Richard Pipes’s
THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
“Masterful and timely … [Pipes’s] history blends uncannily with today’s … headlines.…
A brilliantly focused portrait.”
—Newsweek
“Pipes’s compellingly written account … is … a masterful culmination of his lifelong
investigations of the revolutionary period.”
—Newsday
“A truly impressive piece of scholarship … A fascinating treatise, certain to become the
basic research text on the subject.”
—Philadelphia Inquirer
“Panoramic … The rst attempt in any language to o er a comprehensive study of the
Russian Revolution … Pipes is not a mere communicator of facts but a philosopher
examining the deeper, broader trends beneath the surface of history.”
—San Francisco Chronicle
“Like his illustrious predecessor among students of revolutions, Alexis de Tocqueville,
Pipes has a broad, sweeping view.… An imposing achievement … His craftsmanship as a
writer … serves him well.”
—Boston Globe
“Pipes is an extremely knowledgeable and careful historian.… This is probably the best
overall study of those momentous events … a good, important book.”
—Cleveland Plain Dealer
ALSO BY RICHARD PIPES
The Formation of the Soviet Union: Communism and Nationalism, 1917–23 (1964)
Struve: Liberal on the Left, 1870–1905 (1970)
Russia under the Old Regime (1974)
Struve: Liberal on the Right, 1905–1944 (1980)
Survival Is Not Enough (1984)
Russia Observed (1989)
FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, DECEMBER 19
Copyright © 1990 by Richard Pip
Maps copyright © 1990 by Bernhard H. Wagn
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vinta
Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and simultaneously in Canada by Random House of Canada Limite
Toronto. Originally published in hardcover by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in 199
Owing to limitations of space, acknowledgment of permission to reprint previously published material will be found on th
pag
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Da
Pipes, Richar
The Russian Revolution/Richard Pipes.—1st Vintage Books e
p. cm
Reprint. Originally published: New York: Knopf, 199
eISBN: 978-0-307-78857
1. Soviet Union—History—Revolution, 1917–192
2. Soviet Union—History—Nicholas II, 1894–1917. I. Tit
[DK265.P474 199
947.084′I—dc20
91-500
v3
To the victims
CONTENTS
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
PART ONE
1
2
3
The Agony of the Old Regime
1905: The Foreshock
University disturbances of 1899 as beginning of revolution
Plehve and Zubatov
outbreak of Russo-Japanese War, Plehve assassinated and replaced by Mirskii: th
great Zemstvo Congress (November 1904)
“Bloody Sunday”
tsarism tries moderate reforms
the debacle of Tsushima and talk of a representative body
university turmoil resumes and leads to general strike
Witte advises concessions
emergence of St. Petersburg Soviet
the October Manifesto
Witte forms cabinet and represses radicals; nationwide pogroms
1905 as apogee of Russian liberalism
Official Russia
Patrimonialism
Nicholas and Alexandra
the bureaucracy
ministries
conservative and liberal officialdom
economic development undermines autocracy
the army
the gentry
the Orthodox church
Rural Russia
Household, village, and commune
land shortage
4
5
6
7
industrial workers
peasant mentality
peasant attitudes to law and property
changes in peasant mood after 1900
The Intelligentsia
Its European origins
sociétés de pensée
socialism as ideology of the intelligentsia
the ideal of a “new man”
emergence of Russian intelligentsia
revolutionary movement in nineteenth century Russia
the Socialists-Revolutionaries
Russian liberals
The Constitutional Experiment
Monarchy and constitutionalism
the Fundamental Laws of 1906
elections to the Duma
the First Duma
Stolypin
Stolypin represses terror
his agrarian reforms
the Second Duma and the electoral law of June 3, 1907
Stolypin’s political difficulties begin
the Western zemstvo crisis
Stolypins murder
assessment of Stolypin
Russia on the eve of World War I
Russia at War
Strategic preparations and Russia’s readiness for war
early campaigns: East Prussia and Galicia
Russian debacle in Poland, 1915
changes in government
emergence of the Progressive Bloc and Nicholas’s assumption of high command
bringing society into limited partnership in the war effort
Toward the Catastrophe
Inflation
the Brusilov offensive
rise of tension in the country
food crisis
Protopopov
the liberals decide to attack
Duma sessions of November 1916
assassination of Rasputin
last days at Tsarskoe Selo
8
plots against the Imperial family
The February Revolution
Mutiny of Petrograd garrison
the Duma hesitates to claim power
emergence of Petrograd Soviet and of its Executive Committee
Duma and Soviet agree on formation of Provisional Government
Order No. 1
abdication of Nicholas II
Michael refuses the crown
early actions of Provisional Government
Soviet undermines the government
land, Constituent Assembly, and war aims
revolution spreads nationwide
ex-tsar returns to Tsarskoe Selo
extraordinary rapidity of Russia’s breakdown
PART TWO The Bolsheviks Conquer Russia
9
Lenin and the Origins of Bolshevism
Lenin’s early years
Lenin and Social Democracy
his personality
his disenchantment with Social Democracy
emergence of Bolshevism
final split with the Mensheviks
Lenin’s agrarian and nationality programs
financial affairs of the Bolshevik party
the Malinovskii episode
Zimmerwald, Kiental, and connections with enemy agents
10 The Bolshevik Bid for Power
The Bolshevik Party in early 1917
Lenin returns to Russia with German help
Lenin’s revolutionary tactics
the April 1917 Bolshevik demonstration
socialists enter Provisional Government
Bolshevik assets in the struggle for power and German subsidies
the aborted Bolshevik street action in June
Kerensky’s summer offensive
the Bolsheviks ready another assault
preparation for putsch
the events of July 3–5
the putsch suppressed: Lenin flees, Kerensky dictator
11 The October Coup
Kornilov appointed Commander in Chief
Kerensky asks Kornilov’s help in suppressing anticipated Bolshevik coup
the break between Kerensky and Kornilov
rise in Bolshevik fortunes
Lenin in hiding
Bolsheviks plan their own Congress of Soviets
Bolsheviks take over Soviet’s Military-Revolutionary Committee
the critical decision of October 10
Milrevkom initiates coup d’état
Kerensky reacts
Bolsheviks declare Provisional Government overthrown
the Second Congress of Soviets rati es passage of power and passes laws on peace an
land
Bolshevik coup in Moscow
few aware of what had transpired
12 Building the One-Party State
Lenin’s strategy after power seizure
Lenin and Trotsky rid themselves of accountability to the Central Executiv
Committee of the Soviet
strike of white collar employees
the Council of People’s Commissars
accord with Left SRs and the breakup of the Peasant Congress
elections to the Constituent Assembly
decision to be rid of it
the dissolution of the Assembly
effects and implications
movement of Worker Plenipotentiaries
13 Brest-Litovsk
Bolsheviks and traditional diplomacy
German and Bolshevik approaches to talks
divisions in the Bolshevik command
initial negotiations
Trotsky at Brest
bitter divisions among Bolsheviks and the German ultimatum
Germans decide to be firm
they advance into Soviet Russia
Allied efforts to win over Bolsheviks
Moscow requests Allied help
Russians capitulate to German terms
Soviet government moves to Moscow
terms of Brest-Litovsk Treaty
first Allied landings in Russia
American reaction to Bolshevik policies
principles of Bolshevik foreign policy
14 The Revolution Internationalized
Small Western interest in Russian Revolution
foundations of Red Army laid
further talks with Allies
German embassy arrives in Moscow
Soviet embassy in Berlin and its subversive activities
the Czechoslovak rebellion
Bolsheviks adopt military conscription
Czech advances
the Kaiser decides to continue pro-Bolshevik policy
the Left SRs plot uprising
they kill Mirbach
suppression of their rebellion
Savinkovs clandestine organization
the Iaroslavl rising
Riezler fails in attempt to reorient German policy
further Allied activities on Russian soil
Bolsheviks request German intervention
Supplementary Treaty with Germany
Russians decide the Germans have lost the war
the problem of foreign “intervention”
15 “War Communism”
Its origins and objectives
“Left Communists”plan implementation
attempts to abolish money
creation of Supreme Economic Council
decline of industrial productivity
decline of agricultural productivity
efforts to abolish the market and the growth of a shadow economy
anti-labor legislation
trade union policy
effects of War Communism
16 War on the Village
Bolsheviks view peasants as class enemy
what peasants gained in 1917–18 and at what cost
food requisition policies and hunger in the cities
campaign against the village begins, May 1918
food supply detachments meet with resistance: massive peasant revolt
“Committees of the Poor”
assessment of the campaign
17 Murder of the Imperial Family
Russian regicide unique
the ex-tsar and family in the first months of Bolshevik rule
Ekaterinburg Bolsheviks want ex-tsar in their custody
Nicholas and Alexandra transported to Ekaterinburg
the “House of Special Designation”
murder of Michael as trial baloon
Cheka fabricates rescue operation
decision to kill ex-tsar taken in Moscow: Cheka takes over guard duties
the murder
disposal of the remains
assassination of other members of the Imperial family at Alapaevsk
Moscow announces execution of Nicholas but not of family
implications of these events
18 The Red Terror
Lenin’s attitude toward terror
abolition of law
origins of the Cheka
Cheka’s conflict with the Commissariat of Justice
Lenin shot, August 30, 1918
background of this event and beginning of Lenin cult
“Red Terror” officially launched
mass murder of hostages
some Bolsheviks revolted by bloodbath
Cheka penetrates all Soviet institutions
Bolsheviks create concentration camps
victims of Red Terror
foreign reactions
Afterword
Glossary
Chronology
Notes
One Hundred Works on the Russian Revolution
About the Author
ILLUSTRATIONS
1. Lenin, March 1919. VAAP, Moscow.
2. Nicholas II and family shortly before outbreak of World War I. Brown Brothers.
3. Viacheslav Plehve.
4. Remains of Plehve’s body after terrorist attack.
5. Prince P. D. Sviatopolk-Mirskii.
6. Governor Fullon visits Father Gapon and his Assembly of Russian Workers.
7. Bloody Sunday.
8. Paul Miliukov. The Library of Congress.
9. Sergei Witte. The Library of Congress.
10. Crowds celebrating the proclamation of the Manifesto of October 17, 1905.
11. After an anti-Jewish pogrom in Rostov on Don. Courtesy of Professor Abraham Ascher.
12. Members of St. Petersburg Soviet en route to Siberian exile: 1905.
13. The future Nicholas II as tsarevich. Courtesy of Mr. Marvin Lyons.
14. Dancing class at Smolnyi Institute, c. 1910. Courtesy of Mr. Marvin Lyons.
15. Russian peasants: late nineteenth century. The Library of Congress.
16. Village assembly. Courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
17. Peasants in winter clothing.
18. Strip farming as practiced in Central Russia, c. 1900.
19. L. Martov and T. Dan.
20. Ivan Goremykin.
21. P. A. Stolypin: 1909. M. P. Bok Papers, Bakhmeteff Archive, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.
22. Right-wing Duma deputies.
23. General V. A. Sukhomlinov. The Illustrated London News.
24. Nicholas II at army headquarters: September 1914.
25. Russian prisoners of war taken by the Germans in Poland: Spring 1915. Courtesy of the Trustees of the Imperial War
Museum, London.
26. General A. Polivanov. VAAP, Moscow.
27. Alexandra Fedorovna and her confidante, Anna Vyrubova.
28. Alexander Protopopov.
29. Rasputin with children in his Siberian village.
30. International Women’s Day in Petrograd, February 23, 1917. VAAP, Moscow.
31. Crowds on Znamenskii Square, Petrograd. The Library of ongress.
32. Mutinous soldiers in Petrograd: February 1917. VAAP, Moscow.
33. Petrograd crowds burning emblems of the Imperial regime: February 1917. The Illustrated London News.
34. Arrest of a police informer. Courtesy of Mr. Marvin Lyons.
35. Workers toppling the statue of Alexander III in Moscow (1918).
36. Provisional Committee of the Duma. The Library of Congress.
37. Troops of the Petrograd garrison in front of the Winter Palace.
38. A sailor removing an officer’s epaulettes. VAAP, Moscow.
39. K. A. Gvozdev. Slavic and Baltic Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
40. Soldier section of the Petrograd Soviet. The Library of Congress.
41. Executive Committee (Ispolkom) of the Petrograd Soviet. Slavic and Baltic Division, The New York Public Library, Astor
Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
42. Prince G. Lvov.
43. Alexander Kerensky.
44. N. D. Sokolov drafting Order No. 1: March 1, 1917.
45. Political meeting at the front: Summer 1917. Niva, No. 19 (1917).
46. Grand Duke Michael.
47. Officer candidates (iunkers) parading in Petrograd: March 1917.
48. Ex-Tsar Nicholas at Tsarskoe Selo, March 1917, under house arrest. The Library of Congress.
49. Leonid Krasin.
50. Lenin: Paris 1910.
51. Kerensky visiting the front: summer 1917. Courtesy Bakhmeteff Archive, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia
University.
52. Russian soldiers fleeing Germans: July 1917. The Daily Mirror (London).
53. The July 1917 events.
54. P. N. Pereverzev. Niva, No. 19 (1917).
55. The Palace Square in Petrograd after the suppression of the Bolshevik putsch.
56. Mutinous soldiers of the 1st Machine Gun Regiment disarmed: July 5, 1917. VAAP, Moscow.
57. Leon Trotsky.
58. General Lavr Kornilov.
59. Kornilov feted on his arrival at the Moscow State Conference.
60. Vladimir Lvov.
61. N. V. Nekrasov.
62. Soldiers of the “Wild Division” meet with the Luga Soviet.
63. The Military-Revolutionary Committee (Milrevkom).
64. Grigorii Zinoviev. Slavic and Baltic Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
65. L. B. Kamenev. Courtesy of the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum, London.
66. N. I. Podvoiskii.
67. Cadets (iunkers) defending the Winter Palace: October 1917.
68. The Winter Palace, after being seized and looted by the Bolsheviks. VAAP, Moscow.
69. The Assembly Hall in Smolnyi.
70. Cadets defending the Moscow Kremlin: November 1917. VAAP, Moscow.
71. Fires burning in Moscow during battle between loyal and Bolshevik forces: November 1917. VAAP, Moscow.
72. Iakov Sverdlov.
73. Latvians guarding Lenin’s office in Smolnyi. State Museum of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Leningrad.
74. Lenin and secretarial staff of the Council of People’s Commissars. VAAP, Moscow.
75. One of the early meetings of the Council of People’s Commissars. VAAP, Moscow.
76. Voting for the Constituent Assembly.
77. Electoral poster of the Constitutional-Democrats. Poster Collection, Hoover Institution Archives.
78. F. M. Onipko. Niva, No. 19 (1917).
79. Victor Chernov. Slavic and Baltic Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
80. The Russian delegation arrives at Brest-Litovsk.
81. The signing of the Armistice at Brest.
82. Russian and German troops fraternizing: Winter 1917–18. Culver Pictures.
83. Kurt Riezler.
84. A. Ioffe.
85. Armored train of Czech Legion in Siberia: June 1918. Courtesy of the Trustees of the Imperial War Museum, London.
86. General Gajda, Commander of the Czech Legion. National Archives, Washington, D.C.
87. Maria Spiridonova. Isaac N. Steinberg Collection, Yivo Institute for Jewish Research, New York.
88. Colonel I. Vatsetis.
89. Boris Savinkov.
90. Lieutenant-Colonel A. P. Perkhurov.
91. A German-Russian love affair: contemporary Russian cartoon.
92. Iurii Larin.
93. A common sight on the streets of Moscow and Petrograd in 1918–21. Hoover Institution Archives: Boris Sokoloff
Collection.
94. A typical peasant “bourgeois-capitalist.”
95. Ipatev’s house—the “House of Special Designation.”
96. Ipatev’s house surrounded by a palisade. National Archives, Washington, D.C.
97. Alexis and Olga on board the ship Rus’.
98. The murderer of Nicholas II, Iurovskii, with his family.
99. Isaac Steinberg. Slavic and Baltic Division, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
100. Feliks Dzerzhinskii.
101. Fannie Kaplan. David King Collection, London.
102. Dzerzhinskii and Stalin.
MAPS
Russian Empire circa 1900
European Russia
Petrograd
German Advance into Russia, 1917–1918
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the course of working on this book I have bene ted from the generous support of
the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Smith Richardson Foundation, to
which I would like to express my warm appreciation. I am also grateful to the Hoover
Institution at Stanford, California, for giving me access to its unrivaled collections.
ABBREVIATIONS
ARR
Arkhiv russkoi revoliutsii
BK
Bor’ba klassov
BM
Berliner Monatshefte
Brogkauz & Efron
Entsiklopedicheskii Slovar’ Ob-va Brogkauz i Efron, 41 vols.
BSE
Bol’shaia sovetskaia entsiklopediia, 65 vols.
Dekrety
Dekrety sovetskoi vlasti, 11 vols. (Moscow, 1957– )
DN
Delo naroda
EV
Ekonomicheskii vestnik
EZh
Ekonomicheskaia zhizn’
Forschungen
Forschungen zur Osteuropäischen Geschichte
GM
Golos minuvshego
Granat
Entsiklopedicheskii Slovar’ Tov-va Granat, 55 vols.
IA
Istoricheskii arkhiv
IM
Istorik Marksist
IR
Illustrirovannaia Rossiia
ISSSR
Istoriia SSSR
IV
Istoricheskii vestnik
IZ
Istoricheskie zapiski
Jahrbücher
Jahrbücher für Geschichte Osteuropas
KA
Krasnyi arkhiv
KL
Krasnaia letopis’
KN
Krasnaia nov’
Lenin, Khronika
Lenin, PSS
V. I. Lenin: Biograficheskaia Khronika, 1870–1924, 13 vols.
(Moscow, 1970–85)
V. I. Lenin, Polnoe Sobranie sochinenii, 5th ed. 55 vols.
(Moscow, 1958–65)
Lenin, Sochineniia
V. I. Lenin, Sochineniia, 3rd ed., 30 vols.
(Moscow-Leningrad, 1927–33)
LN
Literaturnoe nasledstvo
LS
Leninskii sbornik
MG
Minuvshie gody
NChS
Na chuzhoi storone
ND
Novyi den’
NKh
Narodnoe khoziaistvo
NoV
Novoe vremia
NS
Nashe slovo
NV
Nash vek
NVCh
Novyi vechernyi chas
NZ
Die Neue Zeit
NZh
Novaia zhizn’
OD
Padenie
L. Martov et al, eds., Obshchestvennoe dvizhenie v Rossii v
nachale XX veka, 4 vols. (St. Petersburg, 1910–14)
P. E. Shcheglovitov, ed., Padenie tsarskogo rezhima, 7 vols.
(Leningrad, 1924–27)
PN
Poslednie novosti
PR
Proletarskaia revoliutsiia
PRiP
Proletarskaia revoliutsiia i pravo
Revoliutsiia
N. Avdeev et al., Revoliutsiia 1917 goda:
khronika sobytii, 6 vols. (Moscow, 1923–30)
RL
Russkaia letopis’
RM
Russkaia mysl’
RR
Russian Review
RS
Russkoe slovo
RV
Russkie vedomosti
RZ
Russkie zapiski
SB
Staryi Bol’shevik
SD
Sotsial-Demokrat
SiM
Strana i mir
SR
Slavic Review
SS
Soviet Studies
SUiR
Sobranie uzakonenii i rasporiazhenii
SV
Sotsialisticheskii vestnik
SZ
Sovremennye zapiski
VCh
Vechernyi chas
VE
Vestnik Evropy
VI
Voprosy istorii
VIKPSS
Voprosy istorii KPSS
VO
Vechernye ogni
VS
Vlast’ sovetov
VZ
Vierteljahreshefte für Zeitgeschichte
VZh
Vestnik zhizni
ZhS
Zhivoe slovo
INTRODUCTION
This book is the rst attempt in any language to present a comprehensive view of the Russia
Revolution, arguably the most important event of the century. There is no shortage o
surveys of the subject, but they concentrate on the political and military struggles for powe
over Russia between 1917 and 1920. Seen from the perspective of time, however, the Russia
Revolution was a great deal more than a contest for power in one country: what the victo
in that contest had in mind was de ned by one of its leading protagonists, Leon Trotsky, a
no less than “overturning the world.” By that was meant a complete redesign of stat
society, economy, and culture all over the world for the ultimate purpose of creating a ne
human being.
These far-reaching implications of the Russian Revolution were not evident in 1917–18, i
part because the West considered Russia to lie on the periphery of the civilized world and i
part because the Revolution there occurred in the midst of a World War of unprecedente
destructiveness. In 1917–18 it was believed by virtually all non-Russians that what ha
occurred in Russia was of exclusively local importance, irrelevant to them and in any even
bound to settle down once peace had been restored. It turned out otherwise. Th
repercussions of the Russian Revolution would be felt in every corner of the globe for the re
of the century.
Events of such magnitude have neither a clear beginning nor a neat end. Historians hav
long argued over the terminal dates of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and th
Enlightenment. Similarly, there is no indisputable way to determine the time span of th
Russian Revolution. What can be said with certainty is that it did not begin with the collaps
of tsarism in February–March 1917 and conclude with the Bolshevik victory in the Civil Wa
three years later. The revolutionary movement became an intrinsic element of Russia
history as early as the 1860s. The rst phase of the Russian Revolution in the narrow sense o
the word (corresponding to the constitutional phase of the French Revolution, 1789–92
began with the violence of 1905. This was brought under control by a combination o
concessions and repression, but violence resumed on an even grander scale after a hiatus o
twelve years, in February 1917, culminating in the Bolshevik coup d’etat of October. Afte
three years of ghting against internal and external opponents, the Bolsheviks succeeded i
establishing undisputed mastery over most of what had been the Russian Empire. But the
were as yet too weak to realize their ambitious program of economic, social, and cultur
transformation. This had to be postponed for several years to give the ravaged country tim
to recover. The Revolution was resumed in 1927–28 and consummated ten years later afte
frightful upheavals that claimed millions of lives. It may be said to have run its course onl
with the death of Stalin in 1953, when his successors initiated and carried out, by ts an
starts, a kind of counterrevolution from above, which in 1990 appears to have led to
rejection of a good part of the Revolution’s legacy.
Broadly de ned, the Russian Revolution may thus be said to have lasted a century.
process of such duration in a country of Russia’s size and population was bound to b
exceedingly complex. An autocratic monarchy that had ruled Russia since the fourteent
century could no longer cope with the demands of modernity and gradually lost out to
radical intelligentsia in whom commitment to extreme Utopian ideas combined with
boundless lust for power. Like all such drawn-out processes, however, it had its culminatin
period. In my estimation, that period was the quarter of a century extending from th
outbreak of large-scale unrest at Russian universities in February 1899 to the death of Leni
in January 1924.
Because the aspirations of the intellectuals who assumed power in October 1917 were s
extreme, I found it necessary to treat many topics besides the customary political-militar
power struggle. To the Russian revolutionaries, power was merely a means to an end, whic
was the remaking of the human species. In the rst years of their rule they lacked th
strength to attain an objective so contrary to what their people desired, but they did try an
in so doing laid the foundations of the Stalinist regime, which would resume the attempt wit
far greater resources. I devote considerable attention to these social, economic, and cultur
antecedents of Stalinism, which, even if only imperfectly realized under Lenin, from th
outset lay at the very heart of the Russian Revolution.
This volume is divided into two parts.
Part I, “The Agony of the Old Regime,” describes the decay of tsarism, culminating in th
mutiny of the Petrograd military garrison in February 1917, which in surprisingly short tim
not only brought down the monarchy but tore apart the country’s political and social fabri
It is a continuation of my Russia under the Old Regime, which traced the development of th
Russian state and society from their origins to the end of the nineteenth century. Part II, “Th
Bolsheviks Conquer Russia,” recounts how the Bolshevik Party seized power rst i
Petrograd and then in the provinces inhabited by Great Russians, imposing on this region
one-party regime with its terror apparatus and centralized economic system. Both these par
appear in the present volume. A sequel, Russia under the New Regime, will deal with the Civ
War, the separation and reintegration of the non-Russian borderlands, Soviet Russia
international activities, Bolshevik cultural policies, and the Communist regime as it too
shape in the final year of Lenin’s dictatorship.
The di culties confronting a historian of a subject of such complexity and magnitude ar
formidable. They are not, however, as is commonly believed, caused by a shortage o
sources: although some of these are, indeed, inaccessible (especially documents bearing o
Bolshevik decision-making), the source materials are quite su cient, far beyond the capacit
of any individual to absorb. The historian’s problem, rather, is that the Russian Revolution
being part of our own time, is di cult to deal with dispassionately. The Soviet Governmen
which controls the bulk of the source materials and dominates the historiography, derives i
legitimacy from the Revolution and wants it treated in a manner supportive of its claims. B
single-mindedly shaping the image of the Revolution over decades it has succeeded i
determining not only how the events are treated but which of them are treated. Among th
many subjects that it has con ned to historiographic limbo are the role of the liberals in th
1905 and 1917 revolutions; the conspiratorial manner in which the Bolsheviks seized powe
in October; the overwhelming rejection of Bolshevik rule half a year after it had come int
being, by all classes, including the workers; Communist relations with Imperial Germany i
1917–1918; the military campaign of 1918 against the Russian village; and the famine o
1921, which claimed the lives of over ve million people. Writing a scholarly history of th
Russian Revolution, therefore, demands, in addition to absorbing an immense mass of fact
also breaking out of the mental straitjacket that seventy years of politically directe
historiography have managed to impose on the profession. This situation is not unique t
Russia. In France, too, the revolution was for a long time mainly grist for political polemic
the rst academic chair devoted to its history was founded at the Sorbonne only in the 1880
a century after the event, when the Third Republic was in place and 1789 could be treate
with some degree of dispassion. And still the controversy has never abated.
But even approached in a scholarly manner, the history of modern revolutions cannot b
value-free: I have yet to read an account of the French or the Russian revolution that does no
reveal, despite most authors’ intention to appear impartial, where the writer’s sympathies li
The reason is not far to seek. Post-1789 revolutions have raised the most fundamental ethic
questions: whether it is proper to destroy institutions built over centuries by trial and erro
for the sake of ideal systems; whether one has the right to sacri ce the well-being and eve
the lives of one’s own generation for the sake of generations yet unborn; whether man can b
refashioned into a perfectly virtuous being. To ignore these questions, raised already b
Edmund Burke two centuries ago, is to turn a blind eye to the passions that had inspire
those who made and those who resisted revolutions. For post-1789 revolutionary struggles, i
the final analysis, are not over politics but over theology.
This being the case, scholarship requires the historian to treat critically his sources and t
render honestly the information he obtains from them. It does not call for ethical nihilism
that is, accepting that whatever happened had to happen and hence is beyond good and evi
the sentiment of the Russian philosopher Nicholas Berdiaev, who claimed that one could n
more judge the Russian Revolution than the coming of the Ice Age or the fall of the Roma
Empire. The Russian Revolution was made neither by the forces of nature nor by anonymou
masses but by identi able men pursuing their own advantages. Although it had spontaneou
aspects, in the main it was the result of deliberate action. As such it is very properly subje
to value judgment.
Recently, some French historians have called for an end to the discussion of the causes an
meaning of the French Revolution, declaring it to be “terminated.” But an occurrence tha
raises such fundamental philosophical and moral questions can never end. For the dispute
not only over what has happened in the past but also over what may happen in the future.
Chesham, New Hampshire
May 1989
Richard Pipes
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