye-witness to modern memory. When it passes on, we will begin to receive the history from the events and people of that generation without the influence of contemporary bias or dialectics.

It has been almost a hundred years since the Russian Revolution and Civil War. It is still too early for its pure history, but reliable narratives, unbound by predictable dialectics, are finally beg Recent memory, modern memory and then history - We are all living in recent memory. The oldest generation is the eye-witness to modern memory. When it passes on, we will begin to receive the history from the events and people of that generation without the influence of contemporary bias or dialectics.

It has been almost a hundred years since the Russian Revolution and Civil War. It is still too early for its pure history, but reliable narratives, unbound by predictable dialectics, are finally beginning to emerge.

Orlando Figes' version is not perfect, but it is one of best summaries available to get the average reader up to a moderate speed on a very complex subject.

After presenting an unsparing portrayal of the various layers of Russian society from 1891 up until Bloody Sunday 1905, Figes' Revolution of 1914 becomes but the inevitable, bloody result. What comes as a surprise to the reader is the deep depravity of the Russian soul. It is black, evil, and violent regardless of class or party affiliation. Sparing neither women nor children, it wantonly murders, tortures, rapes, pillages and executes without a drop of conscience.

This pitch black evil infected the souls of peasants and workers as well as generals, nobels, police and party apparatchiks. It consumed the Tsar and Tsarina as well as Lenin, Totsky and Stalin.

In the midst of these psychopaths, Figes follows a small handful of spectators such as Maxim Gorky and General Brusilov, the only WWI tsarist hero, who eventually supported the Reds because they were the peoples' choice. Those two somehow manage to maintain their balance, decency, objectivity and humanity while witnessing this terror unfold.

When Comrade Stalin's emissary Mercado paid a visit to Leon Trotsky at his Mexico City home to plunge an ice pick into his skull, one can only hope the Angel of Karma was singing a hymn in the exiled revolutionary's ear with Leon's very own words from the Revolution, "We must put an end, once and for all, to the papist-Quaker babble about the sanctity of human life." During the Revolution and Civil War, Trotsky, Lenin and Stalin did the very best that they could to abide by that dictum millions (literally) of heartless times with their cold-blooded signatures.

The Revolution and Civil War replaced a totalitarian monarchy with a totalitarian police state run by bureaucrats. The classes that were terrorized, oppressed and executed before are terrorized, oppressed and executed once again on an even larger scale. As one revolutionary bemoaned afterwards, "Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not establish a dictatorship to safeguard the revolution, they made a revolution to safeguard a dictatorship." Enter Comrade Stalin.

A basic understanding of the twentieth century requires a grasp of the Russian Revolution that left its immense footprints across World War II, the Cold War as well as the intellectual dialectics of labor and capital that have defined the many shades of politics we experience today.

"A People's Tragedy," is a very good start towards that understanding. ...more

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May 10, 2012 Jerome rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

First, Figes briskly deals with all those things you thought you knew about the Russian Revolution, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Kerensky - the liberals, the Bolsheviks, the Tsar. Again and again, I realized I had picked up myths either promoted by those who lost, or those who consolidated, the Revolution. The mythmaking machine was going full tilt from 1917 onwards (particularly during the Stalinist and Cold War Years) and this book would be irreplaceable if only for stripping away so much that you First, Figes briskly deals with all those things you thought you knew about the Russian Revolution, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Kerensky - the liberals, the Bolsheviks, the Tsar. Again and again, I realized I had picked up myths either promoted by those who lost, or those who consolidated, the Revolution. The mythmaking machine was going full tilt from 1917 onwards (particularly during the Stalinist and Cold War Years) and this book would be irreplaceable if only for stripping away so much that you thought you knew - which was wrong.

Second, by starting the book in 1891 (with a famine which revealed the incompetence of the Tsarist beaurocracy) and ending with the death of Lenin in 1924, Figes permits himself a sweep of events that makes what actually happened even more dramatic than it was. Again and again, you not only read about, but hear from the survivors of, mistakes, errors, misconceptions - indolence, arrogance, foolishness, well-meaning idiocy - in a way that, as a human being, is more than heartbreaking. Again and again, the Revolution might never have happened, a democracy might have developed, steps taken could have been taken back - but they weren't. Instead, one of the great mass tragedies of history occurred, and you feel like a helpless bystander, watching it happen.

This is remarkable history and it is an extraordinary achievement. It is bound to upset those with fixed ideologies on both the left and the right. If you ever read only one book on the Russian Revolution, make it this one.

The Communists are given heavy treatment in this text. Not only do we see how they came to power, we get huge doses of their philosophy. Figes gives a detailed examination of the intellectual currents that gave rise to the Communist movement, as well as their actions once they attained power. What emerges is a bleak picture. Communism is death to all it touches. The Bolsheviks sought to not only rule by dictatorship, but to change the very essence of man into an automaton subservient to the state. Figes shows the reader the Red Terror and some of the other methods the Bolsheviks used to try and bring about this subservience. It is a horrifying picture made worse, of course, under the rule of Stalin.

Figes maintains a fairly neutral perspective throughout the book, an apologist to neither the Tsar nor the Communists (though harboring a noticeable preference and remorse for the incompetent Provisional Government ). When he does show some bias, he is never overbearing, and the few opinions that he expresses do not detract in any way from the material.

The Tsar is portrayed as an incompetent and stubborn fool, which I have come away thinking is a fair assessment. Figes gives ample evidence for his conclusions, describing the failure of Nicholas to effectively rule over an inefficient and contradictory government.

I found the treatment of the Bolsheviks to be relatively sympathetic, and the book does not suffer because of it. They are depicted as a ruthless and especially fortunate revolutionary faction, a group ready to use any means necessary to obtain power but, in the end, given a gift with the success of their unlikely coup. Some readers may find this insufficiently damning but, while I would have liked a little more about how the nature of the revolution affected later developments, the abominable governance which followed is not Figes's topic. ...more

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Aug 01, 2012 Jim rated it really liked it

Shelves: history, russia

This is at one and the same time a very long book and a fascinating one. As a exhaustive study of Russian history from the reign of Nicholas II to the death of Lenin, it is epic in its sweep. The only reasons I could not find it in me to give it five stars are the following:

[1] Orlando Figes has developed a reputation for controversy. First, he wrote reviews for Amazon.Com under an assumed name (Birkbeck) in which he excoriated competing writers on Russian history, blaming them at first on his w This is at one and the same time a very long book and a fascinating one. As a exhaustive study of Russian history from the reign of Nicholas II to the death of Lenin, it is epic in its sweep. The only reasons I could not find it in me to give it five stars are the following:

[1] Orlando Figes has developed a reputation for controversy. First, he wrote reviews for Amazon.Com under an assumed name (Birkbeck) in which he excoriated competing writers on Russian history, blaming them at first on his wife. Secondly, in his most recent work, he has been assailed for misrepresentations and gross inaccuracies. Both of these events came after the 1997 publication of A People's Tragedy: A History of the Russian Revolution, which seemed to this unsophisticated reader as a work displaying an admirable sense of balance.

[2] The last third of the book about the Civil War showed some exhaustion in its composition. There were so many parties over and above the Reds and the Whites, including the Komuch, the Don Cossacks, Makhno's Ukrainian partisans, Petliura's partisans -- to name just a few. Also, there were at least a dozen occasions when Figes would suddenly conclude that the main reason the Whites lost was A or B or C ... down to Z. All were convincing reasons, but they led to a loss of focus in this section.

[3] This is not something I usually complain about -- and it has nothing to do with Figes at all -- but Viking, the publisher. For some reason, the number one was shown as a capital "I." Hence, monstrosities such as the year I9I9. Also in the Italic font used, the letter "b" and the letter "h" were indistinguishable. Hence the word burzhooi, Russian for bourgeois, looks more like burzbooi whenever it appears.

In the end, I think that Figes has done an admirable job compacting more than thirty years of turbulent history, broken into four epochs (Tsarism, the February Revolution, the October Revolution, and the Civil War), into merely 824 pages. Also, I think his conclusions are by and large on the mark:

But Russia's prospects as a democratic nation depend to a large extent on how far the Russians are able to confront their own recent history; and this must entail the recognition that, however much the people were oppressed by it, the Soviet system grew up in Russian soil. It was the weakness of Russia's democatic culture which enabled Bolshevism to take root. This was the legacy of Russian history, of centuries of serfdom and autocratic rule, that had kept the common people powerless and passive. 'And the people remained silent' was a Russian proverb -- and it describes much of Russian history. To be sure, this was a people's tragedy but it was a tragedy which they helped to make. The Russian people were trapped by the tyranny of their own history.

Ah, well, I guess the book deserves four and a half stars. It kept me on the edge of my toes for eleven long days of reading the book. ...more

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Aug 01, 2018 Ekul rated it liked it

Shelves: temp-modern-late, comprehensive-exams, history, geo-europe

In this work, Figes makes two arguments that are not fully apparent until the conclusion: First, the Russian people were not "betrayed" by the Revolution. Instead, the devolution of the Revolution was, in Figes's view, the result of the inability of the Russian people to come to terms with democratic institutions. He finds that the period between 1905-1914 represented Russia's "liberal democratic" revolution, but it did not produce the reforms necessary to instill confidence in the Russian peopl In this work, Figes makes two arguments that are not fully apparent until the conclusion: First, the Russian people were not "betrayed" by the Revolution. Instead, the devolution of the Revolution was, in Figes's view, the result of the inability of the Russian people to come to terms with democratic institutions. He finds that the period between 1905-1914 represented Russia's "liberal democratic" revolution, but it did not produce the reforms necessary to instill confidence in the Russian people. Indeed, the Bolsheviks were a veritable product of the Russian messianic tradition. Second, it was not the leaders of the Revolution who were necessarily at fault. Figes admits that Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, Kerensky, and numerous others arrived in 1917 with truly high-minded, noble goals. Instead, Figes argues that the goals of revolutionary leaders were outright unattainable and were doomed to fail.

Perhaps Figes is right, but I disagree with him on both accounts. To me, the first argument reeks of Western chauvinism with the implication that "we Westerners could properly democratize due to our democratic heritage" (ignoring Germany's failures with democracy before 1945 and utter success after, the development of fascism and authoritarianism in Spain and Italy, France's difficult relationship with liberal democracy, etc.). On his second point, no pathway was a fait accompli for the Revolution. Instead, there were numerous decisions made, some of which would have led to greater democratization, some to more authoritarianism than we saw even in the Stalinist period. Perhaps the ideals of the Revolution were too great to be implemented in reality, but Revolutionaries could have adopted policies that brought the Russian state closer to their ideals without abandoning them outright. I think that the Russian Revolution was necessary, and that it was not innately bad, but I think Figes downplays the decisions that were made in his conclusion.

The last paragraph of the book, however, seems almost prophetic (being written even before Putin took power):

Perhaps even more worrying, authoritarian nationalism has begun to fill the vacuum left by the collapse of Communism, and in a way has reinvented it, not just in the sense that today's nationalists are, for the most part, reformed Communists, but also in the sense that their violent rhetoric, with its calls for discipline and order, its angry condemnation of the inequalities produced by the growth of capitalism, and its xenophobic reject of the West, is itself adapted from the Bolshevik tradition. The ghosts of 1917 have not been laid to rest.

Today, as we are well aware, nationalism is the guiding ideology of the modern Russian state, and it is rather authoritarian. This fits further in Figes's view that "Russians have not learned to be good liberals," but I think it says more about global patterns than something specifically Russian. Although former Soviet states held the vanguard of resurgent nationalism, it is now a global phenomenon--ranging from Poland's Law and Justice to Turkey's AKP and India's BJP. Even the American GOP and British Conservative Party have, in many ways, turned to authoritarian nationalism. Yet, there is nothing inevitable about this turn. I find it unequivocally bad, but it is, as we should be well aware, not intrinsic to the Russian people. ...more

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Feb 18, 2019 Dmitri rated it it was amazing

Shelves: europe, russia

Once in a great while a history comes along that eclipses all others in the foreseeable future. And no, I am not Orlando Figes. This book has the passion and the pathos, the humor and the humanity. I guess that this is what they call literature. My only critique is the sheer weight of the volume and its mind numbingly tiny text. Couldn't this be reissued as an e-book? ...more

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May 25, 2017 Mary rated it it was amazing

Shelves: russia, psychology, history, ussr, politics, cult, wwi, revolution

“The Russian Revolution launched a vast experiment in social engineering – perhaps the grandest in the history of mankind. It was arguably an experiment which the human race was bound to make at some point in its evolution, the logical conclusion of humanity’s historic striving for social justice and comradeship.”

Figes writes about the Russian Revolution as more of a coup in both February and October (the second time only Bolsheviks participated and it was even more haphazard) by ‘culturally iso ...more

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Nov 14, 2016 Czarny Pies rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Anyone interested in European history.

Shelves: european-history

Orlando Figes' masterful "A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924" provides a rich and complex portrait that of Russian society at the time of the fall of the Romanov dynasty and the birth of the Communist state. One does not read it for Figes' opinions but rather for the amount of detail that he is able to marshall and synthesize on the key social, cultural and political trends of the revolutionary era. The book is a great pleasure for anyone fascinated by the culture and history Orlando Figes' masterful "A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924" provides a rich and complex portrait that of Russian society at the time of the fall of the Romanov dynasty and the birth of the Communist state. One does not read it for Figes' opinions but rather for the amount of detail that he is able to marshall and synthesize on the key social, cultural and political trends of the revolutionary era. The book is a great pleasure for anyone fascinated by the culture and history of Russia. Even those who disagree with Figes' conclusions, will agree that he has taught them a great deal about the era.
In terms of primary research, Figes' specialty is Russian peasant society. Not surprisingly then, the greatest strength of the book is the analysis of the role of the peasantry during the revolutionary era. Figes argues that very effectively that the overriding goal of the leaders of the peasant communes times was to acquire ownership of the land held by the nobility. When the Tsar's regime fell, the peasant communes spontaneously seized the noble lands. Subsequently they supported the Communists who promised them that they could keep the land against the Whites who said that they would restore it to the nobles. Once the Whites had been expelled from Russia, the Communists proceeded to collectivized the land by taking advantage of a generational cleavage in the countryside. The Communists recruited young peasants who had moved to the city to work in factories to act as bureaucrats in the agricultural communities and lead the fight against the oder communal leaders d. In this way the Communists used one generation of peasant leaders to fight the Whites and a second generation of peasants to imposed collectivization.
Relying on the writings of other historians, Figes makes the additonal points:
1. Tsar Nicholas was the author of his own downfall. He packed his government and his army with individuals who were loyal to his autocracy but totally lacking in ability. Consequently the Russian war effort was bungled in every aspect which brought down the Tsar's regime.
2. It was also the Tsar's fault that liberal democracy failed in Russia. For the previous 20 years, Nicholas had resisted every effort to create a constitutional monarchy in Russia which prevented the development of a strong class of liberal democratic politicians. Thus when the Romanov dynastry fell in February 1917, the provisional government lasted less than a year before a second revolution brought the Bolcheviks to power.
3. The Bolcheviks came to power not because they had the greatest support amongst the working class but because of Lenin's energy and uncommon sense of timing. In Figes' view, Lenin stole the revolution from the Soviets.
4. The notion that Stalin was the one who established terror and totalitarianism in communist Russia is a revisionist myth fabricated by Left wing historians. It was in fact Lenin in fact that who established the practices and institutions of the communist dictatorship.
Orlando Figes' "A People's Tragedy" is a very dense book but one that is richly rewarding. It will give a great deal of pleasure to anyone who has the energy required to read it through to the end.

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Jan 26, 2013 Mikey B. rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 20th-century-history, russia-soviet-union

This is a remarkable book on the Russian Revolution. It’s coverage from 1891 thru 1924 is detailed, but very readable. We are presented with a wide panoply of characters; Tsar Nicholas II, Lenin, Prince Lvov, Kerensky, Gorky and many more. This gives a distinctive personal feeling where history is populated by real people and provides us with a ground view of the turbulent events of Russia. It’s a brutal history.

Sadly, there were periods during the Tsar’s rule and the first months after the 1917 This is a remarkable book on the Russian Revolution. It’s coverage from 1891 thru 1924 is detailed, but very readable. We are presented with a wide panoply of characters; Tsar Nicholas II, Lenin, Prince Lvov, Kerensky, Gorky and many more. This gives a distinctive personal feeling where history is populated by real people and provides us with a ground view of the turbulent events of Russia. It’s a brutal history.

Sadly, there were periods during the Tsar’s rule and the first months after the 1917 revolution where the country seemed to be edging towards a democratic and liberal constitution – but this was thwarted time and again and fell back to authoritarianism, which to some extent seems ingrained in the Russian psyche. The author vividly portrays these figures for what they truly were – Nicholas was weak-kneed and never wanted anything to with democracy and liberalism – he hindered any attempts to proceed in that direction – falling back to a rigid domination was his rule-of thumb. Kerensky was the wrong man in the right place – in that small opening after the events of February 1917 there was a potential for parliamentarianism; but Kerensky was rudderless and a prima donna. Lenin knew what he wanted. Lenin was intolerant of any criticism and over time succeeded in establishing a strong centralist dictatorship. It was Lenin that made the Stalinist regime possible.

Throughout this period Russia was often in a state of virtual anarchy – particularly after the start of World War I where the country was not only combating external enemies, but at war with itself. After Lenin’s coup in October 1917, it was Lenin himself who precipitated these internal struggles against “enemies of the people” – war against the bourgeoisie, war against the peasants for allegedly hoarding foodstuffs, war against striking workers and of course the civil war (the Reds and the Whites –where often groups quickly switched allegiances).

The author gives us excellent depictions of the miserable and backward existence of the peasantry – and also how the urban cities were in a constant state of flux – revolution on the street, destitution and starvation.

One does come away with a view that Marxist-Leninist philosophy and dictums gave little credence to human rights and viewed the individual as subservient to the state. After all one of its principal slogans “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” has always emphasized “Dictatorship”. It hardly compares to the motto of the French revolution “Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity”.

The long authoritarianism of the Tsarist rulers gave way to an even more vicious dictatorship under Communism – where the rights of man were crushed under a Central government that stopped at nothing to implement state policies. If you wish to gain an insight into this key era of history this is definitely the book for you. One also comes away with an understanding of Russia and its vast land mass today. At over 800 pages it is lengthy but well worth it.

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Feb 10, 2012 E. G. rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, 5-star, own, uk-ireland, orlando-figes

Illustrations
Preface
Glossary
Notes on Dates
Maps

--A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution, 1891-1924

Notes
Bibliography
Index ...more

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Apr 02, 2008 John rated it it was amazing

Far and away the best single volume of the background of the various revolutions and of early Soviet history (through Lenin's death and Stalin's rise to power) that I know of. Figes, a truly gifted story-teller, has given us a griping narrative that he spins from massive erudition. Highly recommended. ...more

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Sep 01, 2020 Tichana (The Book Hobbit) rated it liked it

Shelves: 2020, non-fiction

**** 3.25 Stars ****

I have to start by saying that I think Orlando Figes is a brilliant historian. The amount of detailed information in People's Tragedy was ridiculous and I enjoyed it thoroughly. However, I have to admit that Figes's bias was evident in his writing. I do acknowledge that every topic researched is loaded with bias in general. There is no such thing as objective research. The fact that the researcher picks a topic they are interested in is by itself biased. There is nothi **** 3.25 Stars ****

I have to start by saying that I think Orlando Figes is a brilliant historian. The amount of detailed information in People's Tragedy was ridiculous and I enjoyed it thoroughly. However, I have to admit that Figes's bias was evident in his writing. I do acknowledge that every topic researched is loaded with bias in general. There is no such thing as objective research. The fact that the researcher picks a topic they are interested in is by itself biased. There is nothing wrong with bias as long as the researcher is aware of it and does not twist the truth to fit their agenda.

I noticed from the start that Figes did not like Lenin or the Soviet Union and I mean I definitely do not blame him. However, I did have issues with him making it sound like the Russian mass was not in favour of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. I think that is a bit misleading. For a revolution like that to occur and be able to rise above any other power and get rid of both landlordism and capitalism, the mass has to be in on it. It just does not make sense. Figes however makes it sound as if the revolution brought nothing but death, hunger, and disease to the Russian people. I think that is part of the truth but not entirely.

I think the issue of not being able to grasp the fact that a nation would want a revolution like that lies in the fact that a lot of Western historians view the world from a Western perspective that is embedded in favour of Capitalism. A socialist revolution simply does not fit in that agenda. There is this idea in the West that the East is always in need of saving and that saving can only be achieved by a Western intervention. The West often views the rest of the world as a place of chaos that needs saving by assimilating into the Western culture.

In addition, Figes makes it sound as if there was a lot of blood shed during the October revolution, but as I have read before from other historians that the October revolution was bloodless, but the civil war was where the bloodbath began.
The fact that Figes indirectly implies that both Bolshevism and Stalinism are the same thing and that one emerged from the other is also misleading and far-fetched. Because to be completely honest, if they were so similar, I don't see why people like Trotsky (who was a Bolshevik) would have any problem with Stanlinism and why would he choose to fight it till the end, or why Lenin would strongly oppose putting Stalin in power before his death.
Figes also seemed to imply that if the Czar had acted differently, maybe the revolution could have been avoided. But I think that is completely the opposite of what would have happened. Fascism would've stayed in Russia if Czarism continued to rule.

But what did I like about this book? apart from the issues mentioned above, I liked everything else. I liked reading about Nicholas the 2nd. Nikolai Romanov was definitely not fit to be Czar. The whole idea of Czarism seemed wrong to me as a ruling system. The revolution could not be avoided, but I may be wrong.
I also liked reading about the Russian culture in general and the ongoing tension between the peasants and the bourgeois. Figes's knowledge of the Russian culture was displayed here the most in my opinion.
I quite enjoyed Figes' writing style as well. I found it organized and informative. There were no pages wasted on unimportant information. I found his writing to be professional and very detailed. I did not find the book to be long at all. For such a revolution to be completely written in details, it definitely needs beyond 1000 pages.

Would I recommend People's Tragedy? Absolutely but with the thought in mind that Figes has his own biases, and maybe other books from different perspectives need to be read as well. Perhaps one written by a Russian historian would be interesting.
Overall, I quite enjoyed People's Tragedy and I definitely learned a lot from it about the revolution of 1917 and the Russian culture in general. I plan to read other works on the topic in the future. ...more

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Jun 26, 2017 Leah rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2017, history

Exemplary mix of the political, the social and the personal...

In order to tell the story of the Russian Revolution, Figes begins three decades earlier, in 1891, with the famine that could be seen as starting the journey towards revolution; and continues up to 1924, the year that the first dictator, Lenin, died. This is a huge work, massive in scope, meticulously researched and delivered with a level of clarity that makes it surprisingly easy to read and absorb, even for someone coming to the sub Exemplary mix of the political, the social and the personal...

In order to tell the story of the Russian Revolution, Figes begins three decades earlier, in 1891, with the famine that could be seen as starting the journey towards revolution; and continues up to 1924, the year that the first dictator, Lenin, died. This is a huge work, massive in scope, meticulously researched and delivered with a level of clarity that makes it surprisingly easy to read and absorb, even for someone coming to the subject with no previous knowledge. It's divided into four sections that thoroughly cover each period, looking at all the different parts of society and how they were affected at each point. It's very well written, remains largely free of academic jargon and, to my joy, contains all the relevant information in the main body of the text, meaning no flicking backwards and forwards to notes. The notes at the back are mostly reserved simply to give information about the extensive sources Figes has used.

The first part describes society as it was at the point where revolutionary ideas were still in their infancy. Figes describes the Romanov dynasty in some depth – Nicholas II's autocratic style of rule, the influence on him of Alexandra and, through her, Rasputin, and the methods of government that were in force, with all power still concentrated in the hands of a relatively small class of nobles. He shows what life was like for the peasants, still nasty, brutish and short, but with some more liberal landowners making efforts to provide education for the young. He takes us into the new industrial centres, beginning to suck people in from the villages including those newly educated peasants – places which appalling working and living conditions made ripe for the revolutionary ideas beginning to circulate via the intelligentsia. The church, which Figes suggests never had a solid grip even on the peasant classes, was weakened further as people moved to the cities where there weren't enough churches to serve the rapidly expanding population. The army, meanwhile, was becoming increasingly out of date – Nicholas loved to parade his cavalry and to see his officers in smart uniforms, but wasn't terribly interested in the less romantic motor vehicles and new weapons being incorporated into the armies of the bordering nations, west and east.

Part 2 covers the period from 1891 to just before the revolution proper began. Again Figes ranges widely, often using the stories of individuals to add a human face to the political history. The famine of 1891, due largely to failures in policy, eventually forced the Tsar to appeal for voluntary groups to provide aid to the starving masses. The liberal intelligentsia dived enthusiastically into this, and thus began some of the organisations which would become political protest movements. But still Nicholas rejected reforms, leading to increasing radicalisation of the disaffected. The 1904 war against Japan, which Nicholas expected to win easily, highlighted the weakness of the army, while the eventual loss was a national humiliation which further undermined the monarchy. The 1905 revolution arose from all of these factors, further aggravated by the brutal force used to disperse protest marches. Although this revolution failed, Figes shows how it hardened attitudes and consolidated the various factions which would play major roles in the years to come. Figes explains these factions well, including their various policy aims, which is a great help in understanding the confusion of personalities and groups that feature in the events of 1917. And finally this section takes us up to the early years of WW1, showing the terrible losses and huge hardships suffered by soldiers and civilians.

The third section concentrates on the revolutionary year – from February 1917 to the signing of the peace of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. This is basically the period covered in Trotsky's History of the Russian Revolution which I recently read and reviewed, and while Trotsky's massive account is obviously more detailed, this one has the huge advantage for the reader that Figes has done the groundwork of explaining all the different groupings and factions. So where Trotsky lost me a little in the mid-section, Figes manages to keep a level of clarity throughout the confusion of this year. It seems to me that Trotsky's history must have been one of Figes' major sources for this section, and the two accounts complement each other well, I found. In retrospect, I suspect it would have been better to read them the other way round though – this one first, then Trotsky. Figes gives what feels like a less biased account, not unnaturally, dismissing the idea of the coup as 'bloodless' and showing some of the horrors that took place, along with an almost complete breakdown of any kind of social order. He also discusses the issues of Lenin's return on the 'sealed train' and German funding of the revolution, suggesting that the Germans did indeed provide gold but that Lenin and his comrades were not at any point acting as German agents.

Part 4 tells the complex tale of the Civil War that followed the revolution – the various factions within the Whites, all fighting for different aims, and thus never really consolidating as a unified force; the former Allies, primarily Britain, providing support for the Whites in an attempt to destroy the Bolsheviks; the growth of the Red Army under Trotsky's leadership to huge numbers of men, but without sufficient equipment to keep them supplied; the forced conscription, massive brutality and violent anti-Semitism inflicted by both sides. Figes then goes on to describe Lenin's regime after the war, including the huge rise in bureaucracy that allowed the major players in the regime to begin to form their own fiefdoms and power bases. He also shows the country in a state of ruin, the cities depopulated, the villages racked by famine and starvation, until eventually Lenin was forced to turn back towards a form of capitalism, prompting accusations of betrayal by those who were still fanatical about the ideals of the revolution.

Figes concludes that the people brought about their own tragedy. The country's social and economic backwardness and lack of real belief in democracy meant that they opened the door for what was essentially a return to tsarism in a different form. And he warns, prophetically when you remember this book was first published in 1996, that the fall of the USSR would not necessarily lead to an embracing of democracy in the former states, or in Russia itself.

The book is generously illustrated with over a hundred plates. Some are the usual portraits of the main players, but many show the ordinary people of the cities and villages and, often, the real horrors they endured. Some are indeed upsetting – the ones relating to torture or cannibalism for instance – and while I found those pictures, and Figes' vivid and unsparing descriptions of the events behind them, hard to take, I didn't feel either were gratuitous or sensationalised – they are an essential part of the historical record, and that's the way in which Figes presents them.

This is an exceptional book – one of the best broad scope histories I've read. It's brilliantly written and well laid out, making it easy to read and understand despite the immense complexity of the subject. It is an exemplary mix of the political, the social and the personal, so that I came away from it understanding not just the politics and timeline of events, but how it must have felt to have lived through them. Should you ever be struck with a sudden desire to read an 800-page history of the Russian Revolution, then without a doubt this is the one to read. My highest recommendation.

NB This beautifully produced, special centenary edition of the book was provided for review by the publisher, Bodley Head.

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Feb 09, 2016 Palmyrah rated it it was amazing

This is probably the best single-volume work about the Russian Revolution ever printed in English. It was written after the Soviet archives were opened, making a vast mass of new material available to historians and significantly changing the story as it had been previously understood in the West. It is also the work of an author determined to present as full and true a picture as possible of what happened in Russia during those terrible years, a picture as free from bias and ideological distort This is probably the best single-volume work about the Russian Revolution ever printed in English. It was written after the Soviet archives were opened, making a vast mass of new material available to historians and significantly changing the story as it had been previously understood in the West. It is also the work of an author determined to present as full and true a picture as possible of what happened in Russia during those terrible years, a picture as free from bias and ideological distortion as he can draw.

Although the author has since covered himself with ignominy by committing certain unprofessional acts, the decline of his personal reputation should not affect our appreciation of his work. This is a great book, and I do mean great.

I did not find it an easy book to read. The real difficulty was neither its awkward size nor the great mass of facts and statistics it contains, but the distressing and depressing nature of the story it recounts. Every possible permutation of human injustice, callousness, venality, stupidity, viciousness, brutality and, to speak plainly, evil, occurs in it. Every atrocity you can think of was committed in Russia during those years, as well as every atrocity you could never think of. Each time we turn a page, thinking the depths of human depravity have been plumbed, another scene of the tragedy unfolds, and we find we have not touched bottom yet. To reach the end of this book – and to know that the period it covers was merely the prelude to a longer and even bloodier tragedy, the reign of Stalin – is to find oneself despairing of human nature.

Yet, hard as it is, everyone who possibly can – every adult who possibly can – should read this book. We need to know this, to remember this, to realize what we are capable of. Because the Russian Revolution was not made horrible only by its leaders, or only by the Bolsheviks, or only by anybody: it was a collective effort, in which everyone from Lenin and the murdered Tsar to the humblest of the peasantry played their part. It was a plague of evil, of cruelty and oppression and despair and the thirst for blood, which infected almost everybody in Russia, and even spread beyond the borders of that country.

It could have happened to me. It could have happened to you. And it could happen again.

Even as I write, citizens of the world’s richest and most comfortable countries, feeling an expanding separation between – no longer the rich and the poor, for not many are really poor in these countries, certainly not as people in Tsarist or Bolshevik Russia were poor – but between the elite and the masses, are flirting again with ideologies and divisions some of us had thought discredited for ever by the horrors of the twentieth century. We were wrong, it seems. The Popular Isms, those insatiable old ghouls, are rising once again as people begin to forget that, as Orlando Figes says at the end of his book,

The state, however big, cannot make people equal or better human beings. All it can do is to treat its citizens equally, and strive to ensure that their free activities are directed towards the general good. After a century dominated by the twin totalitarianisms of Communism and Fascism, one can only hope that this lesson has been learned.

Read this book – it will not be easy, but read it anyway. You need to. We all need to. ...more

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Sep 08, 2020 Sonny rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history, russia

Orlando Figes is a British academic, historian and writer known for his works on Russian history. The Financial Times has called Figes "the great storyteller of modern Russian historians." His first major book, A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924, was published in 1996. The book garnered several literary and history awards, winning the Wolfson History Prize, the WH Smith Literary Award, the NCR Book Award, the Longman/History Today Book Prize, and the Los Angeles Times Book Pri ...more

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Jan 01, 2019 Ray rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

A real brick of a book, heavy and difficult to hold for any kength of time without getting cramp. Dense text which in places I had to read twice and more.

I enjoyed reading this, it had a lot of detail and insight into a subject that fascinates me. It is good at getting over the sense of how close the Russian revolution was to failure, seemingly always on the brink of disaster yet held together somehow by the implacable will of Lenin and the discipline of his cadres. Being able to lie with ease a ...more

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Mar 10, 2013 Dave rated it it was amazing

I just pulled this volume off the shelf to revisit the Czech Legion's role in the Revolution/Civil War, one of the many amazing subplots of that time and place. This book is historical writing as it should be done for a popular audience; the style is reminiscent of Barbara Tuchman's very best stuff. I read the entire book about 10 years ago and I frequently reread extended passages to refresh my memory of specific events and for sheer entertainment. A masterful writer on a fascinating topic. ...more

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Feb 18, 2014 Stefan rated it it was amazing

I found Orlando Figes' "A People's Tragedy" to be an excellent introduction on the topic of the Russian Revolution. Before proceeding, however, I would like to point out that this massive 800-page masterpiece can only be considered "introductory" by a professional historian or a history buff like myself. Therefore, this book is not really recommended for everyone.

I am ashamed to admit, but I had very little knowledge of the Russian Revolution prior to the reading of this book. What is undoubtedl I found Orlando Figes' "A People's Tragedy" to be an excellent introduction on the topic of the Russian Revolution. Before proceeding, however, I would like to point out that this massive 800-page masterpiece can only be considered "introductory" by a professional historian or a history buff like myself. Therefore, this book is not really recommended for everyone.

I am ashamed to admit, but I had very little knowledge of the Russian Revolution prior to the reading of this book. What is undoubtedly one of the most important events of the 20th century is largely ignored in history books of Eastern European education systems such as the one I grew up under. While it was previously glorified and misrepresented, today it is shunned and unrepresented. The people prefer to cast this period aside and pretend it never happened. I am strongly against such forgetting of history (which, as Walter Benjamin reminds us, is always in danger) and I started reading this book because I wanted to know more about this crucial event.

What appealed to me the most about this book is certainly the quality of the narrative. It is emotional, colorful and very engaging. I could spend hours lost in the world of pre-revolutionary Russia that Figes has painted so masterfully. In fact, I had to read it in small doses over the course of a couple of months so as not to let it overwhelm me. If I had read it as much and as passionately as I originally intended, this would've certainly been detrimental for my grades this semester.

Figes covers a period from the Great Famine of 1891, which saw the first great social upheaval in Russia caused by the Tsarist government's incompetence. He ends with Lenin's death in 1924, a point at which, he argues, all the crucial elements of the Stalinist regime were already put into place. This does not mean that Figes sides with the dull and reductionist "totalitarian" narrative, which has been dominant in the West for the past 25 years (and is being put to good use politically by equalizing Fascism and Communism). Nevertheless, he does seem to fall into this trap in the concluding chapter, but in many respects, he is not really off the mark in the cases when he equates the two. The more accurate description is that he is standing on the edge, with one foot in the totalitarian narrative, and the other in a more down-to-earth observation. Fortunately, the latter foot seems to hold ground much stronger. Although he shows a significant degree of sympathy towards Lenin by the end of the book (especially his Testament, which was mean to stop Stalin's rise to power), he is nevertheless a vocal opponent of the early authoritarianism of the Bolsheviks. He does recognize the difference between Lenin and Stalin, but he also points out that it was in fact Lenin who abolished democracy, effectively dissolved the Soviets and founded the omnipotent and infamous Cheka (which was completely based on the Tsarist Okhrana and which formed a state within a state). If it hadn't been for these key policies, Stalin's rise to power would've been much less likely. This would mean merely preventing the tragedy of the Soviet gulag state in the 1930s; not the possibility of a true "people's democracy". As Figes demonstrates, the Soviet state would not have been more "democratic" if Trotsky or Bukharin had taken over; it would merely have been less authoritarian. It is a fact that many on the Left to this day would prefer to ignore or outright deny (as was demonstrated by Pravda-style Bolshevik pamphleteers who denounce him as a "liberal" on many of the Marxist websites I have visited).

Unlike other liberal authors from the West, he manages to avoid the typically patronizing attitude and stereotypes of the "Asiatic" or "backwards" nature of the Russians as the cause of Bolshevism. Although he does recognize that Russia's backwardness had much to do with the rise of Lenin's autocracy, he does not see it as inherent in the Russian people. His approach is much more Hegelian (although I have a feeling he would dislike the label), as he recognizes that Russia was at a particular stage in development. The country had no democratic culture whatsoever and was still effectively semi-feudal at the time of the Revolution. This of course had much to do with the sheer idiocy of the last two Tsars.

Here, Figes arrives at the most interesting and in my opinion most important point of the book: Russia was ripe for socialism. Even though it was feudal, Russia was in fact in a state of class struggle. Needless to say, it was the wealthy landowners waging the war and they were very good at winning for a while. Of course, this was not a conscious process. The social and psychological gap between the rich and the poor in Russia was immense. The behavior of Russian nobility before the Revolution makes Marie Antoinette's statement "Let them eat cake" (which she in fact never said) sound like a genuine expression of concern and social awareness compared to it. Figes is adamant to proclaim that the main cause of the Revolution is the incredible stupidity and incompetence of Tsar Nicholas II and the people surrounding him. "The Red Terror", while legitimized by the Bolsheviks, had already started without their proclamation. Mark Twain, reflecting on the French Revolution, spoke of "the two Reigns of Terror": the brief terror of the Jacobins and the long terror of the corrupt and reactionary monarchy. "What is the horror of swift death by the axe, compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty, and heart-break?" Nowhere is this statement more true than in pre-1917 Russia. The peasant's anger over their masters was overwhelming. As soon as they had the opportunity, they started "looting the looters". This violence would've been inevitable, considering the horror the Russian peasant went through. Bolsheviks were only there to put a state stamp on it with the Cheka. It was a true expression of Nietzschean "ressentiment". Every single institution - the Duma, the military, the Orthodox Church, the Tsar - has failed the majority population of peasants. At its best, like the Duma, it was inefficient and impotent. At its worst, like the Tsar, it was destructive and murderous.

The tragedy of the Revolution does lie in dogmatic Marxism. However, Figes suggests that it was not Bolsheviks who were the dogmatics. At least in the beginning, it was their pragmatism and the ability to respond to the needs of the greatest number of people that led to their rise to power. Their platform was 'bread and peace'. Although neither were in fact granted (Lenin actually anxiously anticipated the beginning of the civil war), this was all that the people really wanted. The democratic socialist forces - the Mensheviks and the SRs - did not provide this. It was THEIR dogmatic Marxism that was detrimental. They kept the Marxist Hegelian dogma of the need for Russia to go through capitalism and parliamentary democracy. What Marx did not anticipate is what Marxists frequently refer to as the "amelioration of the class conflict" in the West. The Western capitalists essentially realized that the people would turn Jacobin on them if they don't improve the working conditions. In fact, the 20th century social democracy and Keynesianism owe much of their success to the Russian Revolution. This is evident when we observe the post-1989 decline of social democracy and the welfare state in Europe (a process that was intensified by the 2008 Crisis). When the Tsarist censor foolishly approved the publication of Das Kapital in Russia in 1872, they claimed that "very few people in Russia will read it, and even fewer will understand it." Although this was certainly a bad decision, it is true that no one in Russia understood Das Kapital. The capitalists throughout Europe understood very well the message of Karl Marx's theory and potential practice. The Russian nobility and the sad minority which could actually be considered 'bourgeois' did not. Marxist theory only applies to societies where the social inequality is so great and society has deteriorated to such a degree that it truly seems as if an open war between classes was taking place. By 1918, this was not exactly the case in many European countries (or at least many did not see it in such a way), but it was definitely the case in Russia. The Tsar could not even rally the Russian peasants under the idea of nationality (which was very foreign to them, being a pre-modern society), let alone that of loyalty to himself. They really only wanted 'bread and peace'. In more scientific terms, they wanted the redistribution of land and an end to Russia's involvement in the Great War. Bolsheviks were the only ones willing to grant this. The Mensheviks and the SRs had multiple chances to grant all power to the Soviets (yet another slogan that was later hijacked by the Bolsheviks and subsequently betrayed) between February and October of 1917. Nevertheless, they stuck to the dogma of the need for capitalism and thus let down the people who supported them in the ousting of the Tsar. If they had decided to do otherwise, perhaps Russia would've had a much more democratic, self-managing, bottom-up version of socialism, and the history of the 20th century would have been a lot different. Figes goes as far as to suggest that the Civil War would have been much shorter and less bloody if a true Soviet Revolution had taken place. In fact, much of the fighting of the Civil War was between the Bolsheviks and the democratic Left. The Tsarist/proto-fascist White Army, whose ideology (if they had anything other than the longing for "the good old days") was outdated and completely unappealing to the vast majority of the population. The Whites were ousted from Crimea by fall of 1920. The Civil War went on until fall of 1922. This testifies more than anything about the purported "counter-revolutionary" character of the many forces that the Bolsheviks fought in the Civil War.

A lot of this had to do with Lenin's impulsiveness and authoritarianism. Gustav Flaubert said that "inside every revolutionary there is a policeman" (a point which will be elaborated and made more scientific by Jacques Lacan in the 1960s). Lenin was the epitome of this statement. Perhaps the only admirable thing about Lenin is the energy and power of a single man to change history. A boring and superficial individual, he dedicated his entire life to the Revolution. He showed little interest in art, other than works of Gorky. He had no career, no passions, no interests, other than being a professional revolutionary. He managed to sway an entire Party and take control of the largest country in the world. When he first suggested that Russia is ready for socialism, the Central Committee thought that he had gone mad. Nevertheless, he managed to persuade them and take power in a matter of weeks. If nothing else, one has to admire his dedication. He is probably one of the rare individuals who managed to have such a profound and comprehensive impact on human history. While most of the 20th century experiments were Marxist in name, they were Leninist in practice. Those that weren't, like Allende's Chile, Catalan anarchists and the Spartacists in Germany, were unfortunately too short-lived to make a real impact.

The foremost political lesson we can learn from the story of Lenin and the Bolsheviks is more of a call for caution than inspiration. It teaches us that in times of crisis, it is not those with best intentions that will come to power. Rather, it will be the most organized, and very often, most extreme. The case of Islamist takeovers in Arab countries after the Arab Spring serves as a more recent testimony of this.

All in all, as the title suggests, the Russian Revolution was a true people's tragedy. It was a disaster on a gargantuan scale and one of the first truly "modern" tragedies (although it shouldn't be forgotten that the first typically modern atrocities such as mass expulsions and genocide were perpetrated by "pre-modern" empires - the ones of the Romanovs and the Ottomans). 1917 Russia was in a complete state of anomie, frustration, fear and horror that could have only ended in a disaster. Although Russians today (especially those on the Right) like to see themselves as "victims" of Bolshevism, it is an undeniable fact that Bolshevism was an authentic product of the unique situation that Russia found itself in at the time. It was also the best answer to the needs of the majority of the population.

Every single aspect of the Russian Revolution is a tragedy. As such, Figes shows little compassion for either Bolsheviks or the Tsarists. Instead his compassion is focused on personal stories of everyday lives affected by the Revolution. He tells their stories with great care. The love he feels for every single one of these characters matches the love a novelist feels for his characters. These people range from ordinary peasants like the progressive socialist Sergey Semenov and his arch-nemesis, the conservative elder Maliutin, to well-known figures such as Maxim Gorky and Aleksei Brusilov. He gathers the people from the Left and the Right side of the spectrum alike, but he gives them an equal treatment. It is only through these personal stories that one can fully understand the Revolution. The constructed and dehumanizing communities of the Reds and the Whites do not suffice. There is no Red or White in humanity.

The extraordinary book of Orlando Figes challenges common prejudices regarding the Revolution from both the Left and the Right. I have found it eye-opening in many regards. I have very little objections to this book, and those that I have usually concern particularities rather than the more fundamental points of the book. It is a work of remarkable depth and insight. I suggest to anyone who has actually bothered to read this review all the way up to this point to go and read the book. There are certainly many layers to it that I have failed to cover in this review, and probably some that have escaped my attention altogether. ...more

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Jan 19, 2017 Frank Stein rated it really liked it

Orlando Figes is a social historian nonpareil. He can summon up the world of pre-revolutionary Russia like no writer I've read. His descriptions of the peasant world of "Icons and Cockroaches," of the Tsarist army where soldiers were whipped and had to memorize intricate addresses for every possible superior, of the socialist underground where the new intelligentsia embraced the "cult of the bomb and the gun," where "murder and the scaffold took on a magnetic charm," as one of their own said, al Orlando Figes is a social historian nonpareil. He can summon up the world of pre-revolutionary Russia like no writer I've read. His descriptions of the peasant world of "Icons and Cockroaches," of the Tsarist army where soldiers were whipped and had to memorize intricate addresses for every possible superior, of the socialist underground where the new intelligentsia embraced the "cult of the bomb and the gun," where "murder and the scaffold took on a magnetic charm," as one of their own said, all provide the reader with a stark picture of a society on the edge of destruction.

The Russian revolution was a social revolution, so having such a historian trace the broad-based changes that happened in just a few years gives the reader an insight lacking in most histories of the event. Formerly quiescent peasant villages or "mirs" drove off the local squires, reappropriated their land, and formed little councils or "Soviets" managed by young, literate peasants, only to have these Soviets taken over by Bolshevik functionaries and turned into collective farms. The army itself became filled with soldier Soviets that voted on actions and leaders, only to have Trotsky and his Red Army re-establish the unquestioned dominance of the generals. The intelligentsia, such as the writer Maxim Gorky, that once celebrated the revolution watched their new overloads close down their presses and ban their books. Figes both shows how radical all types of Russians could be during the ferment, and how repressive and traditional the new Communist government was once it had attained power.

The Russian revolution, of course, was not just an amorphous social revolt, but was shaped by a handful of powerful leaders on both sides, such as Tsar Nicholas and Alexandra, General Brusilov on the European Front, Lenin, Trotsky, the intellectual Social Revolutionary Chernov,the Menshevik opposition leader Martov, and many others. Figes has more trouble with these characters and with the straightforward narrative of the revolution. He cannot simply explain a story in chronological order, but must always veer back and forth across so many people and places the tale becomes impossible to follow.

So parts of this book deserve all of the celebration it has received, while I wish others had a sharper editorial hand. I can say, however, there's nothing else out there like it, and that reading it is an amazing and worthwhile experience. ...more

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Aug 22, 2019 Aion rated it did not like it

Shelves: politics-philosophy, world-history

“The people’s tragedy,” to put it simply, is the definitive Blairite history of the Russian Revolution. He dilutes himself with humanitarian idealism and his insistence that only democratic reform could have saved the Czarist Regime. I am not convinced on this point entirely. Nor am I convinced that the Whites could have won if only they embraced land reform. But these are plausible ideas and are not the reasons why I am giving this book one star. I am giving it one star because on every page I ...more

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Jul 18, 2008 Lisa rated it it was amazing

I wanted to know what would motivate a country to adopt Bolshevism. Figes does an excellent job with the subject. It has given me more perspective on Russian politics and culture today than I ever would have had otherwise. As with slavery and its lasting effects on American politics and culture, Figes shows how serfdom has a similar effect on Russia today. Definitely helps that it is an easy read.

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Dec 20, 2014 Cecilia Hendricks rated it it was amazing

This is undoubtedly one of the most intense things that I've ever read. It was highly intelligent and informative. It helped me see the Russian Revolution in greater detail. But man alive, this was a mighty endeavor. It was a hard but good read. ...more

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Feb 26, 2016 Elizabeth May marked it as to-read

Shelves: gb-research

Mr May just dropped this thing on my lap (it's like 1000 pages), said, "GOOD LUCK," and walked away laughing his ass off.

...more

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Apr 22, 2019 K. rated it liked it

Shelves: 2019, library, history, non-fiction, difficult-topics, setting-asia, setting-europe, audience-adult

Trigger warnings: literally anything you can possibly think of, it's about the Russian Revolution...

I have been meaning to read this book for NINETEEN YEARS NOW. My year 12 history teacher read us some rather graphic excerpts that have been lodged in my brain since, like, August of 2000. So I finally picked it up and read it cover to cover, and frankly? I was a little disappointed.

Yes, it's a very detailed discussion of the Revolution and it would have taken a truly staggering amount of resear ...more

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Jun 12, 2012 Lizixer rated it really liked it

Shelves: 2012-finished

This is a painful read for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, it does not spare you with detail of how badly people suffered during this period. Life became very, very cheap. It demonstrates that wholesale slaughter of Jewish communities was not invented by the Nazis. It also firmly places Bolshevism in the same life-denying, destructive category as fascism and National Socialism, linking it to a philosophy, born out of the blood of the first World War, that the next stage in evolution was ...more

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Sep 22, 2008 Stuart rated it it was amazing

Prof. Orlando Figes, of Oxford University, is unquestionably an authority on Russian history, and better yet he has the skill of a top-rate writer. He presents compelling narrative of the sad stories interwoven throughout Russian history, from both a macro- and micro-scopic perspective. This book well deserves its acclaim.

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Oct 08, 2020 Jozef rated it it was amazing

Well there goes my faith in humanity.

I thought the length of this book would be daunting, but it was actually very well paced and highly readable - what I wasn't prepared for was the emotional weight of it. Near the end of this book the author notes that 7 years of war had cheapened human life in Russia to the point of people simply ignoring dead bodies in the streets. Besides all the political aspects of this history, the reality on the ground is an onslaught of violence and human suffering. A Well there goes my faith in humanity.

I thought the length of this book would be daunting, but it was actually very well paced and highly readable - what I wasn't prepared for was the emotional weight of it. Near the end of this book the author notes that 7 years of war had cheapened human life in Russia to the point of people simply ignoring dead bodies in the streets. Besides all the political aspects of this history, the reality on the ground is an onslaught of violence and human suffering. Approximately 10 million people die during this time, and a few of those are recounted in vivid detail. At that scope, it's horror beyond imagining.

It doesn't help that the 30-odd years dealt with in this history are bookended by famine and Tsarist excesses on one side and more famine and Stalin's murderous regime on the other. No happy endings.

Beyond the violence, this is a fascinating history to be sure, and many of the figures discussed (in good detail) here echo throughout history - the last Tsar Nicholas, the 'mad monk' Rasputin, the visionaries of Lenin, Trotsky, the idealists of Prince Lvov and Gorki, among many others are fascinating personalities and touch on so much of what makes not only Russia but humanity as a whole captivating.

I've always wondered why communist icons and symbols are sold on the streets here in Berlin as tourist fodder, while Nazi symbols are banned outright. Both regimes are responsible for so much misery in the world that it seems odd to give the soviet symbols the green light. But then, at their core those Soviet symbols spawned from an ideology of hope and belief in something better, even if it was fated to morph into something terrible. Similarly, Lenin seems to get a free pass as "not that bad" despite being a dictator and his role in causing so much suffering - it seems that history can only smile on you when you are compared to the absolute worst tyrants to ever have lived.

A people's tragedy was an excellent read and I feel it's also a very important one. As the passing of time entrenches foregone regimes deeper into the annals of history, we run the risk of isolating the ideal from the reality and forgetting just what regimes such as Soviet communism (and even fascism) really meant to live through.

If we cannot collectively learn from the mistakes of the past, the suffering of so many people is rendered truly meaningless.
...more

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