Customer Reviews

The Revolutionist

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"The Revolutionist" is a captivating novel about a fictional man, Alexander Til, as he helps in the Russian Revolution but becomes disillusioned over the course of decades. Robert Littell presented the story well, although he could have expounded more on certain aspects of the plot. The ending, however, was incredible. Robert Littell's use of symbolism was better than any I've ever read. The book left me feeling quite satisfied. This book, while not Solzhenitsyn, gives a more personal touch to the hope presented by Communism and the horror of Stalinism. "The Revolutionist" is not complex, however; I'm only 16. Littell spent years researching the facts, yet some inaccuracies remain. Regardless, anyone interested in Soviet history should definitely read this novel.

Robert Littell's extensive knowledge of Russia is put to gooduse in this expose of the bankruptcy of Soviet Communism. The hopes ofAlexander Til and his friends are interwoven with historical accounts of one of the greatest thefts of all time. Littell shows how Stalin and others stole the hopes of the Russian people for a better life after the Revolution. The book is a great read and very informative about Russian and Soviet history. Great character development.

Robert Littell's fiction based on Russia, Communism and espionage is an impressive body of work. "The Revolutionist", an earlier effort now republished, shows features of some later books. It has "The Company's" epic sweep, and models two characters on the historical subjects of "The Stalin Epigram", the poet Osip Mandelstam and his wife Nadezhda.

Littell sometimes uses a dark comedic tone; it's present here, not so much that it might lessen the gravity of what he's writing about, but blending well with the mordant Russian and Jewish sensibility fitting for his characters.

The story follows characters from the time of the Russian Revolution in 1917 until Stalin's death in 1953. The main character, Alexander Til, a Jewish radical, returns from America to join the revolution, accompanied by fellow revolutionary Atticus Tuohy, who has a Russian parent. Referred by Trotsky, they find themselves near the revolution's center, trusted by Lenin and Stalin. They lodge in a big house belonging to a princess, Lili Yusupova, who has joined the Bolsheviks.

There's a big difference between the two. Til is an idealist, offended by even the slightest compromises away from the classless promise of the revolution, such as leaders getting extra food amidst revolutionary chaos and starvation. Tuohy, until now a happy-go-lucky skirt-chaser, discovers a taste and talent for revolutionary violence, and works his way up in the Bolshevik secret police.

The house lodges a motley crew, some revolutionaries, some not - the poetic couple, a dentist, a photographer, an aging revolutionary, and a few more. Littell follows them through the Civil War and purges as their paths diverge and cross again. Til falls in love with Lili. They're strange bedfellows, a Russian Jew and a a gorgeous princess whose brother was Rasputin's killer. But, hey, it's a revolution. You know it's going to end badly.

Sex is a major theme. Bolshevik women busily enact their own sexual liberation, regarding it as essential to personal liberation. Everyone's getting laid. No one's getting married. The only married couple are the poets, who oppose the Bolshevik takeover. But sex, revolution or no, remains a source of original sin. The nude photos the beautiful Lili once posed for come back to haunt her, as do previous lovers. The arty, heady atmosphere of the revolution itself slowly gives way first to the Civil War, then to the Bolshevik solidification of power and finally to Stalin's terrifying dictatorship. By 1934, not too many people are finding a revolution they can dance, or fornicate, to.

Characters find themselves at signature moments such as the seizure of the Winter Palace and the murder of the Romanovs. Littell touches on mysteries and legends surrounding the period, including whether Anastasia survived, whether Lenin was affected mentally by late-stage syphilis, and whether Stalin was murdered. Interestingly, the only one of those whose possible truth isn't downplayed in an afterword is the question of Anastasia's survival. (Littell originally published this in 1988; much new Communist history has been disgorged from KGB files since then.) And he deals with one dastardly deed that only Stalin's death prevented from happening - the forced deportation of all of the Soviet Union's Jews to Siberia, under the guise of forming the "Jewish homeland" of Birobidzhan there.

The Revolution and Civil War turn horrifyingly violent, including a particularly disturbing episode involving what can only be called feral children, abandoned and roaming the countryside. The purges wrap the country in terror as Stalin tightens his grip, eliminating opponents and loyalists alike. The wrong glance or word can bring about not only one's destruction but that of his entire family. Any sound in the night might very well mean the secret police coming. Prisoners undergo months of interrogation, ending usually in an execution they welcome as an end to their suffering, or occasionally in an unexplained release. Census takers are arrested and executed; their capital crime is reporting the Soviet Union to have 16 million fewer residents than a few years before. The census takers didn't fail to find anyone; this is how many had died in the Civil War and the Ukrainian peasant famine, and the census takers have failed to cover it up in the service of the revolution.

"My principal preoccupation in `The Revolutionist'," Littell says in an afterword, "has been to show how someone as decent as (Til) could have been attracted to the Bolsheviks at the start, and repelled by them in the end; to suggest, in other words, where the greatest political experiment of the twentieth century went very wrong."

When it was announced today on the internet that Russia was planning on rehabilitating Joseph Stalin this May Day, 2010, Robert Littell's novel becomes presentient.

If there is any justice in this world, this book will be made into a movie. It will educate the world about the horrors committed by Joseph Stalin. It will confirm that Joseph Stalin was just as evil as Hitler in committing genocide of over 5 million people.

I hope that the Nobel Prize for Literature will finally recognize Robert Littell as one of the finest historical novelists living.

Other great writers such as Hilary Mantel (Wolf Hall, and A Place of Greater Safety) , Alan Furst (Night Soldiers), David Benioff (City of Thieves), David Boling (Guernecia), and the novel "Everyman Dies Alone," should also be awarded recognition as great works of art.

I Love this book - a comprehensive story about idealism and reality (at least to me) - as someone who was a Russian Lit major, Im not going to compare this with Crime and Punishment - BUT - I do not think this book is any less relevant to me - If you want a starting point about a certain time and place in history this book would be a great option -

I love that I now get to share this with my Daugther (maybe my son one day :) )

Not standard Littell spy stuff but the intrigue and great story line worked for me -

I loved this book If you want to read about the Russian Revolution and what happened to the idealism in the aftermath, buy this book The author managed to humanize and put in novel form, while teaching us history

Not up to the authors usual smooth narrative and driving plot line. This book is ponderous with characters and bland scenes. I found myself putting it down over and over again. It was not rewarding investing the time. Yes if your wanting an intro into the Russian culture okay. A recommendation is skip the whole first section in Amercia. It serves virtually no purpose but to get you on the boat to Russian. Save yourself the time.