Customer Reviews

Russia under the Old Regime: Second Edition (Penguin History)

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I think this is the best of what I guess you would call Pipes' "Revolutionary Trilogy." "The Russian Revolution," perhaps two or three times the length, is impaired a bit by Pipes' sometimes tedious moral-pointing. "Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime" seems a bit less ambitious than the other two, and in any event it is surely the one least likely to survive the torrent of new material that is becoming available after the fall.

What distinguishes Russia in Pipes' eye is the tradition of "patrimonialism" -- as a political category, a coinage of Pipes' own, though with its roots in Weber, in Hobbes and Bodin, even in Aristotle. Pipes means to denote "a regime where the rights of sovereignty and those of ownership blend to the point of becoming indistinguishable, and political power is exercised in the same manner as economic power."

"Despotism," Pipes continues, "has much the same etymological origins, but over time it has acquired the meaning of a deviation or corruption of genuine kingship, the latter being understood to respect the property rights of subjects. The patrimonial regime, on the other hand, is a regime in its own right, not a corruption of something else."

This is a brave assertion, and Pipes remains faithful to it. Indeed, the core of the book is perhaps his chapter entitled "The Anatomy of the Patrimonial Regime," where Pipes tries to show how utterly different is the tradition of governance in Russia from the tradition in the West -- even in Western nations that we might think of as "reactionary."

There are other virtues to this book. His introductory chapter on the environment is perhaps worth the price of admission, as he retails the grim arithmetic of topsoil and grain production. His discussion of serfdom provokes all kinds of questions about the relationship between serfdom in Russia and slavery in the West.

A work of just 318 pages can hardly pretend to be the last word on the history of a great nation, and Pipes maintains no such pretention. I take it as given that much more could be said to inform, expand upon, or criticize, Pipes' perspective. But as a framework for approaching the study of Russia, it is hard for me to see how it could be bettered. As a provative contribution to the literature of political analysis generally, I should think its claim is equally strong.

I only read this book after I had been studying Russian and Russian history for many years, studied in Russia and married a Russian. It is beyond any doubt the best introduction to the subject that I have found in English. It removes a large amount of misconceptions that Americans have about Russian history, illuminates what deserves to be illuminated, avoids pet topics and romaticisms and manages to do all this without the condescending tone that most American writers take when writing about Russia. If you know nothing about Russia and want to learn, this is an excellent place to start.

This work by Pipes is the place to start if you are interested in studying the history or literature of Pre-Revolutionary Russia. Pipes takes a traditionalist historical approach to discussing development of Russia from the Kievan Rus state through to the height of Imperial Tsarist Russia. His work is extremely illuminating, revealing the formation, evolution and interaction of the complex Russian social classes. He clearly sets forward what he believes to to be the unique factors which produced Russia's "differentness" and which contributed toward the production of the absolutist institution of the Tsarist autocracy. Pipes is particularly interesting on the subjects of serfdom (and why is was not a feudal construct) and the symbiotic, destructive relation between Russian society and topography. This is indeed the definitive work on Old Russia, and is required reading for an understanding of Tolstoy.

When I purchased this title in a used bookstore for two dollars, I was somewhat apprehensive about its scholarly quality, author biography not withstanding. Upon reading, however, I must say that I felt Pipes admirably illumined what is a very complex economic, social, and cultural subject. Specifically, his thesis concerns the manner in which the Russian state, under various formative influences, developed an essentially proprietary attitude towards land and subject alike. In Pipes' view this has been the primary determinant of all Russian history following Mongol domination. I myself make no pretenses to be an authority on the subject, but Pipes' use of evidence generally convinced me of the credibility of his claim. I would recommend this title to anyone interested in a general account of the pre-revolutionary Russian state apparatus.

Richard Pipes does a good job at laying out the workings of Russia's Tsarist Regime. What I found to be most interesting and persuasive is Pipes' frequent contrasts between Russia and Western Europe. For instance, he looks at the status of the nobility and the strength of the church. In both instances, Pipes draws a clear path as to how, in Tsarist Russia, these institutions became virtual extensions of the state bureaucracy (in sharp contrast to Western Europe, where they often served as brakes on royal power). In addition, Pipes places Russia squarely in the sphere of Asian (specifically Mongol) influence. As evidence, he points to close similarities between the Khanate and Tsarist "patrimonialism." In doing so, he de-emphasizes the oft-stated argument that Russia was the close heir to Byzantium. Finally, Pipes continally demonstrates how Tsarist policies laid the groundwork for the Soviet system (though the latter took those policies to a far bloodier and more extreme conclusion). My only criticism of the book is that Pipes does not deal directly with the issue of Russia's "national minorities" (beyond a quick mention of the Jewish Pale of Settlement and several Polish rebellions against Russian rule) and the attempts by the Tsarist regime to "Russify" those groups. I think that this would have been quite relevant to look at in Russia during this period. I am looking forward to reading Pipes' writings on later events in Russia.

The British newspaper The Guardian opines that Professor Pipe's "Russia Under the Old Regime" is "one of the finest books ever written on Russian civilization". This is no exaggeration. If one is looking for a sophisticated scholarly book on this period in Russian history, yet one that provides a perspective into how post-1917 history was really only a continuation of Russian history instead of a radical break with the past, this is the book to read. Professor Pipe's range and depth of knowledge regarding all aspects of Russian history, whether economic, social, religious, economic, military, bureacratic, foreign policy, is breadth-taking and gives the book an edge that makes it stand out among the many histories of Russia written (and there have been many written).

The book starts off with a chapter on the Russia's environment and topology which provides some good perspective into why Russia was so autocratic. For example, the short farming season required a very centralized hierarchical village and family structure to insure that maximum effort could be expended, good useable farmland only composed a relatively small percentage of Russia's land thus reducing the impact of long distances on autocracy, etc.

The book then goes, by chapter, into various aspects of Russian society. Chapters, for example, are included on the peasantry, intellectuals, the bourgeois (or lack there-of), the Church, etc. These chapters provide not only a history of these social groups per se, but show how individually and in combination, they contributed to a very centralized autocratic police-like Orwellian society which, minimizing the impact of individuals and non-state economic entities that, led to very centralized Russian political and economic administration that has, in essence, continued through the post-1917 communist era. The book makes the implicit argument, quite well, that Russia's communist regime was nothing more than a continuation of its traditional historical path.

This is the best place to begin a study of Russian history. Prof. Pipes introduces the student to the fundamental sources, the hows and whys about Russia's development through history. He sheds light on how 20th cnetury Russia would become what it is as a natural and understandable result. This book will make you a unique ringside viewer as Russsian continues to reform itself into, perhaps, a new version of what it was and always has been or a new historically free society as never before. The book clearly reveals the social trends and human behavior that long ago were profoundly and irremedially instilled in Russian character as everlasting behavior, which is still seen today. This book is almost a definition of how a people suffer deterministically their historical destiny due to the conditionaing of history based on the early days of this society. Like all great books, Pipes' study has insights and observations that can be applied to all cultures, societies, institutions and historical eras through all times, but most importantly in our own times. This is a great book about history as well as Russia.

I've lived in Russia for the last eight years
and have read many histories of Russia and the
Soviet Union, but "Russia Under the Old Regime"
best explains why Russia is where it is today and where it is going.

Pipes has shown the way to think about history. This is an exceptionally clear, concise and informed book, and the best intro I know of to Russian history. (And Pipes is to Russian and Soviet history what Posner is to the study of law.)

This is indeed a brilliant book. Any one who wants to understand Russia should read it. I can not praise it highly enough. Please get a copy and learn and enjoy.