On 2007-11-25 R. L. Huff, Louisiana wrote: treatment of the ´Great Russian Revolution,´ utilizing recent scholarship and Professor Wade´s own rich analysis. Little-appreciated insights abound, such as the unfortunate Alexander Kerensky´s blundering actions providing the catalyst for the October ´coup.´
Yet I withhold the fifth star in this review because I differ with Professor Wade on a couple of important points. He is much too sanguine on the potential of the Constituent Assembly to deal with Russia´s problems by the time of its convocation in January of 1918. By late 1917 Russia was far too polarized for any parliamentary regime to fill the breach. For the CA to have been effective it must have been elected as scheduled in the late summer. Past that date, things had gone far beyond its powers. Even had it prevailed, it would still have had to deal with an insurgent left, and to defend itself would have had to rely on the old army to suppress striking workers, rebellious peasants, seceding minorities, mutinous sailors and soldiers, as well as invading Germans: a recipe for right-wing dictatorship. In fact the old army had betrayed Russian parliamentarianism twice: first in the attempted Kornilov putsch of August, 1917, and then by Admiral Kolchak´s overthrow of the Constituent Assembly in Exile in Ufa in November, 1918. Interestingly, the Socialist Revolutionary Party leader Victor Chernov had the unenviable distinction of having been overthrown twice in one year by both opposing sides: as president of the CA by the Bolsheviks, and then by Kolchak. The CA´s majority consisted of the same moderate socialists whose waffling on the war and popular demands for land and peace had already provoked the ´extremes of right and left.´ Parliamentarianism was too weak and Russia too riven for the CA to have been the happy end suggested by Professor Wade.
Also he posits that anti-Bolsheviks had ´no other choice´ but to take up arms after the CA´s closing. This is patently untrue. The next three years were rife with many non-violent opposition movements, specifically waves of strikes in the cities and industrial centers, as well as non-Bolshevik political opposition in the soviets. That these non-violent protests did not succeed no more counts against them than the failure of armed struggle to unseat the Bolsheviks.
These caveats taken under consideration, I still highly recommend Professor Wade´s book as an effective antidote to the cold war historiography which still stereotypes the subject.. And summed up by saying Overall, a very thorough. Currently The Russian Revolution, 1917 (New Approaches to European History) has an overall rating of 8 over 10.
The Russian Revolution, 1917 (New Approaches to European History) can also be found in the following searches:
Cambridge University Press claimed Rex Wade presents a new account of one of the pivotal events of modern history, combining his own long study of the revolution with the best of contemporary scholarship. Wade recasts the political history of the revolution while giving due space to its social history. He incorporates people often omitted, including women, national minority peoples, and peasantry front soldiers, enabling a richer and more complete history to emerge. The story is narrated with pace, verve, and exceptional clarity; the chronology, maps and illustrations give further support to the reader.
Item that are similar to The Russian Revolution, 1917 (New Approaches to European History) can be found at:
Buy The Russian Revolution, 1917 (New Approaches to European History) |