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

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Rarely, one stumbles across a book that is of such surpassing excellence, and whose scholarship is worn so lightly, that you know, reading it, that you will never be able to forget it, and what you learn from it. Figes' A People's Tragedy is this rarity. I have read many books about the Russian Revolution, but no book has the sweep, the clarity, the balance, and the heartbreak of this. I literally had to put it down every so often because the sheer tragedy of what I was reading was more than I could bear.

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.

I picked up this book by Orlando Figes on a whim. The Russian Revolution is an interesting topic so I figured that one day I'd get around to reading this massive book. I finally read it over Christmas break, and I must say that this is an excellent history book. One of the best I've ever read, actually. It is a real page turner, something very rare for a scholarly book of this size and scope. Figes certainly has the education to pull off this type of history: he was educated at Oxford and has written other works concerning Russia.

Figes goes against the grain with this book. In opposition to such scholars as Richard Pipes (author of another huge tome I own but have yet to read), Figes believes that the Russian Revolution was in fact a "bottom up" revolution. Figes proves that the peasantry in Russia were sick to high heaven of a system that degraded them to a status of barely human. To the peasant, the most important thing was land and freedom from the state. All government forms, from the tsarist state to the Bolsheviks, were judged by how much autonomy the peasants earned under them. Figes actually seems to measure the success and failure of each government according to how the peasants received them. Not surprisingly, the tsarist system was a dismal failure. It's easy to be a Monday morning quarterback with history, but the tsarist regime was pathetic. The list of the problems confronting Tsar Nicholas is too numerous to list here, but what is important to note is that this regime failed them all. Land reforms were desperately wanted, but the Tsar denied them. Nationalism in the peripheral states around Russia was not only denied, but a program of Russification was instituted that caused more problems than were necessary. The list could go on and on. The problem was power. The tsarist state refused to give any ground on the autocratic principles that the Russian tsars loved so much. Figes spends a good portion of his book discussing the failures of the tsarist system and shows how that system could have averted problems and maintained the throne (although as a constitutional monarchy akin to England).

The other elements of government, the Bolsheviks, the Provisionals and the Whites, failed just as badly. The Provisionals were forced to tread the line between extremists and failed to reconcile both. The White regimes failed because the conservative elements that made up the bulk of the movement refused to budge on principles they enjoyed under the Tsar. Even the Bolsheviks failed, but their failure wasn't as pronounced because they were able to retain at least some semblance to the revolutionary principles that the peasants loved so much. Even here, the Bolsheviks had to make some concessions to retain power. The examination of the Communist regime is probably the most interesting aspect of this book.

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 states in his introduction that it took six years to do the research for this book. It is beautifully done and, I should mention, done by Figes himself without research assistants. I am amazed at how much information I have retained from this book, something that can't be said about many history books. I'd love to take a class from this scholar. His insights are fresh and his writing is erudite. Buy this book!

As a person only familiar with the basic outline of the Russian Revolution, I found this book simply entrancing. I have long intended to read a work on this crucial event and period in world history; I am glad this was the volume I selected.

While the length and subject matter of this book is somewhat daunting, Figes presents this history in a highly readable fashion without skimping on fascinating detail. Part of how he does this is by interspersing historical detail with personal histories of both famous and everyday Russians. Figes foes beyond just describing the key events but analyzes why they happened and how it impacted the Russian people at all levels of society. Importanty, Figes also stresses how the history of Russia formed its people and how these people formed the Revolution and the resulting disaster of Bolshevism. He goes into great detail concerning the other key political groups of this era. Figes scope and knowledge of his subject matter is amazing. I feel much wiser for having spent a couple weeks plowing through this important tome.

I would say if you read only one book on the Russian Revolution, this is the one. However, this is the only book I have read on the subject. So, with that qualification, I will say that--in my opinion--this is a darn good book for someone looking to better understand one of the most important events of the twentieth century.

I live and work in Russia, and have been studying the place for 12 years or so. In all that time, because I focus on the here and now, I have always felt that I lacked a real grasp of the history, which I try to fill in from time to time. This book is brilliant on the forty years or so that lead up to 1917. Figes brings you into the two worlds of the revolutionaries and the aristocracy.

He is not starry-eyed about any of the participants. He is very clear about how the monarchy failed to reform in time, failed to listen to good advice, and basically brought about its own downfall. He also describes how the Tsarist secret police was just as nasty as its Bolshevik equivalent. All of Russia's totalitarian machinery was in place long before the revolution.

He also describes how Russia's peasant culture usurped the Marxist ideals of the revolutionaries. This was a crude egalitarian culture, that punished people who became rich, by stealing or confiscating their property, that tolerated drunken layabouts, and that was generally happy to see no improvement in its standard of living over the course of the 19th century. These Russian peasants deeply distrusted the Bolshevik Jews, especially those who came from the cities to "educate" them.

The accounts of the revolution are breathtaking, and all those famous events, like the Cruiser Avrora, are put in their place, as well as descriptions of how the military was mobilised to the side of the Bolsheviks. Figes' history of the First World War, and how it fit into the revolution, was also first-rate.

So I would recommend this as a starter to anyone looking to get a grasp of the detailed history of the Bolshevik revolution. It becomes heavy going, as it details the factional fighting of the Bolsheviks post-revolution and post-civil war, and I lost track of who was on who's side. But this is only the last quarter of the book, and the fact is that these events are a lot less exciting than what happened in the first part.

I am not a big expert, so I cannot compare this with, say, Pipes' book, which was the standard text when I was a student. My godfather, who taught Russian history at Oxford for forty years, thinks that Figes' book is the best that he has read. I certainly loved it, and strongly recommend it to anyone thinking about learning about Russia and its history. It's amazing how so much of what happened then is still happening today.

One of the difficulties in selecting books on Russia, is that so many come with a built-in perspective and ideology. Facts which support a thesis are included, those which do not are conveniently ignored.
Of all the histories of Russia for the period prior to and during the Revolution, in my view this is the finest. From Figes we certainly get the big picture, and not only the key events, but also insight into Russian culture and the personality of its people, from the peasant through the professionals and the nobility.
But Figes has an eye for telling detail. The book spans a half-century, and as the text develops, he follows the lives of ordinary and extraordinary Russians during this time, in little insets within text body. As the major events unfold, we see the lives of individual humans unfold, and their thoughts and feelings evolve.
If I could only read one book on the Russian Revolution, this would be the one.

Like most people who consider themselves educated I thought I understood the Russian revolution. I knew practically nothing. This book, in one easy to read ( but difficult to "take" ) volume goes a long way to overcoming ignorance on a level such as was mine. Sure, I knew some names, Trotsky, Lenin, others. Sure, I knew the phrase "dictatorship of the proletariat". Sure. But I didn't even know that the "first" revolution came in the 1905 period as Tsarist power was ineffectually challenged through the creation of a quasi representative congress. Sure. I knew practically nothing. This book gives you a continuity in a single volume that you may wish you had not come to understand.

I don't see the point in recapitulating the entire book for you here. Others get off on doing that in their reviews. I'll just tell you what I got from reading this book: A two by four in the face. I had no idea of the suffering, stupidity, and uselessness of all the waste that was contained in the history of transition of Russia from Tsarist autocracy to the Bolshevik state under Lenin and then Stalin.

This book will make you very glad we never fought a major war with the Russians. Tough? After the Reds vs the Whites in a inane civil war? Tough? After generations of brutal autocracy. Tough? After the horrors of WW2 ( and in an area I know more about WW2 ). Thank God we never tangled with those people. I remember the Cuban missile crisis ( I'm that old. ) and reading this book made me cold with fear that comes from better understanding the history that shaped the Soviet Union that faced us in that time.

One thing that came from my reading this book was that when I rewatched one of my favorite movies, "Dr. Zhivago" I actually understood it for the first time. The scales fell from my eyes. I get it now. But how am I going to sleep tonight?

The moral of the Russian revolution is that a VERY small group of dedicated revolutionaries can overthrow and take control of a gigantic nation If their timing is perfect. ( And, this book teaches that perfect timing is really a function of fate and chance. A person should read several books about chaos theory before or after reading this book. Only in the comprehension of "tipping points" can be seen why events happened as they did. )

Read the book to overcome your own ignorance of the subject. Read the book to shake your head over needless carnage and waste of human life. Read the book to be afraid of the powerlessness of the individual in the face of gigantic social upheaval. And, if you love the movie "Dr. Zhivago" read the book so that you'll finally understand what what happening and why.

I recall a line from the movie, Zhivago's half brother, a RED general now, says, right at the end of the movie, "Yes, but do you know what it cost?" After you read this book you will have begun to have a glimmer of the answer to that question. I don't think it can be expressed in words. It feels like a gigantic pit of sorrow with a black hole at the bottom. How's that?

We must take care when meddling with gigantic systems that are very finely balanced. Pasha would have understood this very well following his stint as Strelnikof. You never know what might happen if you do X and think Y will occur but really you had no idea of the true causality at all ( if there even is any true causality ).

Then, later, as I have done, buy and view the silent film "Battleship Potemkin". I have "October" on order now.

As a professor mostly of Middle East and Latin American politics, with just one graduate course on Soviet/Russian politics under my belt (including Pipes, etc.), I was repeatedly confronting my own lack of familiarity with the Bolshevik Revolution. Finding this book at a conference, I took it home for bedtime reading... and lost hours of sleep every night. A stunning read, so beautifully written that it carried me along on a great wave of vivid detail and epic historical sweep. Figes brings to life not just the major events (told in vivid drama) but the complex interweaving of decaying autocracy: the early socialist movements and factions, Russian intellectual spinnings, internal socialist party conspiracies, leftist intellectual conceats, democratic flailings, Lenin's machinations -- in short, the multiple historical threads of unfolding and ultimately ruinous Bolshevik power. Figes does work in his extensive knowledge of the peasantry but also traces key players among the aristocracy, intelligentsia and other intellectual elite; his insights into socialist intellectuals make all too clear the seeds of the "people's tragedy" he is describing. I'm baffled by any criticism that the book neglects the culpability of the Bolsheviks in crafting the later murder of millions: it provides the richest account of those inner logics and political maneuverings I've ever seen. Its style was distracting only on those rare occasions when I paused to consider it, to figure out how he was carrying the narrative forward so irresistably. Altogether a magnificent book, and great for college courses... but some 700 pages, so give it two or three weeks on a syllabus, although I've used Part I on its own.

Figes' book is a remarkable achievement. He is able to capture the chaos, the confusion and the captivating power of revolutionary Russia without resorting to the dramatisation of his sybject. He tells Russia's tale from the perspective of the people - peasants, soldiers, workers - and from the great men who took centre stage - Lenin, Trotsky, Gorky, et al. Figes is fair and detailed in his account but he is also not afraid to make judgements or present an analytical viewpoint. He does not fall into the trap of simply recounting events - he seeks to shed light onto a the Revolution that shaped this century and does so with great success.

"A People's Tragedy" travels back into the 19th Century to examine the development of a revolutionary consciousness in Russia. Figes looks at the literary and theoretical heritage of the Revolution - from Tolstoy to Chernyshevksy. He explores the mentality of the Russian workers, soldiers and peasants - why did Marxism appeal to the people of Russia? He also provides fascinating insight into the psychology of the intelligentsia.

Like Simon Schama's "Citizens", Figes' book is a must-read for any student of revolution. He captures the broad and sweeping vista of the era but does not neglect the common people who lived through it. Or those who died for it. "The Russian Revolution launched a vast experiment in social engineering - perhaps the grandest in the history of mankind" says Figes. "A People's Tragedy" is a worthy chronicle of one of the most important events in history.

This is about as non-partisan a history that you can find for something as ideologically charged as the Russian revolution. But of course, non-partisan is still not impartial: a truly impartial history is impossible and impossibly boring. What's really wonderful about Orlando Figes' account is the coupling of sober analysis with a more sophisticated partiality. It is also written very well, replete with zesty anecdotes. Now let me explain what I mean by non-partisan but partial.

Traditionally, a given history of the Russian revolution divides into the two obvious camps. The leftist account is especially repugnant because it extricates Lenin from the bloodbath that ensued, which is doubtless an exercise in monstrous duplicity. The rightist view is more factually sound but the incessant pounding of the ... gavel gets in the way of analysis. Their black and white view of history is only too quick to blast and their viewpoint is duplicitous in more senses than one, though to a much lesser extent than the leftist apologists.

I've actually liked the rightist view more because it clearly highlights the ... fruit of Leninism called Stalinism. But I've always wondered how they seemed to think that a revolution could be imposed more or less top-down. Granted, there was the galvanizing force called Lenin, but can one man's willpower really dominate a nation of 100 million+ people speaking diverse languages, largely illiterate, and alienated from the intelligentsia? I'm neither Russian nor a historian, thus, admittedly, my opinion carries little weight. But it seems to me that a revolution of this scale requires more willful participation than willy-nilly coercion at gunpoint, that, say, Paul Johnson would have you believe. (And anyone who is content with "Oh, but after all they're Russians" is perfectly irresponsible.)

Figes addresses this point exactly. The thesis of the book is that the revolution is a bottom-up event and not top-down as has been held popularly. This wonderful excerpt from his epilogue hammers the point home deliciously: "Their [the Russian people's] revolutionary tragedy lay in the legacies of their own cultural backwardness rather than the evil of some `alien' Bolsheviks. They were not the victims of the revolution but protagonists in its tragedy ... It was the weakness of Russia's democratic culture which enabled Bolshevism to take root." (pg.808). This is Figes' partiality on which his account of the revolution is built. And build it he does in the whopping 800 oversized pages.

His bias really shows in these three aspects: (1) in the barbarism of the peasants (2) in the countless descriptions of how the populace either willfully or inadvertently misconstrued Bolshevism and (3) in emphasizing the haphazardness and opportunism of Bolshevist policies.

As for (1), the book aims to show that horrific barbarism was not the sole property of the Bolsheviks, but shared in common with the people. It seems to me that apologists of the peasantry take a Dostoevskian populist view that holds the peasants to be, at bottom, upright people. Figes shows that this was hardly the case: the chapter titled "Icons and Cockroaches" contains a gruesome description of peasant mores (the Jewish pogroms are mentioned later). Here, a household maxim will suffice: "'Hit your wife with the butt of the axe, get down and see if she's breathing. If she is, she's shamming and wants some more'" (pg.97). (If you hold to the view that so-called backward societies are angelic, try Robert Edgerton's "Sick Societies".) On the other hand, Figes is also quick to point out that the Red Terror "was implicit in the regime from the start" (pg. 630). Frequent anecdotes of atrocities and atrocities committed in revenge are persuasive in arguing that brutality at least was equally shared.

As for (2), the rightist's argument is that Reds triumphed because they were more ruthless than the Whites in their application of [creating trouble]. But can you really control an entire regiment at gunpoint and hope to win a war? Figes offers a much more reasonable explanation: the very fact that the Reds could claim to be the champions of the revolution and use powerful symbols like the Red Flag gave it the necessary impetus (pg. 668). Afterall, how can a largely illiterate peasantry understand concepts like `socialism' and `communism'? The vagueness of their political position is very clearly shown, to name one example, in the existence of cults of Kerensky and Lenin. All that the peasants ultimately comprehended were land and security. In the end, the people willfully supported the Reds, because they appeared to uphold the crucial land reform, and were therefore the lesser of two evils.

As for (3), a typical example is his opinion of the origin of War Communism, that "much of it was in fact improvised" (pg. 614). Indeed, it would take an almost superhuman lucidity to plan the whole evolution into a police state from the very inception of Bolshevik rule. Figes' history of the revolution will show that Leninism "progressed" by fits and starts, often accompanied by clamorous disagreement among entrenched elements within the Party. Almost always, the external impetus was none other than the momentum of the Russian people.

I am not able to assess whether the numerous memoranda, documents, etc. cited are authentic enough to be called facts. But there is nothing overtly suspicious that I've found. In which case, the above three points point to Figes' conclusion that the revolution was the handiwork of the Russian population. His bias would then merely be the correct perspective.

Maxim Gorky, a writer who witnessed the revolution firsthand, wrote the following heartless indictment: "I do not believe that in the twentieth century there is such a thing as a `betrayed people'" (pg. 808). This may in fact be the chilling truth.

I have lived in the Soviet Union for 33 years. I have studied the History of USSR, the History of the Communist Party, the Dialectical Materialism, the Historical Materialism, the Scientific Communism, the Scientific Atheism and other subjects of the typical Soviet college. Additionally, I studied all kinds of subjects associated with every Party congress. Also, works by Lenin were the mandatory reading. I'm more than qualified to say that Olrando Figes has written an excellent account on the subject of the tragic even - the Russian revolution.