Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890 to 1928

by S.A. Smith

The Russian Revolution of 1917 transformed the face of the Russian empire, politically, economically, socially, and culturally, and also profoundly affected the course of world history for the rest of the twentieth century. Now, to mark the centenary of this epochal event, historian Steve Smith presents a panoramic account of the history of the Russian empire, from the last years of the nineteenth century, through the First World War, the revolutions of 1917, and the establishment of the Bolshevik regime, to the end of the 1920s when Stalin unleashed violent collectivization of agriculture and crash industrialization upon Russian society.

Drawing on recent archival scholarship, Russia in Revolution pays particular attention to the varying impact of the Revolution on different social peasants, workers, non-Russian nationals, the army, women, young people, and the Church. The book provides a fresh approach toward the big, perennial questions about the Revolution and its why the tsarist government's attempt to implement political reform after the 1905 Revolution failed; why the First World War brought about the collapse of the tsarist system; why the attempt to create a democratic system after the February Revolution of 1917 never got off the ground; why the Bolsheviks succeeded in seizing power; and why Stalin came out on top in the power struggle inside the Bolshevik party after Lenin's death in 1924.

A final chapter reflects on the larger significance of 1917 for the history of the twentieth century--and, for all its terrible flaws, what the promise of the Revolution might mean for us today.

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction, Politics, Russian Revolution, Russian History, Soviet Union

448 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2017

About the author

Steve (S. A.) Smith is a Senior Research Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, and a Professor in the History Faculty of Oxford University. He was formerly Professor of Comparative History at the European University Institute, Florence, and Professor of History at the University of Essex. He is a historian of modern Russia and China, who works on the interface of social and political history and, more recently, of comparative Communism. He has published books on Russian history – including the prize-winning Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis (Oxford, 2017) – and two books on Chinese history, plus Revolution and the People in Russia and China: A Comparative History (Cambridge, 2008). He edited the Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism (Oxford, 2014) and was a co-editor of the Cambridge History of Communism (Cambridge, 2017). He is currently working on a comparative study of the efforts of the Soviet state in the 1920s and 1930s and the Chinese state in the 1950s and 1960s to eliminate popular religion. He is a former editor of Past and Present and a Vice-President of the Past and Present Society. He is also a Fellow of the British Academy.

Reviews

[Justin Evans · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very informative. Also as dry as chalk that has been put in a dehumidifier, in a room that is being heated by electrical coils, in a house in the dryest, saltiest desert on the planet.

But very informative, and also, frankly, refreshing in its willingness to see that Lenin et al., weren't, you know, EVIL SATANIC MONSTERS COMING TO EAT YOUR CHILDREN, but might actually have been formed by the historical moment they lived in, as well as being moderately evil monsters, but no more or less evil than those they were fighting against in the first world war, or the civil war, and so on. For that alone, Smith's book can be recommended.

But dear god is this dry.

[Bevan Lewis · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Russian Revolution is an essential and seminal historical event that is crucial to understand in thinking about the twentieth century. A great historian (and admirer of the revolution) Eric Hobsbawm wrote that “if the ideas of the French revolution have, as is now evident, outlasted Bolshevism, the practical consequences of 1917 were far greater and more lasting than those of 1789”. Certainly the events in Russia were an important component in the massive disruption of the nineteenth century world during the years of the Great War. On a narrower scope than world history, they at least form the end of the Romanov dynasty, although it is possible to argue that Eric Hobsbawm’s proclamation of a massive change is overstated, and that Lenin became a “Red Tsar” with much continuity from the Russian Empire.
It has been surprising thus far in 2017 how little popular commemoration of the revolution has been seen in the form of documentaries and public discourse. Perhaps this will come later in the year, as of course the Russian Revolution had two phases, that in February (on the old Russian calendar) which saw the abdication of the Tsar, and that in October which brought the Bolsheviks to power. There has at least been a tide of history books on aspects of the period - The Romanovs: 1613-1918 by Simon Sebag Montefiore (the full back story of the Russian autocratic dynasty), Rasputin: Faith, Power, and the Twilight of the Romanovs by Douglas Smith (a biography of the legendary figure who lay behind much discontent with the old regime), The Last of the Tsars: Nicholas II and the Russian Revolution by Robert Service (an examination of Nicholas in the last year of his life) and the reissue of Orlando Figes famous A People's Tragedy: The Russian Revolution: 1891-1924. S A Smith is an Oxford University Professor with an interest in modern Russian and Chinese history, and in comparative Communist history. Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890 to 1928 is his contribution to the examination of the revolution. Smith has chosen to take a broader, contextual view of 1917. Instead of focussing chronologically on the events of 1917 his periodisation stretches from the late nineteenth century through to the eve of Stalin’s collectivisation. His brush is broad in other respects as well. Rather than focussing on the political elite, he has chosen an analytical approach looking at society, culture and economics as a whole. The benefits of this approach are a broad understanding of the enormous changes in Russia, the causes and immediate results of the Revolution and its effect on society. Smith provides a steady balanced tone which assesses the various historiographical interpretations and attempts to steer a moderate course. While the book may not provide the rich prose and deep examination of the events of the Revolution itself found in some books, it does provide the serious reader with a solid broad understanding of this pivotal period.
Some key questions are addressed - was the Revolution inevitable? What caused the Revolution? Was Bolshevism inevitable or could Russia have given birth to a liberal democracy? How did the Bolsheviks manage to maintain power against such significant opposition? Was it a real revolution, or was there more continuity?
In his conclusion, Smith assesses that he “has tried to offer an analysis that links human agency and the power of ideas to the deeper structuring forces of geopolitics, empire, economy, and culture.” This is an analysis that looks more to statistics, large societal changes and forces than to the personalities and decisions of individuals, and the power of events. This balance is difficult to achieve. It is important to look at society as a whole, and this book probably serves as a corrective to some of my biographical reading (such as Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives) which might overinflate the importance of the machinations of the Comintern, and the politicking of the Bolshevik elite. Smith de-emphasizes events as well. The course of the events of the Revolution only occupy one out of seven chapters. There can be no doubt however that personalities were still critical. Lenin’s insight of the importance of stopping the war, and his confidence to throw out the Provisional Government in a coup were absolutely central. Smith could have spent a bit more time on Lenin, but as with most things he steers a careful course, and does pay some heed to his importance.
His view of the Revolution is summarised as that “the collapse of the tsarist regime in February 1917 was ultimately rooted in a systemic crisis brought about by economic and social modernization, a crisis that was massively exacerbated by the First World War”. The October coup didn’t overturn a budding liberal democracy - “the Provisional Government had expired even before the Bolsheviks finished it off.” It had failed to recognise the key causes of the Revolution in the first place, leaving much of the old elite in place and more importantly failing to appreciate how crucial “peace and bread” were, a mistake the Bolsheviks did not make thanks to Lenin.
The brutality of the Civil War is astonishing, and the antisemitism vicious. Smith describes how “the civil war inspired a massacre of Jews on a ghastly, historically unprecedented scale, with the loss of between 50,000 and 200,000 lives. Another 200,000 Jews were injured and thousands of women were raped.” Already in this period it was the army, rather than the proletariat which was pushing forward the revolution. Although the hated Tsarist secret police were abolished, the Bolshevik’s quickly instituted the brutal Cheka. Smith analyses the way that to ensure the survival of the regime Lenin from the beginning used authoritarian techniques. “By March 1919, Lenin could declare that soviet rule was rule for the proletariat rather than by it.”
The years of NEP (New Economic Policy) following the Civil War are dealt with extensively, especially the economics and social impact. This is a fascinating period, one with constant conflict between the reintroduction of market mechanisms and the desire to intervene. Smith assesses that “NEP society can by no stretch of the imagination be described as ‘liberal’ yet it was more pluralistic than the brutally conformist society that was to be inaugurated in 1928 with Stalin’s ‘Great Break’.”
This book may disappoint those who wish to read a narrative history, especially one focusing on the revolutionary events of 1917 itself. However as a well written, balanced and up to date interpretation of the changes which transformed Russia from an agrarian autocracy to a Utopian dictatorship on the verge of shock modernisation Steve Smith does an excellent job.

[Eren Buğlalılar · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sovyet tarihine dair bir başka liberal çalışma. Yazarın arzusu, devrime "hakkaniyetli" bir bakış sunma görüntüsü altında, bizlere "bu hata bir daha tekrarlanmamalı" düşüncesini aşılamak.

Satırlarına iyice sinmiş bakışından anlaşıldığı üzere, yazar Sovyet devrimini insanlık tarihinin gelişme çizgisinden bir sapma olarak görüyor. Tabii bu ekolün sloganı hiç değişmez: Çok iyi, çok insani niyetlerle başladı ama sonuç felaket oldu (s. 556). Totaliter, otoriter, artık buraya liberalizmin bütün anahtar kavramlarını yapıştırın. Araya da Çin Halk Cumhuriyeti övgüsünü yapıştırdık mı tamamdır:

"Bu bakımdan Çin komünistlerinin kendi ülkelerini öncü bir ekonomik ve siyasi dünya gücü haline getirme sicili, büyük ölçüde model aldıkları (Sovyet) rejimden daha etkileyicidir... Nihayetinde Çin komünistleri kapitalizmi taklit ederek, yatırım ve ihracata dayalı bir sistem benimseyerek ve kamu mülklerini özelleştirip, özel sektörü destekleyerek tarihsel olarak eşi görülmemiş bir ekonomik büyümeye ulaştılar."

Bu kadar. Yazarın 40 yılı kapsayan Rusya/Sovyetler Birliği tarihinden çıkarabildiği ders bu.

Yazarın benimsediği anlatım taktiği de buna paralel. Kautsky'den Trotsky'ye, Bukharin'den Deng Xiaoping'e kadar herkes aslında iyi niyetli, doğru düşünen insanlar. Bir tek yanlış yapanlar, totaliter yumruklarıyla demokrasiyi ezen, tek parti diktatörlüğünün yolunu açan Lenin ve Stalin. Öf.

Bu yazarlar kendilerinden sıkılmıyor mu yahu?

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently watched a documentary, and part of it explained the rise and fall of the Soviet Union. This books is not for beginners or people who want a light read. There is a lot of information and the format of the text is not the easiest to follow, especially when the reader has to refer back to a fact or date.

[csillagkohó · Rating 4 out of 5]

"We shall not understand the Russian Revolution unless we see that, for all their many faults, the Bolsheviks were fired by outrage at the exploitation that lay at the heart of capitalism and at the raging nationalism that had led Europe into the carnage of the First World War."

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

S.A. Smith helpfully treats “the Russian Revolution” in the larger context of growing unrest within imperial Russia from the late 19th century through the upheavals of 1905, the First World War, the abolition of the monarchy and the coming to power of the Soviets in 1917, and the tremendous, horrific, and exciting experiments and hopes of the Soviets until the time that Stalin consolidated power in 1928.

This book does two things that may help contemporary readers better understand the Soviet Revolution:

1) It was an outcome — and by no means the only possible outcome — of a process that reflected rising unrest among intellectuals, progressives, international socialists, workers, peasants, and Marxists that flowed steadily from events of the late 19th century.

In other words, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and the others did not suddenly appear from an otherwise placid society. The problems facing the Russian empire were no sudden developments, either. For over a century, Czars alternated between being relatively moderate and progressive men, often even reformers, and those who were repressive and fearful of change.

Russia’s greatest dilemma was a result of its entrenched and intertwined backward agriculture, its almost insignificant manufacturing and industrial capacity, its relatively small numbers of restive intellectuals and urban dwellers, and an inability to solve the problem of growing hunger for more freedom and reform when trying to control the reform process and limit it to an orderly process.

Even the most progressive Czars and their ministers were caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place: without attempting reforms they knew to be necessary — such as liberating the peasants from serfdom and encouraging more freedom of expression and experimentation — no real progress could be made, and yet, when attempting to initiate these very needed reforms they faced immediate and substantial resistance from those who had the most to lose: powerful landlords and those dependent upon the Czarist system. Compounding their difficulties, modest reforms unleashed uncontrollable expectations for even greater reforms among some elements of the populace.

Tragically, among the reactions to the reforming Czars of the last half of the 19th century were a number of anarchist groups who believed that only by destroying much of the existing system could any genuine reforms have a chance to succeed. In those grim years these various groups pulled off a number of assassinations of key government figures, sadly including the last reforming Czar. That assassination created the almost inevitable snap-back to increased authoritarianism, and led to the last Czar of the Empire who was both committed to the monarchic system and sadly intellectually and emotionally unequipped to handle the challenges the first decades of the 20th century would present him.

2) Americans, in particular, I suspect, if they think of the Soviet Revolution of 1917 at all, are likely to think that it was doomed from the first to produce the kind of strong-man rule Stalin initiated. Thanks to Smith’s book, however, which spends a great deal of space exploring the post 1917 years, we learn anew that a) this was truly a revolutionary moment in which many things were possible, and b) that many of the Soviets were the kind of reformers who wanted to create conditions of greater equality, dignity, respect, and without warfare and violence.

We read, with horror, of the terrible irony that after several years of enduring the brutal warfare of World War I — and all of its human and other costs to Russian soldiers and the Russian people — very soon after the Soviets were successful in gaining power they now found themselves engaged in a long and brutal civil war, in which conservative elements within Russia — including many of her generals and soldiers — joined with foreign troops (including Americans) in attempts to end Soviet rule and restore a more conservative order to Russia.

Smith makes it very clear that it was this costly period of time that a) caused many progressive efforts of the revolutionaries to fall by the wayside in order to deal with the necessity of winning the civil war, and b) prepared the groundwork — in society as a whole and within the Bolshevik party — for Stalin to slowly build the kind of personal loyalty that he skillfully used over time to isolate and pick off his primary rivals.

Stalin was NOT inevitable! Moreover, had the Soviets been granted a few years of peace following the end of World War II it is likely that more moderate elements may have succeeded in establishing a truly more egalitarian and peaceful state.

I highly recommend this well-written and thoroughly engaging book!

[Jerome Otte · Rating 4 out of 5]

A clear, readable and insightful work.

Much of the book deals with ordinary people, especially overlooked groups like women, ethnic minorities, or small states in Russia’s empire. Topics such as Russian culture and foreign policy are also covered well. He argues that Russian soldiers were the main driving force during the February revolution. The Civil War and the NEP are also covered thoroughly.

Some readers may wish for more in-depth coverage of certain topics, such as the Provisional Government, diplomacy, Allied intervention, or religion. Smith relies a lot on data, and the book doesn’t really have a gripping narrative if that’s what you’re looking for. It also lacks a bibliography, and seems to be based mostly on published sources. At one point he writes that Russian intellectuals survived the revolution intact, even though so many of them were killed. He also claims that the Bolshevik terror was inspired by fear and by the threat of reactionaries, even though it started pretty early on, before the Bolsheviks’ armed enemies organized. Elsewhere he writes that “there is no evidence that the Bolsheviks were in the pay of the Germans,” but doesn’t discuss this question in detail, nor does he explain exactly how they funded their activities if that was really the case.

Still, a well-researched, detailed and nuanced history.

[Pauly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Professor Smith's book on the Russian revolution, released to coincide with the hundredth anniversary of the events of 1917 covers the years 1890 until 1928, but its main focus is the years 1917 to 1924, with Lenin's death. His main reasoning for including the earlier years is to argue that the revolution happened due to the rottenness of the Tsarist state, despite some improvements in the area of agrarian reform prior to the Great War. The inclusion of the years after 1924 are to show a link between Lenin and Stalin in policy (except views on the world revolution), but a speeding up of modernisation under Stalin.

The book itself is packed with facts about life and society in the immediate post-revolutionary period, which having heard the author give a lecture at the British Library yesterday I can attest Professor Smith can quote from memory, that make it interesting to read, although at times heavy going.

[Elgin · Rating 1 out of 5]

A mile wide and an inch deep. Its been a long long time since I had so much trouble getting through a book. I am very interested in the Russian Revolution and have read several related histories, so was very excited to see this new study. However for a good part of the book I felt like I was wading through a data dump. It seems that with several new sources available in the former Soviet Union, the author now had detailed enrollment numbers for several parties, soviets, and other organization in several districts and towns. And we got it ALL. There was very little time spent an analysis, background, and interactions between the people who were the main vehicles of the revolutionary movement.

I would much rather have seen a one or two page data table giving the membership numbers, production numbers, etc. for various entities and then an in-depth, lengthy analysis of a few of them. As it was, most of the text seemed to be superficial quoting of statistics with very little documentation of reasons behind the numbers and forces that led to changes in the numbers.

[Cool_guy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steps beyond the Petrograd Soviet to show how the revolution was shaped and limited by the structuring forces of Russian history. Important to note that the Bolsheviks won because they briefly transformed into a mass movement, albeit one channeled by the tight discipline of the party, and that that movement had broad and expansive ideas of the potential of the revolution to democratize every aspect of regular people's lives. The failure of the revolution to spread to Germany and beyond, followed by the morass of the civil war, destroyed those possibilities. While the Bolsheviks prosecuted the war with brutal violence, and Lenin crafted a political structure which was vulnerable to dictatorship, Smith argues that this was not a decisive break with Tsarist rule. By 1928, the year the book ends, some form of "socialism in one country" was inevitable, although it is unlikely that Bukharin or Trotsky would've pursued state building with the same bloodlust as Stalin.

[Jordan McMullen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read this title as apart of my capstone class on the Russian Revolution. S.A. Smith does a very fine job of story telling rather than simply regurgitating dates and facts. It amazes me the extent of Russian suffering from the incompetency of the imperial government, the meddling of a sex-crazed magical wizard man, while the common serf starved… all while the country is locked in a major global war (and losing) it’s no wonder Lenin and the communists came to power…

Then to make the story all the better they then launch into a civil war for another 9 years after the global cataclysm. The experience of the Russians during this period of history clearly had a significant impact on their modern culture and actions taken in today’s geopolitics

[Eli Giltrow · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a solid look at the dramatic shift of Russia towards communism. The discourse on grain production under the provisional government was especially interesting.

[Nate Ewart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reads like a textbook. Which makes sense cause it was assigned to me as a textbook. Learned a lot but it was also kind of a grind. Pretty much just putting it on here to flex my Marxist knowledge. Toil on comrades.

[Frank Aulenta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Smith writes an excellent overview of the Russian Revolution. Perhaps he could've dove deeper into the personalities of the revolutionaries (was hoping for more Lenin and Trotsky), although I think this book gave me just enough to merit some outside reading on the topics covered. Would recommend.

[Eric Bottorff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nothing revolutionary here (pun intended), but an excellent overview of the current state of the scholarly literature on the causes of and years immediately following the Bolshevik Revolution.

[Prashant · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rating: 9/10

Useful, necessarily broad overview of the Russian Revolution. I think this is probably as close as you're going to get to an "unbiased" account of this extremely violent and important period of history.

Smith tends to stick to the facts (covering 40 years in 400 pages is tough), so you don't always get deep analysis or much of an editorial voice.

But when you do, it's generally* pretty great. Here are a few bits I found interesting.

-

On revolutionary language being well-suited to Russian culture (pre-October Revolution):

"Groups of critical importance to mass mobilization in 1917, such as soldiers and the non-Russian nationalities, did not fit easily into a class-based schema. The success of the discourse of class derived less from its accuracy in describing social relations than from the fact that it played upon a deep-seated division in Russian political culture between 'them' and 'us'...

The historian Mark Steinberg has called the language of class a 'flexible designation of otherness', a way of condemning the rich and powerful, or anyone else perceived to be acting against the interests of the common people. Class enemies were landowners, employers, officers, government officials, the police, and sometimes even priests, village elders, or foremen. It could be used against those who were believed to to have profited from the war, for example, but also against those believed to have undermined the war effort... The discourse of class could thus pick up and transmute the most diverse grievances, hopes, fears, and ideals of those Dostoevsky had called the 'injured and insulted'. But it was, above all, the term burzhui, a corrupted form of the foreign-sounding word 'bourgeois', that was most readily used by the less politically conscious to blacken those of whom they disapproved. Burzhui was as much a moral as a sociological designation of otherness."

"Millions still had only the vaguest idea about the ideological differences between the socialist parties but were captivated by an idealized vision of a socialist society. A typical pamphlet, entitled What is Socialism?, published in Minusinsk in eastern Siberia, explained: 'Need and hunger will disappear and pleasures will be available to all equally. Theft and robberies will cease. Instead of coercion and violence, the kingdom of freedom and brotherhood will commence.' This idea of socialism as the dawn of universal happiness resonated with the apocalyptic strain in Russian culture."

-

Later, he speaks more on language changes in the 1920s:

"Language in general became more formulaic -- evident in the use of slogans, fixed expressions, and stereotyped metaphors. The significance of this should not be minimized, since language, especially when it is articulated with social practices and political institutions, shapes the way we perceive the social world. There is evidence, for example, that peasants quickly learned to discuss village society in terms of the class categories approved by the regime, a good tactic if one wished to make claims on the state, justify oneself, or discredit one's fellows... The earnest efforts of worker correspondents and village correspondents - those tasked with reporting to the press on events in their milieux - to master the Soviet lexicon were touching, sometimes comical. 'We youth awakening from eternal hibernation and apathy, forming influence in our blood, brightly reflecting the good progresses and initiatives, step by step however slowly (are) moving away from old and rotten throw-backs and branches.' The strange words and locutions of official propaganda had an almost magical power for those said to be 'half-schooled.'"

Smith goes on to point out that official propaganda's effects were still limited by the Russian people's irrepressible sense of humor.

-

On Soviet nation building based on ethnic and language divisions in the 1920s:

"Within a loosely imperial framework, however, the 1920s saw a unique process of nation-building, as the state entrenched nationality as a major principle of socio-political organization... This was something of a paradox, since the Soviet Union at one level claimed to represent the transcendence of the nation state and, at a various times, deployed a rhetoric of ultimate 'fusion' of the constituent nations of the USSR into a single Soviet people. In practice, however, nationality, once seen as an impediment to socialism, was now viewed positively - as the modality through which the economic, political, and cultural development of the non-Russian peoples would take place.

A series of what historian Terry Martin has dubbed 'affirmative action programs' were devised to promote native political elites and intelligentsias and to further the use of national languages... This process, known as nativization (korenizatsiia), was designed, in Stalin's words, to produce republics and autonomous regions that were 'national in form, but socialist in content.' By institutionalizing the republics as political units and by creating national elites, Soviet rule helped to create quasi-nations, albeit at a sub-state level. Broadly, this policy of indigenizing the party-state was a success."

-

On the culpability of the KPD (and communist international policy) in Hitler's rise to power:

"The Sixth Congress [of the Comintern]... insisted that the phase of capitalist stabilization was over and that capitalism was now entering its 'third period' of development since the First World War. All cooperation with reformist socialists must end -- a tactic known as 'class against class' -- and the trade-union movement must be split by the formation of a 'red trade-union opposition'. The new policy had devastating consequences in Germany where the refusal of the German Communists to cooperate with the Social Democrats facilitated the rise of Adolf Hitler."

-

On underestimating the preexisting degree of violence in Tsarist Russia:

"In fact, purely in relation to the 1920s (Stalinism in the 1930s was a different matter), it is not obvious that Soviet society was more violent than its statist predecessor. Historians often fail to convey how ingrained violence was in late-imperial Russia, evinced in colonial conquest, police repression, counter-insurgency, terrorism by left and right, and anti-Jewish pogroms, extending, too, into more everyday forms of violence, such as practices of samosud ('self-judgement'), meted out by peasant communities on those who transgressed their norms, to the flogging of prisoners, to beatings in the workplace, child abuse, and wife-beating."

-

"The Bolsheviks are prepared in order to maintain their position, to make all sorts of possible concessions to bureaucracy, to militarism, and to capitalism, whereas any concession to democracy seems to them to be sheer suicide." - Karl Kautsky, in Terrorism and Communism (1919)

-

*Throughout much of the Conclusion, Smith displays what I would describe as a sort of counterfactual-driven optimism. I am more cynical in my view of what might or might not have been, but that's OK.

[Dylan Matthews · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s perhaps telling that I was recommended this by a Russian historian I consider vaguely Bolshevik-sympathetic, as an alternative to Orlando Figes or Richard Pipes’s extremely anti-Lenin histories, and yet I ended the book with vastly more contempt for the Bolsheviks and their project than I entered with.

“Their revolution wrought calamity on a scale commensurate with the transformation in the human condition that they sought to achieve,” Smith writes in the conclusion, and he has the stats and the qualitative portraits to back that up. One example: he cites data that in Petrograd, wages in 1916 were only 70-75 percent of their 1913 level. The tsarist autocracy had been using mass inflation and reduced worker wages to fund the war effort.

By 1920, after two years of Bolshevik rule and under the war communist system prioritizing the violent seizure of food for the army, real wages in Petrograd were only 9.6 percent of their 1913 level, or perhaps 38 percent if one included food rations and other in-kind benefits. The Revolution effectively doubled the harm to workers that the tsar’s war of choice had inflicted.

And Smith makes a decent case that the civil war was a war of choice on the Bolsheviks’ part too, and that a real coalition government of Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, and SRs could have proved durable and prevented a real White movement (which had to rely on SR supporters) from taking off. It was certainly a war of choice in that Lenin chose deliberately to effect a coup in October 1917.

Never doubt in the ability of a massive attempted overhaul of a complex society to go horribly wrong, and never abandon hope in the possibility of modest incremental policy changes to improve human life. They’re among the few things that ever have.

[Jeff Lacy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Whether it is my inability to catch onto the author’s style, I could not, for the life of me, comprehend this book. Information went in, nothing was retained. It was an endless barrage of information that marched before my eyes without a glimmer of recognition. It became endlessly monotonous. I would go back and read sections, whole chapters again and again. Even this did not help. it just built a ten foot wall of frustration. The book is very scientific in its approach laying out all the facts, numbers, statistics. His analytics were dry and circumspect. And this is where I believe he may lose us. It’s one big telephone book he has provided. For me it read like a telephone book. Sure you want facts—a chronicle and comment on causation—of a history book, but also want some story telling and that requires art and this is what this book lacks—some basic campfire storytelling.

[Differengenera · Rating 4 out of 5]

even-handed, a lot of detail. particularly good on the Soviets', use of the Red Army and other proxies to secure its peripheral zones during the civil war

[Avraam Kyriakidis · Rating 3 out of 5]

I just completed reading this book regarding the Russian Revolution. Overall, I found the booke very informative and as new to the topic, I really enjoy it as it provides a broad knowledge regarding the events prior to Revolution, what actually drove to the Revolution in the first place as well as how the regime affected the society in terms of economy, politics and culture after the formation of the Soviet Union.

However, I had some serious trouble following the book in many parts. First and foremost, there are so many names and organizations during the period that the book is covering that, as a new to the topic, I had some trouble remembering on what exactly did everybody did and how they affected the outcome of the revolution. Therefore, I feel that the book is really lacking a small index regarding the roles of each person and organization to the revolution.

Adding to this, I also found really disturbing the fact that the author includes a lot of statistical data . In some cases, I would prefer that these data be included in a table or a graph and avoid detailing all these data in the text. That way I believe that it would be easier for the reader to follow it and understand what the data actually represent.

Finally, the author also included a lot of cross-reference throughout the text. For example, in the last chapter of the Society and Culture, the author mentions at the beginning of the chapter the role of Proletkul't in the cultural shaping of the Soviet society, without explaining what exactly was its role. Then he spends the whole chapter cross-referencing this term without giving any detail, only to wait till the end of the chapter to get a view of what was its role in the society. This is just an instance as the author repeats this behaviour throughout the book.

Despite all these, I would still recommend the book for anyone trying to get a broad of Russia during this period.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a somewhat-new labour organizer I felt that it was pretty important to dig into the Russian Revolution, an inspiring moment in the history of pro-labour, anti-capitalist work, and where so much of the language of organizing comes from. More than that, I needed to understand why it failed. Smith lays it out non-linearly, which admittedly was confusing for me at times, but acknowledges that history is an interconnected web of events and ideologies, not a straight line. In the process he does a very good job of exploring all the different elements that lead to the Bolsheviks' rise and fall, and how various parts of Russian society felt about what went down. I don't know if I left the book with any real conclusions other than "damn, with hindsight it would've been hard for the revolution to succeed even if the Bolsheviks made every correct choice", but I can also see why some historians specialize in this specific period - the author of this book included. It's a dense moment in history whose events can have a lot of interpretations. Smith tends to take a somewhat "objective" stance, which basically means that I wouldn't give this book to a centrist, but I'm leaving it with a much better understanding of this moment in history, even if my own feelings on it aren't fully worked out yet. I will probably read another book about this at some point.

[Abel · Rating 3 out of 5]

With Russia in Revolution, Smith introduced a much-needed general overview of the Russian Revolution viewed in a broad timeframe.
Altough at some points quite dry, it incorporates new research, thereby challenging existing views rooted in ideas of tyranny. Especially the new research on violence during the Civil War is
Unortunatly, on other fronts aside of the great introduction of new research on violence during the Civil War it is not clear what the intention of the book is. It is introduced as an overview for interested readers and undergrads, but without proper foreknowledge, I doubt it to be much helpfull, altough it is an okay introduction of new research. For people with some or more prior knowledge, it stays on the conservative side, lacking new ideas and analysis.
By staying in the middle between an introduction for the broad public and an academic work, it is not able to satisfy both audiences.

[Mark Reynolds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intervention: considering the social dimensions of the revolution across a broad swath of the former tsarist empire. Smith attempts to understand the long revolutionary story, from the revolution of 1905 through the early Leninist period, through the lenses of not just class struggle but also of nationalism. Setting aside the Marxist idealism, Smith demonstrates that revolutions are made by ordinary people, rather than revolutionaries themselves. He holds that peasants were the central players in this story, that they were both the primary agents and victims of the revolutionary process. (5) Despite doing a bit of groundwork laying out his argument and intervention, Smith is primarily focused on reaching popular audiences with this book, and the prose is largely accessible and descriptive. Consider this among the most useful entry points into the field of twentieth-century Russian social history.

Would be interested to read more about the role of the Allied powers in supporting the White forces during the Civil War, as that was treated by Smith as a point of some interest but little consequence.

[Fernando Pestana da Costa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of a number of excellent books on the Russian Revolution that saw the light in 2017, in the Centenary year of that momentous event. Covering in slightly less than 400 pages (excluding notes and index) the period from the 1890s until the onset of the first quinquennial plan in 1928, this book is a very readable panoramic of the events, describing not only the political, economic, and military ones, but also dealing with the artistic, cultural, an societal issues. It seems to me as a perfect introduction to a broad overview of the Russian Revolution, with just the right balance between the detailing of events and the interpretative bent necessary for the reader to understand the big picture.

[Henry · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a comprehensive history of one of the more tumultuous periods in any country's history. Sometimes it reads like a college text, and there's a lot head-spinning with respect to dates, flitting back to ten years prior, then bouncing to two years ahead. The book does often get bogged down in minutiae of production goals, demography and the like, but it's worth being patient with it all. In the end, you're left with the feeling that the Russian Revolution was --and had to be-- uniquely "Russian" as much as it was an event in Communist history.

[Reid · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really strong history - clear, organized, detailed - not too heavy. Big takeaway - Ukraine means borderland in Russian and it was hugely instrumental in creating Russia's modernization, from grain exports fueling industrialization to the importance of the Donbass as industrial center and the Crimea and its ports for Russian trade. Cool parts too about rural failures of communist revolution and the constraints on utopian reforms in the 1920s and the New Economic Policy. Interesting read, especially the speculative bits in the conclusion.

[Liam Ostermann]

This is another book with two misleading titles - I looked for it in my library under the title which won an award 'Russia in Revolution 1914 - 1929' and couldn't find it so searched under the author S.A. Smith and I nearly didn't plough through the many hits, but I did, and found that a later edition was titled 'Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis 1890 - 1928' - even the dates are different! yet it is just a different edition, not even an updated or altered one - very confusing.

Still I hope to have a look at it one day.

[Barry Smirnoff · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Comprehensive history of the Russian Revolution of 1917

SA Smith is one of the leading scholars of Russian and Soviet History. He has created both a history and a guide to the literature of this period. He has broken down the analysis into sections dealing with various aspects of study and discusses historians positions on the issues. I recommend this work as both an introduction and a summary of current scholarship. It is well crafted and well written. Overall the best Revolutionary Russia book that I have read with this scope and authority.

[Dave · Rating 4 out of 5]

It really whips through events, and sometimes people are not given sufficient introduction as to who they are. But generally very good. The last couple of chapters in particular are really fascinating and the section on nationalism in Ukraine, etc during the civil war equally so. I just feel the book could have done with being at least 100 pages longer.

Not one for the casual reader, or one looking for narrative over analysis.

[Daphne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not for beginners or the faint of heart. While the author clearly has a masterful grasp of the subject, his ability to convey that information is tenuous at best. The book requires a working knowledge of the Russian Revolution to begin with. The text is inundated with dry data, sparsely contextualized with narrative. Overall, I would not recommend this to anyone not enrolled in a college Russian history course.