Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime, 1919-24 - Hardcover

Pipes, Richard

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0002720884 ISBN 13: 9780002720885

Publisher: Harvill Press, 1994

Synopsis

Continuing and concluding "The Russian Revolution", and completing the trilogy begun with "Russia under the Old Regime", this book however, stand on its own. It deals with the attempts of the Bolsheviks to defend and expand their authority from the Great Russian base which they had conquered in the winter of 1917-18 to the borderlands of the defunct Russian Empire and beyond, to the rest of the world. By the autumn of 1920 it became apparent that these efforts would not succeed, and that the new regime had to concentrate on building a communist state at home. The closing part of the book deal with the crises this unexpected development caused Russia's new rulers. In addition, the author discusses Communist cultural and religious policies. By treating these and other topics usually ignored by historians, the author seeks to fulfill the promise given in the introduction to "The Russian Revolution" to look beyond the struggle for power which is commonly seen as the quintessence of the Revolution, to its makers' designs and to their uses of that power. The book concludes with the death of Lenin in January 1924, by which time all the institutions and nearly all the practices of the future Stalinism were in place.

About this title

Review:

"Monumental...Lucidly written, unsurpassed in detail and comprehensiveness."--The Wall Street Journal on The Russian Revolution

From the Back Cover:

Taking up the story of the Russian Revolution from 1919, this final volume of Professor Pipe's trilogy discusses the Bolsheviks' attempt to expand their authority throughout Russia and outside. He focuses on the building of the Communist state at home and, beyond the raw struggle for power, on the broader issues of cultural and religious policies. The book ends with the death of Lenin in 1924, by which time the seeds of Stalinism were well sown.

"A major work of modern history – a book that for the first time recounts the horrific saga of the Bolshevik Revolution from a morally credible perspective... It gives us in fact an immensely rich and variegated account of virtually every aspect of the fateful upheaval... About this regime 'unknown to previous history' Mr Pipes has written an avowedly 'angry' book which communicates on its every page the author's intense feelings of moral indignation and spiritual horror at the human catastrophe it describes. About time, too"
HILTON KRAMER, 'New Criterion'

"To write about the Civil War at length is very difficult, because it went on everywhere and anywhere, with innumerable actors, and I have never seen it better done... Pipes replaces E.H.Carr quite easily"
NORMAN STONE, 'The Times'

"Will enlighten and enrage (the liberal academic establishment)... The chapter on cultural policies is the best short survey of its kind"
ORLANDO FIGES, 'Guardian'

"Brilliantly researched and wonderfully readable. Myth after distorted myth falls to his axe, as he hacks his way through the jungle of misrepresentation, and it is a delight to see how effectively the task is completed... It is frankly impossible within the space of a short review to do justice to the magnitude of Pipes' achievement"
NIKOLAI TOLSTOY, 'Literary Review'

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvill Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0002720884
• ISBN 13: 9780002720885
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 864