A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia [Hardcover]

Mr. Alexander N. Yakovlev (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 2002 | ISBN-10: 0300087608 | ISBN-13: 978-0300087604 | Edition: First Edition

Alexander Yakovlev played a unique role in the transformation of the Soviet Union that led to its collapse in 1991. It was he who developed the concept of perestroika and persuaded Gorbachev to pursue it, despite the cataclysmic though deeply desired changes he knew would ensue. Since the disappearance of the Soviet Union, Yakovlev has devoted himself to understanding its tragic history. This text is the outcome of ten years of research and a lifetime of reflection on the evils of the system of which he was a part and which shaped the country he loves. Using his privileged access to the Presidential Archives and other state and party archives, Yakovlev seeks to put Soviet history into a unique perspective: like Churchill, he was both participant and witness. Indicting the Soviet system from its inception, Yakovlev focuses chapter by chapter on different groups of victims. In all, the author estimates that 60 million citizens were killed during the Soviet years and millions more died of starvation. His work brings into sharp focus the facts and events of the Soviet Union's legacy of terror.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The quest for truth and justice erupts with explosive force." -- David Pryce-Jones, National Review

From the Back Cover

"A profoundly moving and powerfully documented indictment of Lenin's and Stalin's crimes, written by a man of conscience who served on the Politburo in the waning days of the Soviet Union. Perhaps after reading it, Putin will wonder whether it is still appropriate to be honoring near the Kremlin Lenin's embalmed corpse!" -Zbigniew Brzezinski

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Yale University Press; First Edition edition (September 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0300087608
• ISBN-13: 978-0300087604
• Product Dimensions: 6.4 x 0.9 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,147,241 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

55 of 61 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars A grim, vital study of the horror that was Soviet Russia April 19, 2003

By Graham Henderson

Format:Hardcover

I am not sure I can possibly convey the importance of this book and how urgently it needs to be read by almost anyone with an interest in the history of the last century. Actually, I would go further, and turn that last sentence on its ear. This is an indispensable book for those who have little knowledge of or interest in the 20th Century. People need to understand what went on in the Soviet Union between the years 1916 and 1989.

Growing up in the 60s and 70s, it was not at all uncommon, at least in Canada, for one�s circle of friends to include Marxist-Leninists � particularly once you got to University. I actually had a rather close friend who not only adopted this political philosophy, but also actively espoused the cause of Soviet Russia � to the point of making excuses for Stalin. This made for extremely lively debates. In retrospect, knowing what we now know about communist Russia, I rather think my friend needed at the very least a good thrashing. For it was people like him, and the left-leaning western media, that gave succor to, and in a way legitimized, what we now know was one of the must shocking brutal, tyrannies ever to disgrace our planet.

The subject of the culpability of the western media, fellow travelers and communist sympathizers is covered by Richard Pipes, in �Russia Under the Bolsheviks�. These people have, in a very real sense, blood on their hands, and I often tremble with rage when I recall the facile and damaging lies that they propagated. Under the noses of these gullible and willfully naďve �liberal thinkers�, 35 million people died, either as the result of political terror or deliberate starvation.

Alexander Yakovlev now reinforces the point with a harrowing, grim collection of essays, �A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia.� Yakovlev was an advisor to Gorbachev and is now the head of a commission charged with analyzing and cataloging the horrors of Soviet Russia. In my review of Pipes� book (mentioned above), I had occasion to remark that in that book, Lenin came in for the thrashing that he so richly deserved. Lenin has had it easy. When the full horrors of the Stalinist period became known, Marxists and Socialists to a man rushed to point out that Stalin was an anomaly, that he and his regime had nothing to do with the gentle, humane, philosophical Lenin (and, in any event, �one had to break eggs to make an omlette�). Some people still believe this. Do you? Well here is Yakovlev�s trenchant, damning summing up:

�Exponent of mass terror, violence, the dictatorship of the proletariat, class struggle and other inhuman concepts. Organizer of fratricidal Russian civil war and concentration camps, including camps for children. Incessant in his demands for arrests and capital punishment by bullet or rope. Personally responsible for the deaths of millions of Russian citizens. By every norm of international law, posthumously indicted for crimes against humanity.�

Shockingly, Russians (as well and never-say-die communists throughout the world) continue to revere Lenin. This horrifies Yakovlev who notes that �to this day the country proliferates with monuments to Lenin and streets names after him.� Worse than this, a shockingly large segment of Russian society today believes that Stalin is in need of rehabilitation, that he did nor good than bad for Russia. Stalin has become nothing more than a name to most people in the world. When Saddam Hussein was compared to Stalin, when it was noted that he had actually studied Stalin, this tended to make little impression - because most of the world has forgotten. Men like Conquest, Pipes, Figes and Yakovlev write so that we will NOT forget. Their books should be required reading, because men like Lenin and Stalin NEVER go away, they are always with us and we must be forever vigilant and on our guard that they do not take root again.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Present at the Destruction February 24, 2003

By Leonard J. Wilson

Format:Hardcover

Alexander Nikolayevich Yakovlev may be best known as the godfather of perestroika. He was instrumental in formulating the concept of perestroika (restructuring), in persuading Gorbachev to implement perestroika, and in bringing Gorbachev back to perestroika when he vacillated, Hamlet-like, between his liberal and hard-line advisors in the late 1980s. Yakovlev was, in a very real sense, along with Eduard Sheverdnadze, Gorbachev's political conscience.

In A Century of Violence in Soviet Russia, Yakovlev presents the tragedy of Russia under Lenin and Stalin. He examines in separate chapters how various constituents of the Soviet Union fared under Communism: Political parties other than the Bolsheviks, the peasants, the intelligentsia, the clergy, the military, the numerous non-Russian nationalities, the Jews. All were exploited, when possible, to further the Bolshevik hold on Russia, and executed, exiled, or enslaved when political exploitation was not possible. Yakovlev holds Lenin and Stalin responsible for 60 million deaths. These include peasants that starved as a direct result of the collectivization of agriculture and World War II deaths, many of which were a direct result of Stalin's purge of competent military officers on the eve of the war and the unwarranted trust he placed in the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression pact. Some have questioned the legitimacy of attributing these deaths to Stalin. Rather than debate that responsibility here, the reader is referred to Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow, and Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime.

Yakovlev traces all of the totalitarian acts of terror associated with Stalin's rule to their beginnings under Lenin, demolishing the myth that Stalin somehow perverted the more humane party of Lenin. The book is a somber read, 200 plus pages documenting murders, torture, slave labor in the name of an ideology that is morally, intellectually, and (now, thankfully) financially bankrupt.

23 of 25 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Boleshivism debunked March 10, 2003

By a reader

Format:Hardcover

Am important book for Russians, and for all people who doubt the stark reality of the Bolshevik regime. Yakolev asserts at one point that the only true statement that came out of the Stalinist period was that there ws no change in the party from Lenin's time. Stalin, for Yakovlev, was the true student of Lenin, whoose brutality was shown from the very beginning. More, the entire system of Marxist-Leninism was flawed from the start, an untenable ideology doomed to failure. Coming from an insider, despite his ten years in the west as ambassador to Canada, and from the person who oversaw the rehabilitation of political victims under peristroika and after, these comments are damning indeed.

Yakovlev documents the atrocities--to the peasants, the church, the jews, ethnic groups, the inteligensia, to political dissidents, to prisoners of war and saddest of all to children and families of those considered dangerous to the regime. For Yakovlev Russia must purge itself of Bolshevism in order to once again move forward. At times an emotional journey, it nevertheless gives an accurate accounting. Well done.