A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924
It is history on an epic yet human scale. Vast in scope, exhaustive in original research, written with passion, narrative skill, and human sympathy, A People's Tragedy is a profound account of the Russian Revolution for a new generation. Many consider the Russian Revolution to be the most significant event of the twentieth century. Distinguished scholar Orlando Figes presents a panorama of Russian society on the eve of that revolution, and then narrates the story of how these social forces were violently erased. Within the broad stokes of war and revolution are miniature histories of individuals, in which Figes follows the main players' fortunes as they saw their hopes die and their world crash into ruins. Unlike previous accounts that trace the origins of the revolution to overreaching political forces and ideals, Figes argues that the failure of democracy in 1917 was deeply rooted in Russian culture and social history and that what had started as a people's revolution contained the seeds of its degeneration into violence and dictatorship. A People's Tragedy is a masterful and original synthesis by a mature scholar, presented in a compelling and accessibly human narrative.
Reviews (176)
How could this NOT BE 5 stars
This is a 5 star book. No question about it. Professor Figes has to be the most knowledgeable person in the world when it comes to Russian history and specifically the multidimensional aspects of the Russian Revolution. I was mystified by how he looped the entire story together with detail and insight that is unparalleled. I found myself saying... how does he know all this? Seriously, if you want to read a book on the Russian Revolution - and as a history nerd it’s been a long term bucket list subject for me - this book is it. Full stop end of story. BUT You had better be ready. I have read 200+ biographies and historical must reads through the years and this is simply the HEAVIEST LIFT of my entire reading life. I can’t imagine a book being more informative and yet at times less enjoyable and tedious than this book. It sucks the life out of you at times in about page 300 as you get bogged down in details, dates, and Russian names. Especially when you realize to complete this epic book it is 820 pages. I usually read a book a month. It took me 2.5 months to read this. But I kept at it because this is absolutely the book to read on the Russian Revolution. Read it but be ready because it is a long and challenging hill to climb.
A comprehensive view of the Russian Revolution
There are lots of books on the Russian Revolution. Few are as comprehensive and compelling as Orlando Figes’ “A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891 – 1924,” first published to wide critical acclaim in 1997. Figes takes a broad view of his subject; his history stretches over nearly two generations, from the famine of 1891 to the death of Lenin in 1924. He argues for the 1891 date because the whole of Russian society had been “politicized and radicalized” as a result of the famine crisis and the Tsarist regime’s inept response to it. Tsar Nicolas II remained wedded to autocracy in the face of increasing calls for reform from both the industrial centers of his country and the agricultural peasantry. Hostility and resentment would fester for decades. The author ascribes great importance to the personal role played by Bolshevik leader, Vladimir Lenin, in the Revolution of 1917. “Much of Lenin’s success in 1917 was no doubt explained by his towering domination over the [Bolshevik] party,” Figes writes, “which distinguished [them] from the Mensheviks (who had no clear leader of their own).” Indeed, according to Figes, “few historical events in the modern era better illustrate the decisive effect of an individual on the course of history … Without his decisive personal influence, it is hard to imagine a Bolshevik seizure of power.” That is not to say that a Bolshevik victory was foreordained. Far from it. Alexander Kerensky was, for a brief time, the most popular man in Russia and had a reasonable chance at establishing the authority of the Provisional Government. In Figes’ estimation, Kerensky and his allies failed to grasp the depth of war wariness among the Russian people. They believed that a last ditch offensive against the Germans might rally the country behind the Provisional Government in the national defense of democracy. They were badly mistaken. Had the Provisional Government adopted a similar policy as the Bolsheviks and immediately opened peace negotiations with the Germans in the summer of 1917, “no doubt the Bolsheviks would never have come to power,” says Figes. The author also claims that Kerensky made critical errors in his handling of the so-called Kornilov Affair. “One of the most enduring myths of the Russian Revolution is the notion that Kornilov was planning a coup d’etat against the Provisional Government,” Figes says. “But the evidence suggests that Kornilov, far from plotting the overthrow of the Provisional Government, had in fact intended to save it.” Miscommunication and misunderstanding led to a rupture that in many ways sealed the fate of Kerensky and his Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks, meanwhile, stumbled toward power. Lenin was ill-prepared for seizing power during most of 1917. For instance, Figes argues that the Bolshevik leader could have taken power during the spontaneous July Days uprising, if he had been prepared and willing. “With 50,000 armed and angry men surrounding the Tauride Palace” in July 1917, Figes writes, “there was nothing to prevent a Bolshevik coup d’etat.” When the next opportunity came in October Lenin would not be caught flat-footed. Figes claims that Lenin almost single-handedly seized power. For the Bolsheviks of 1917, the revolution in Russia was only a part – and a small part at that – of the worldwide struggle between imperialism and socialism. The decision to make a separate and humiliating peace with Germany was, Figes says, “without doubt one of the most critical moments in the history of the party.” The newborn Soviet Republic lost 34% of her population, 54% of his industrial enterprises and 89% of her coalmines in the Brest-Litovsk Treaty. In Figes’ estimation, “The peace of Brest-Litovsk marked the completion of Lenin’s revolution: it was the culmination of October.” There was no longer any prospect of the revolution spreading to the West. The subsequent Russian Civil War of 1918 to 1920 was brutal. The Whites assumed they could win the civil war without the support of the peasantry; or, at any rate, they seemed to think that the whole question of land reform could be put off until after victory. It couldn’t. “Whereas land reform was the first act of the Bolsheviks,” Figes writes, “it was the last act of the Whites,” and this goes a long way in explaining the outcome of the civil war. Both the Reds and the Whites were constantly crippled by mass desertion, by the breakdown of supplies, by strikes and peasant revolts in the rear. But their ability to maintain their campaigns in spite of all these problems depended less on military factors than on political ones. The Reds had one crucial advantage, Figes says: they were able to fight under the Red Flag and claim to be defending “the revolution.” Meanwhile, the Whites’ failure to recognize the peasant revolution on the land and the national independence movements doomed them to defeat. “In the end,” Figes writes, “the defeat of the Whites comes down largely to their own dismal failure to break with the past and to regain the initiative within the agenda of 1917.” If you’re looking to read just one book on the Russian Revolution and have the stamina and fortitude to plow through 800 pages of dense historical writing, “A People’s Tragedy” is an excellent choice.
The definitive book on the Russian Revolution
If you want to know more about the subject, buy this book. Despite its length, it's very easy to read and offers tremendous insight into the period, the people (both famous and not-so-famous), the countless factors that led to the Russian Revolution, and the events of the Revolution itself. Figes is not here to push an agenda, but rather to offer a complex and nuanced analysis of a complex and nuanced series of events that completely changed the world. I was absolutely blown away by A People's Revolution, and I can't recommend it highly enough.
Narrative history on the 20C's most radical social convulsion
If you want the definitive one-volume take on Lenin's revolution and all that it entailed, this is your book. I was mesmerized from the first page and it lasted right until the end, complete with characters who are followed throughout the entire story, quick and dense analyses of the forces behind events, and a full explanation of the consequences that inevitably followed. It is a masterpiece of historical exposition. The story begins with an analysis of the old regime, the last major one to survive in Europe. On top was the Tsar and the aristocracy, which dominated government and much of the bureaucracy. They owned most of the land, had the most education, and controlled the armed forces. There was a slim tranche that represented an urban middle class, a rising bourgeoisie that dominated commerce and the rudiments of a manufacturing industry, but they were too weak to have much political influence. All the rest, over 90% of the population, were peasants in primitive villages, most of them illiterate; though serfs until the 1860s (bound to the land under the total control of the gentry), they had recently gained some legal rights, including minimal self governance; they were a mix of reactionary conservatives and the disgruntled, who carried a simmering rage. Nicolas II, the Tsar, was so ill-suited to his role that the socio-political forces he faced led to complete catastrophe. Rather than take an interest in the reforms needed - or even in the practical tasks of governing - he chose to live in a dream world in which he imagined the "people" loved him as the eternal soul of the entire country. After a series of assassinations and violent uprisings, he indulged in the idea that autocracy was the answer for the Russian Empire, egged on by his German wife, who believed he should rule as Ivan the Terrible had done. Because Nicolas II was suspicious of anyone who challenged his authority, he actively undermined the government and bureaucracy, preferring the fawning nonsense of manipulative courtiers and religious figures, such as Rasputin. As the social situation worsened, he remained studiously unaware of what should be done to protect Russian institutions and his office. After the 1905 revolution, the Tsar agreed to establish a Parliament, the Duma, but he did not choose to nurture or work with it, losing a significant opportunity. Had there been peace, more peaceful political change might have eventually come, but Nicolas II chose instead to join in the Great War as a Western ally. This war - the first fully modern one that required both an industrial capacity and more flexible institutions - brought the situation to a head. Not only was the aristocratic military revealed as incompetent and uncaring of the lives of its peasant foot soldiers, but the catastrophic conditions under which the war unfolded completely undermined the support of the masses for the Tsar's autocratic government. The result was a revolution that forced him to abdicate in favor of a new parliamentary democracy, which was soon identified with Kerensky. One of the weaknesses of coverage is the precise configuration of the institutions that emerged to fill the gap created by the collapse of the autocracy. First, the Duma remained unrepresentative and weak, particularly with the absence of any viable middle class. Second, there were the Soviets, which apparently were more spontaneous groupings that better reflected the revolutionary forces, though they varied widely in their composition and openness. It was here that the Bolsheviks (the "Reds"), Mensheviks, and various Social Democrats met to debate courses of action. Third, there were disparate groupings that might be seen as power centers, including conservative Aristocrats (the "Whites") and many others, such as ethnic groups, but few added up to any coherent force. I was never clear on how these interacted or what their powers were. Nonetheless, the politics of the situation is very well covered. As the rage of peasants was unleashed in a series of violent movements that attacked and disenfranchised the landed gentry, the Duma appeared impotent to restore order to the situation. Meanwhile, as the war wreaked havoc on the economy, the Bolsheviks emerged as the only ones who clearly opposed continuing to fight (as well as the only party to endorse the aristocracy's destruction as wholly desirable as well as the takeover of industries by workers). This won them the political heart of many peasants, who identified the Reds as the only true force genuinely supporting the revolution. No one else seemed to understand these political facts in the civil war that erupted after the Bolsheviks seized power in the October 1917 coup - the Whites appeared to want to restore the monarchy and land rights of the aristocracy, which at this point was politically impossible and hence completely undermined their cause in the medium term. It is at this point that the personal stories become important. Figes proves that Lenin was the dominant politician of his time, pushing the Bolsheviks to seize power and establish their own form of autocracy, improvising the whole time with decisions that would prepare the ground for the ambitious Stalin to take over the party apparatus and soon (with his ability to appoint cronies in key positions) the entire government. The portraits of these men and scores of others are compelling and fascinating in their quirky detail. Figes is of the opinion that, due to the institutions that Lenin set up, Stalin was an inevitable and natural outgrowth of all that followed, even though Lenin came to oppose him while on his death bed. Once the Bolsheviks were in power, even though they withdrew Russia from the war (with great difficulty), they made a series of mistakes that plunged the country into famine, renewed civil war, and desperate anarchy that took years to set right. To keep themselves in power, they relied on terror in a similar manner to the Tsar, but with ideological purpose guiding their actions and a huge bureaucracy that they installed, often run by uneducated and inexperienced peasant revolutionaries. Figes covers this process well, but his explanations of the impact of Marxist theory were less than satisfying for me, perhaps due to my own ignorance of it (i.e. he goes on about the lack of a capitalist class, which had to be "skipped", betraying Marx's teleology of revolution). Throughout the book, Figes exhibits an admirable skepticism, never indulging in romanticization of any of the characters or their ideas. Except for certain individuals, no class or group comes off well - not the peasants, not the revolutionaries, not representatives of the old regime. A very interesting analysis is offered regarding the mentalities of each group. Cut off as the vast majority was from the ideas in ferment to the west, there was a poverty of ideas under discussion, with few alternatives emerging organically from the society. Instead, the few ideas that did get into the country were viewed as exclusive panaceas rather than part of a mix that required compromise and negotiation; rather than an openness of mind, the lack of education and ignorance promoted rigid minds that rarely questioned opinions once they were adopted. For their part, the Bolsheviks disdained the peasants and workers, in whose name they established their dictatorship. I cannot do justice to the subtlety of Figes' ideas here, but it was one of the most interesting cultural aspects of the book for me. (For example, he views the search for philosophical answers to everything as a key to the appeal of the great Russian novelists of the 19C.) This book is as satisfying an intellectual meal as the general reader could hope for. I simply could not stop reading it and almost never felt bogged down over its 800+ pages. It is an astounding achievement: for the first time in my life, I feel I truly grasp this revolution and all that it meant. While sometimes exhaustive in its detail, Figes never covers events to excess: there is always a purpose to his narrative, so that every single battle or political maneuver is not described; instead, significant or illustrative episodes are highlighted, a relief for lay readers. Recommended with the greatest enthusiasm.
This book is superbly detailed but maintains a coherent narrative.
I started reading this book when I got antsy waiting for Mike Duncan to finish up his series of podcasts on the Russian Revolution. I'm very happy I did! The wealth of detail was exactly what I wanted to learn. The in depth personal stories from different levels of society provide rich and heart wrenching perspectives. I was most strongly affected by the story of Semien Semyonov and his battle to better his life, family,, and farm against all odds. I would have liked more information on the peasant revolutions ongoing during the Red and White Civil War but they are covered to some extent. I would recommend this book to lovers of history but caution that it is a TOME and the number of different people covered could lead to brain fatigue keeping track of everyone.
Not bad, but dry.
Seems to be very good and well researched, but it is pretty dry. You've got to really pay attention and be interested in this subject to keep the ball rolling mentally. Overall, the author did a good job. But there is so much detail that sometimes it gets tedious. I'm about halfway through the audio book now.
Detailed and Well Paced Telling of the Russian Revolution
Figes's history of the Russian Revolution is detailed and an enjoyable read. Figes's use of individual storylines is especially helpful in elucidating this complicated subject matter. These individual storylines never lose their context and Figes does not stray too long from the main story. Figes should also be commended for not pulling punches. Figes is sure to point out each party's weaknesses and positives. He also spends a great deal of the book (first 1/3 of book) examining the causes of the Revolution, including the 1905 Revolution. This portion of the book can be frustrating when you mostly want to know about the actual events of the Revolution. However, the reader is rewarded once the details and events of the Revolution are told. The actual Revolution is complex, proper introduction and context enhances the reader's understanding to a great deal. This information is especially important because of the different parties involved (Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, The Duma, the Social Democrats, the Revolutionary Democrats). A handy index of these parties is helpful; but more detail in the index would be helpful. Overall, this book is a detailed and compelling telling of the Russian Revolution. Although, its length will give some readers pause (rightly so), taking the plunge with this book will reward the reader interested in the Russian Revolution.
A Tour De Force
The author takes the reader on an informative journey through the Russian Revolution. Much of the text is devoted to elaborations, justifications, and explanations of persons and events, and this can be soporific, especially if you aren't caught up on your sleep. But if you forge ahead, you will be well rewarded. Colorful and historically important characters like Nicholas II, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and Gorky are brought to life with insight, along with the important events they take part in. A large supporting cast, with characters like Alexandra, Rasputin, Kerensky, General Brusilov, and Prince Lvov add to the dramatic saga, highlighted by many tasty anecdotes. You get only a few, unremarkable maps, but you get many photos, and they are good. "A People's Tragedy" is a great accomplishment, and a reading of it will enrich you.
A very difficult read but worth it
My book club read this book. I wouldn't have picked it out or read otherwise, but I learned a great deal.
A good idea gone terribly, terribly wrong...
You can't make an omelet without breaking some eggs and the Russian Revolution was one bloody big omelet. Orlando Figes does an admirable job of providing a look at the big picture of the Revolution--taking us back a good two decades before it began and bringing us up to Lenin's death, about a decade after. The advantage of this perspective is that it gives the reader an historical context for the events that eventually brought down centuries of tsarist rule and raised up the Bolsheviks. The obvious disadvantage of such an approach is that a certain amount of detail is unavoidably lost. Still, for a one-volume treatment of the subject, you can't go wrong with this book. Comprehensive and informed, it is a generally lively read, as history books go. Figes tries to balance the personalities, the politics, and the events of the Revolution to bring it to life without sacrificing facts. It is a compelling period filled with fascinating characters--Rasputin, Tsar Nicholas, Kerensky, Lenin, Trotsky, Lvov, Gorky and that's just scratching the surface. Figes, not quite agreeing with the Marxist/Hegelian view that men don't make history, effectively shows the importance of the personalities of the Revolution's cast of characters and how a different man in the same place at the same time could have easily changed everything. Figes tries to remain balanced in his account by pointing out where "right wing" historians and "left wing" historians often interpret events differently. His own view, in the end, is that the Bolshevik revolution was an idealistic concept that was doomed to fail when applied by and applied to imperfect human beings. The result was the erosion of idealism to totalitarian terror. If you are a committed Marxist, chances are you'll find yourself opposing the tone of this book. If you are a commie-basher, it'll probably suit you better, but Figes sympathy towards the more genuinely committed communists will probably aggravate your intolerance. For the rest of us, without a particular ideological axe to grind, Figes comes off about as fair and balanced as a thinking individual with the capacity for informed judgment can be. This book is long, dense, and it'll take a while for you to read, but if the subject interests you at all, it's well worth the time and effort. It's also essential reading to understand how and why the Soviet experiment degenerated into the nightmare that were the Stalin years. With so much talk lately about America's turn towards "socialism" and the rising level of vitriolic and polarizing discontent with our government, *A People's Tragedy* offers unexpected contemporary insight into the dynamics of political and social change that should give us all pause. Even if we're condemned to repeat history, at least we can be prepared for it.
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