For those without the energy or leisure to digest Pipes's
magisterial history of revolutionary Russia (Russia Under the
Bolshevik Regime, 1994; The Russian Revolution, 1990), the author
has distilled his arguments concerning several key questions: Why
did tsarism fall? Why did the Bolsheviks triumph? Why did Stalin
succeed Lenin? The book, based on lectures given at the Institute
for Human Sciences in Vienna, has a nicely colloquial feel,
clarity, and vigor. At the heart of the answers to the first two
questions is Pipes's assertion that, far from being the product of
large, impersonal forces of history, the fall of the tsar and the
rise to power of the Bolsheviks (in, he reminds us, a coup d'etat
largely unsupported by the Russian people) were the result of the
old regime's clear failings and Lenin's genius for manipulation and
appetite for total power. Stalin succeeded Lenin, Pipes asserts,
because Lenin had so successfully suppressed all elements of
democracy that no alternatives were possible. There's little new
here, but the volume does offer a concise and eminently
straightforward summary of current research on the rise and nature
of Communism in Russia. (Kirkus Reviews)
It is my considered judgement that, had it not been for the Russian
Revolution, there would very likely have been no National
Socialism; probably no Second World War and no decolonization; and
certainly no Cold War, which one dominated our lives. I will
attempt here to distill the essence of my books The Russian
Revolution and Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime by raising the
three central questions addressed in those volumes: Why did tsarism
fall? Why did the Bolsheviks gain power? Why did Stalin succeed
Lenin?' Richard Popes, from Three Whys of the Russian Revolution.
Arguably the most important event of the twentieth century, the
Russian Revolution changed for ever the course of modern history.
Due to the Soviet clampdown on archives regarding the Revolution,
many aspects of the event have been shrouded in mystery for over
seventy years. However, since the collapse of Communism the
archival depositories havebeen thrown open to interested parties.
The author of several groundbreaking and controversial works on
Russian history, Richard Pipes has written an invaluable book for
anyone who wishes to understand the complicated events taking place
in Russia today.
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