It's hard to imagine how a one-volume history of Russia could be
any better than this. U. of Vermont historian Daniels (The
Conscience of the Revolution, Red October) starts out with a
geographic and demographic sketch that is thorough and informative
and keyed to comparisons with the US. (The subarctic climate is
more akin to Canada than the US. The Russian ethnic mosaic
parallels the forced absorption of Native Americans and the
Spanish-speaking Southwest, and the annexation of Puerto Rico,
rather than the melting-pot image of European immigration.) The
Soviet Union's collection of minorities is sorted out both
linguistically and historically. (The Ukraine, Daniels says, shared
the Russian historical experience until the expulsion of the
Mongols - when the Ukraine was liberated by Catholic, and western,
Lithuania in the mid-15th century while a Russian national state
was unified around Moscow: there is no truth to the notion that the
earlier Kievan culture was a Ukrainian rather than a Russian one.)
Daniels handles the history of the tsars deftly, recounting the
autocratic developments that marked Russia off from Europe and that
have left their stamp on Soviet political culture. He interprets
the Soviet regime as a continuation of its Russian predecessor
(hence he uses the two terms interchangeably after 1917), with the
difference that it is wrapped in a revolutionary ideology. That
ideology, together with the vast difference in experience, partly
accounts for the mutual impenetrability of the two superpowers. It
is not the Bolshevik revolution that formed the present regime,
says Daniels, but Russian history and the post-revolutionary
disruptions of civil war and Stalinism. Similarly, it was
autocratic practices, and not Marxism, that underlay the methods
employed in forced collectivization of agriculture and rapid
industrialization at the expense of consumption. Following in the
steps of George F. Kennan, Daniels cautions that the Soviets harbor
a serious inferiority complex regarding the west and a deep-seated
desire for safe borders. The Kremlin is open to bargaining, but not
at the expense of its East European stability or in the face of US
threats. Noting President Reagan's remark that communism was
destined for the ash heap of history, Daniels responds that as an
ideology communism landed on that heap a long time ago, and adds:
"What is not on the ash heap of history, or likely to end up there
short of a holocaust, is Russia as a great nation and a major power
with aspirations to worldwide influence. No conceivable Russian
government will willingly play second fiddle to the United States."
The substantiation for that claim is all here. (Kirkus Reviews)
Robert V. Daniels' book "Russia: The Roots of Confrontation,"
first published in 1985, examines the historical contrasts between
East and West and elucidates the Russian enigma. The book springs
from the thesis that Russia's national character and its
international relations can be understood only in light of the
traumas and triumphs, privation and privileges that the country
weathered in its unique past under the tsars and the Soviets. The
author lays to rest the mistaken American view that Soviet behavior
was simply the application of Marxist revolutionary ideology. The
character of the Soviet system as it evolved after the Revolution
is shown to be a synthesis of revolutionary rhetoric, dictatorial
pragmatism, and traditional Russian kinds of behavior. Daniels
points out that no part of the world is more alien to Americans
than Russia, and he evokes parallels and contrasts with the
American experience to clarify the driving forces behind this
ill-understood superpower.
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