Russia : A Concise History

by Ronald Hingley

Tremendous changes in Russia have enhanced the special fascination which this powerful, enigmatic country has so long held for the world at large. Russia's history, from her beginnings as a pagan Slav community centered on Kiev to superpower status, has its own unique rhythm. Appalling calamities have shaped the Time of Troubles; the Napoleonic invasion; two world wars separated by a great civil war; a multitude of famines and epidemics. Not least among these scourges have been leaders such as Ivan the Terrible and Joseph Stalin.

In this revised and updated edition, Ronald Hingley considers the recent astonishing the first steps towards liberalization, the collapse of communist rule throughout Russia's former satellite states, and above all the demise of Soviet communism and the disintegration of the USSR.

Russia's present can be better comprehended as the latest chapter in a long and enthralling history; a history―evoked here with the aid of over 200 illustrations―which is now being energetically reassessed by the Russians themselves. 205 black-and-white illustrations

Genres: History, Russia, Nonfiction, Reference, Russian History

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

About the author

Dr. Ronald Francis Hingley (1920-2010) was a scholar, translator and historian of Russia, specializing in Russian history and literature.

Hingley was editor of the nine-volume collection of Chekhov's works published by Oxford University Press between 1974 and 1980. He also wrote numerous books including biographies of Chekhov, Dostoyevsky, Stalin and Boris Pasternak. He won the James Tait Black Award for his 1976 biography A New Life of Anton Chekhov . He also translated several works of Russian literature, among them Alexander Solzhenitsyn's classic One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich which Hingley co-translated with Max Hayward.

He was a Governing Body Fellow of St Antony's College, Oxford from 1961 to 1987 and an Emeritus Fellow from 1987 onwards.

His son is the musician Tom Hingley.

Reviews

[Melissa Danilov · Rating 1 out of 5]

I stopped reading this a while ago towards the end of the book because this book is obviously biased on every page and inaccurate on every other page. I also didn’t realize it was first published in 1972. The author is some British dude who obviously had an agenda to follow. I was expecting real facts of what is. His choice of vocabulary is often too complicated in times when clarity is very important, and that vocabulary too often reveals his personal opinions when they’re not necessary. He didn’t fail to make Russians look stupid in every turn. I almost would’ve believed him if he didn’t make his Russophobia so obvious.

[Tallyn · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this specifically to just get a bare-bones understanding of Russian history before embarking on another cultural history book. Russian history was basically by-passed in my k-12 texts, and really only discussed briefly in relation to global conflicts in college gen-ed history... So, this definitely helped fill in the gaps.

It’s a quick and easy read, and is set up in a way that facilitates retention. I was left wanting to know more, but, I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. At least now I know what “more” I want to discover whereas before I didn’t know what all I didn’t know. I’ll always take the former over the latter.

[James Harbaugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was one of the textbooks along with supplemental materials (along with the novels, "The Death of Ivan Ilyich" and "A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovic") for a Russian/Soviet community college course back in 2008. The Cold War had been a fascination primarily due to the 'Red Alert' computer game series, James Bond, and a family tree with winter warriors. I kind of figured the war was over and didn't pay attention to revanchous attempts to reconstitute the Imperial/Soviet lands (and thought Putin was an Army Cornel and not prior KGB… it’s a dated text). So it’ll be interesting to reread it with a sense of how Russia wins or loses wars.

In terms of history there has only been one entity able to conquer Russia: The Mongols. By sacking Kiev, they were able to dominate the Kievan-Rus proto state. It was a Western proto-democracy started with Vikings trading from the North to Constantinople in the south. The Nordic Greek influence eventually permeated the slavic urban centers and they were democratic in an Athenian sense (Boyars or aristocrats electing a leader in the form of Dukes or Princes for Kiev and Novigrad). Volodamyr the Great converted the region to Orthodox Christianity in 988 (a Providential millenia span to usher in the fall of atheism once more) and borrowed heavily from the now defunct Byzantines. But that’s not how Russia under the Moscovite leadership of Ivan the Terrible (a name synonymous with the founding of the state of Terror) structured the political entity. It would be fair to say that the Mongols did not conquer Russia but created it as it maintains much of their territory and ways of operating with orthodox veneer in the cultural department that draws in many like a mask.

Adam Smith distinguishes between three types of agricultural systems and the population structures they form in “The Wealth of Nations.” The first were hunter gatherers who tend to have small populations and spend much of their time foraging with many of these areas being easy to dominate by the time of 1776 due to numbers and a lack of technological development. The third is settled farming with the most abundant populations working the land and fixed in certain locations. The second is the main focus for this topic in terms of nomads or herdsmen. The dynamics here can be superior to farming as witnessed by the turkic, arab, mongol, and other tribes. Smith notes the pattern that most ‘white settler states’ were former hunter-gatherer territories but many colonies were either inhospitable (malaria without sicklecell), advanced farmers (India or Indo China), or herders. The dynamic of the Asian Stepp can allow for massive amounts of grazing for livestock, pack animals, and war mounts that logistically take 10 times the food of regular troops (Rohener & Syme). That means one must keep moving but with good leadership and people skill, one could keep acquiring massive herds to acquire even more in a snowball effect. Despite the large numbers for a city state, being able to coordinate forces fed arcoss a massive area and quickly concentrate them on a point temporarily gives one a numerical and speed advantage along with the need to constantly move the entire population.

In being pissed off about the abduction of his wife Borta, Timugin became just such a leader with a chain of grievance for those who aided and ebbed his wife’s captors and their enablers in a chain that would cover the continent. He was thus able to incorporated each new tribe into his growing army and divide them from family and friends under his loyalist leadership and press on from more tribes and territory showing incredible people skills. Oddly enough it would be Borta’s son, (most likely fathered by here capture) Jochi, who would go on to have what is now Russia in his Ulus (the four way split between relatives). Kiev was victim to the concentration of force from herdsmen grazing across the planes and they came in the winter crossing streams. The main resistance was always sacked as an example to instill terror with the resulting propaganda and decapitation forcing capitulation among the others. So Kievan-Rus died to be resurrected much later in varying forms to the Ukrainian’s of today. But Moscow was a backyard fur post at the time and eventually selected for the role of cultural toady as described in “The Horde" by Marie Favereau. While she doesn’t use the term, the Jochi had problems getting taxes (material, personal, etc) from the former Kievan Rus cities and they needed a sell out to act on there behalf backed up by their might as satellite nation. Thus the Muscovite state gained in tutelage from the Khan master of steppe statecraft.

Favereau points out the the term horde is in relationship to order and the Pax Mongolic had many benefits. The ability to trade without heavy losses from thieves, multiple customs sites across borders, and inter-urban exchange from the horde’s protection and encouragement (along with a quasi postal system were important in the information space). Unfortunately, it is believed that such a boon to commerce on the silk roads eventually lead to the black plague from extensive fur hunting as mentioned in her text along with the collapse of the order. Ivan was able to rise up later after a tortuous childhood and threw off and the greatly weakened Mongols partially be being more ruthless than they. But as an aside, classic scarcity and population loss helped bring down proto Russian territory. That’s an oversimplification and perhaps a tad obvious but the Chinese state shows another way to bring about the fall of such orders.

Europeans suffered a ‘millenia of humiliation’ about tens times that of the Qing Dynasty’s disgrace. Though the Roman Empire had many flaws and modern life is still far better, the period between the 400s and 1400s was not a great time for most to be in the ruins of Rome. Peter Frankopan’s “The Silk Roads” covers how western history had a large gap from the fall of Rome to the exploration starting with Columbus and notes how Europe turned into a backwater then he period lurking from one crisis to the next with lower living standards than the former order while the silkroads blossomed. There were many causes as outlined in Peter Hether’s “The Fall of the Roman Empire,” with salination of the north African breadbasket, short sighted economic policies, etc. But one coinciding factor in both texts was the westward push of the Huns and the ‘barbarians’ (Vandals, Goths, Ostrogoths, etc) who are now today’s Europe into mass settlement in the region without romanization. The link are the Xiiongnu which were a nomadic tribe that pestered the Han Dynasty and started the avalanche that would result in Atila.

The larger point is that the farmer based dynasties (Han, Tang, Song, Ming) of China always had to worry about their northern base nomadic overlords pushing past the wall (Jin, Yuan {mongols}, Qing {Manchus}) and dominating the kingdom. The civilization that gave birth Sun Tzu and his “Art of War” quickly discovered that psychological warfare between nomadic tribes was the best way to ensure infighting and stopping a united horde. I’ve visited museums in Mongolia, Kazakhstan, and Turkey that mention the steppe strike of a left and right wing as well as a center and organizational structures are often extremely hierarchical with a 1:10 command pyramid mentioned. So the steppe tribes had to spread out to control lands and graze, try to maintain strong ties, but often using the leaders of such hierarchies to interface. So in that vast distance, there as change to influence one group against another or one case noted an emissary assassinating a tribal leader for fear of his abilities to pull tribes together (I’ll have to look at my photos to find the country and museum name as a source).

Fauvereau, notes a pattern to avoid this fracturing with the early horde in the form of the Quiralti. Essentially, all of the spoils of war or the territory where granted to the Khan first and he distributed them to their begs (nomadic leaders). Such meeting would strip the land quickly but one can see a parallel to the Tsars and serfdom surviving much longer in the Russian empire, the politburo in the soviet days, or the theft of state assets like Gazprom or Rozneft to the siloviki with subservient oligarchs (businesses and people can be used and allocated as the Khan sees fit.) The Cold War bore some resemblance to the Mongol map with Jochi/Golden Horde, (Russia), Ilkanate (Iran), Chagatai Khanate (Central Asia), and Yuan Dynasty (China pre Formosa, with Korea but not with Vietnam in this form). There were similarities and means of cooperation but also competition and infighting both in the horde form and revolutionary forms with the hope of Moscow at the center. Given the memetic strands in the cultural DNA of some national identity chromosomes, these differences will likely appear for expansive purposes but also be fault lines depending on political tack such as the SinoSoviet split. The worst thing to do is unify them by pushing them together with a common enemy. Ideally one could take the Chinese approach and deal with each independently or with coalitions of allies with mutually beneficial goals in regional balances of power.

Three Failures in Dealing with Russia

After the formation of Russia I find three notable campaigns into its heart that ended in failure for the European empires using European strategies. The first were the Northern Wars with the mighty Swedish empire and Charles the 12th; second with Napoleon the fall of France’s largest empire; and last with Hitler and a Nazi power that shouldn’t have existed but none the less was also destroyed.

+Von Clausewitz

-It’s a slog but full of wisdom with insights on the Napoleon campaign in real time. The driving factor it that it is about the enemy's forces and not territory acquired. If the enemy doesn’t have an army to defend the territory, it’s yours but just taking the territory leaves you open (I’d get grilled by hard core fans). All three times the Russians moved east burning their own land and harassing the pompous opposing army in an easy match. But eventually supplies run thin, winter sets in, illness, and equipment degradation.

-Tsar Peter was able to switch out the headman of the Ukrainians (Cossacks who were also democratic and not a fan off their overlords but much weaker independently) who had originally backed Charles and the Poles (also always trying to maintain real statehood) did not aid his rear so that the balance of forces dropped to 25K against 50K final battle of Poltava.

-Napoleon started with a Grande Armee of 300K down to 250K into Russia and half that by the time of Borodino from attrition with massive singular supply lines. The battle cost him 35K and the Russians 45K with the capture of Moscow which was a tinder box with no supplies and the adversaries army still in take. As the Clause notes, the heaviest losses are in retreat from broken forces where cavalry can mop them up without resistance.

Lastly Hitler and Stalin were best buds in the Moltov-Ribentrov deal and the carving up of Poland but both seem set on betraying the other. Stalin had moved much of his production capacity (the new form of mechanized force unlike slower horsepower) across the Urals in a repetitive preemptive retreat pattern. Hitler was cocky with all the land he quickly acquired and split his forces to take Stalingrad for psychological purposes and the Caucus’s for oil. Once again, the Clause premise of superior force would have entailed concerted ‘seek and destroy’ of the Soviet forces in a great power. Industrial wars would have made the commodity equivalent to more eventual mech troops and movement but that’s to be contrasted with Soviet force generation capacity and stock destruction as an opportunity cost. Additionally, the Ukrainians had just been brutalized after being freed from the collapsed Russian Empire only to be reabsorbed into the the USSR and starved to death in the Holodomor. They would have joined as equals and joined the ranks of the war machine but Hitler saw them as sub human slav and further weakened his own forces by manpower due to ridiculous ideology (the memetic sickness with his ‘empire’ by another name). {The three engagements are in DK & the Smithsonian’s “Battles that Changed History”}

Russian Ruble

Oversimplifying I see five broad patterns for when Russia loses control in two cases: the fall of the Russian Empire during WW1 and the Collapse of the Soviet Union. Like the old Mongol model, they are economic instability, demoralization from military defeat, internal leadership quarrels, technological lag, and lack of adaptive complex systems (top down structures without a wise Khan or heretical individual freedoms).

Romanov’s

This text points out how backwards was going to WW1 due far more contiguous land than any other empire and a reliance on serfdom with some land reforms (peasant land banks) coming in late with harsh culling of peasant protests. The Russo-Japanese War had a clear victor in 1905 with the Imperial Japan winning on land at Mukden and crushing the Russian fleet at Tsushima opening Korea and Manchuria (Russian targets). In a land where might makes right, revolutions soon followed as Alexander looked weak in defeat (something no Russian leader can tolerate) but revolts were put down and a Duma was set up for more representation but slowly clawed much of it back with continual dissolution of the body (90s as well). The agrarian economy couldn’t produce the industrial products of war fast enough. The Tsar led at the front for prestige but generals are specialists of general war and it left his wife at home with Ra-Ra-Rapsputin. The crown prince had hemophilia and the hypnotic monk was meant to aid in preventing him from bleeding out but rumors (natural disinformation) spread of an affair and that the Tsarian of German origin controlling the state was working for the Kaiser. Eventually bread ran out in Petrograd from a lack of bread, the Cossacks enforcing the law switched sides, and the Tsar abdicated. Later change would come from the Imperial German’s releasing Lenin in the hopes he’d wreak havoc on the empire.

Gorby

Aders Aslund has a great text titled “Russia’s Capitalist Revolution” which goes over the fall of the USSR in economic terms. The Soviets had vast wealth in oil reserves as well as an incentive and history in causing chaos in the Middle East with proxies to drive up prices (Kissinger’s “Diplomacy” details such affairs). With high prices and high quantity, the Brezhnev period saw a great stagnation with the resources curse and the ability to buy internationally and let Stalinist capital stocks hum away. The Soviets had moved into Afghanistan and were able to apply atheist principles to the modern urban areas with Tajiks (looks like the US in the 60s) but the more tribal areas like the Pashtuns divided by a border with Pakistan wouldn’t give up their faith. Mike Victers’s “By All Means Available” recounts the arming of the mujahadin with weapons in concert with the CCP to degrade the USSR. Stinger missiles eventually destroyed Soviet helicopter operations and doomed the security architecture and prompted a withdrawal. In the meantime the Yuri Andipov KGB coup had taken place since the Union had fallen so far behind, most of the leadership was old, and Catherine Belton’s “Putin’s People” describes the plan for a fast overhaul. Alsund’s book is under the assumption that the theft of Soviet assets by managers and the out of country wealth was the bug while Belton’s later work describes it as a feature. In any case, Gorbetrov was a successor to Yuir’s lineage and tried the policies of Parastroika and Glastnos after failed attempts to comprehend complexity in the form of the vodka example in Aslund’s work. In the meantime, Western autos were more efficient for less demand per car and more sources of oil were available and oil dropping in price around the globe. Suddenly the Soviet bloc had to be a grain importer from the US as the oil funds weren't covering imports and managers were selling off state assets decreasing capital stocks. Gorby represented the USSR as a whole and bickered back and forth as well as one upmanship with Yeltsin who was in charge of the Russian Federation. Once the Warsaw pact started to crumble with the fall of the Berlin wall there was a dilemma of no more grain imports and riots if force was used or letting states exercise autonomy. Between 89 and 91 the eastern europe was free and then the satellites (though Mongolia as the 16th with Russian troops leaving was hit hard by the lack of a 2nd world supply chain and liquidated factories). Chechnya would have started the fractal on the ‘federation’ level and maybe it still will.

Pooty

Invading Russia is a fool’s errand… especially since Russian weapon stocks are being depleted, the economy is stagnating with high inflation and production shifting to military equipment market for destruction, longterm oil capacities are being disabled, foreign reserves abroad are locked down, bright male Russian’s left en mass, technology is barred, and the land gains are only in the areas resettled and more susceptible to FSB brainwashing (which a lone solid strong point in deceit) but with massive losses in force potential. Ideally, the situation in Russia would grow worse (though he is liquidating untrained non ethnic Russians on the front lines without training to remove bulkanization threats in a slyer nazi manner). It’s a terrible karmic chain that's being formed around Russian leadership... the Turkish Military Museum noted how the onion dome was influenced by the stupa of the Uyghurs (a Turkic steppe people and Buddhist long ago) and it was carried west in memetic cultural diffusion. I wonder if that crosses the minds of the occupants of the Kremlin and or how so many of these actions violate the golden rule as a result of karma's equation. Janusz Bugajski's "A Guide to Russia's" rupture has several controlled pairing on ethnic ties to neighbors. If forces or funds get too low, maybe the Chechens will go to free their Tatarstan and Bashkortostan Islamic brothers to secure oil revenues and ties with Turkic peoples from Kazakhstan to Siberia. Perhaps Tuva and Buryatia go back to Mongolia, the Finns could get back their lands in the north, China would get Vladivostok, Japan could take Sakhalin and Kamchatka. Kaliningrad has a history of mutiny attempts, if one area decides to leave, who else will join this time? In a few years, why stay or who will stop them?

[Cartoisb · Rating 5 out of 5]

I expect that this the best short history of Russia available. While it is difficult to make a short history interesting when it is covering a topic so vast, the author accomplishes it in this book. The writing style is clear and concise and scholarly, but at the same time the author occasionally throws in a bit of witty sarcastic language that adds a touch of humour. This is an entertaining read, with photos and maps interspersed throughout (although I don't understand why in many places the relevant picture appears too early or too late as compared to the historical events described in the text to which it relates). The "concise" format actually works particularly well for Russian history, as covering everything in a short volume serves to highlight the themes and similarities that are consistent across the various periods of Russian history.

[Margo Allore · Rating 3 out of 5]

Too concise but the title did state - 'concise'. I read it after reading Children of the Arbat to have more of an understanding of Russian history. There are lots of pictures. I think it could be a reference book to check out things.

[Nicole Mosley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely concise. Russia's history is vast and rich. Still it's a decent starting point.

[Anne · Rating 4 out of 5]

If high schools offered a one semester class in the history of Russia, this would be the text they would use. That should give the potential reader an idea about the relative length and reading level of this book.
The "concise" in the title was accurate. The reader will get a very broad, surface level over-view of the history of Russia. I'm quite pleased, as that is exactly what I was looking for. I'd done some research into Russian royalty and needed to fill the gaps before and after. This book anchored what I'd already learned in the overall history of Russia and gave me lots to think about and research further in the coming years.
I'd recommend this to anyone with a passing interest in Russia, or just getting started with pursuing a deeper interest.

[Namrirru · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have an older edition of this book so I don't know if newer versions have been edited, but some of the satirical comments the author adds are really offensive and insensitive. As far as history is concerned, there's barely any text, mostly pictures. Stay away from this book. I picked this one up at a library fair for a buck. I want my buck back.

[Jake Robertson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful read for the history aficionado and Russophile. Cleverly and intriguingly presented historical information that spans the region's entire history from the Scythians to the Soviet Collapse.

[Rick Vickers · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading this book you begin to understand the terrible suffering the average Russian has had throughout history. A country besieged with such terrible leadership that still continues to this day.

[TJ · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too concise. Not as insightful as some others I read

[Blair Hodges · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked it.

[Tracy Friend · Rating 4 out of 5]

A long read, but worth it. I walked away with a much greater sense, knowledge and respect of the people who live in the vast expanse of Russia and how their history has developed.

[Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting, educational, concise