A People's Tragedy by Orlando Figes


finished 11/ 24 ............ non-fiction - history ................. rating 9

Figes makes the point that the Russian Revolution was a failure of the People, not the Marxist theorists or the revolutionaries or the capitalist system but the people of Russia themselves. He provides an incredible amount of information to back that up and yet, I somehow feel that to view it that way is blaming the victims and racially or culturally biased, in a sense.

Anyway, the book rather arbitrarily deals with the time period between 1893 (serious economic difficulties) and 1924 (Lenin's death) and that certainly plays into his basic theme, it focuses on far more than the revolutionaries and Marxism and far less than the whole history of bloody Tsars. The book also uses biographical sketches of people who illustrate Figes' point by being close to peasants or rejecting them.

He also uses more literary references than most historians (well, naturally, who wrote "Natasha's Dance"?). Doing that also lends credibility to the idea of the failure being due to a flaw in the people, because the intellectuals had a love-hate relationship with the peasants; they loved the idea and hated the reality.

So yes, Figes does make his point very clear and I certainly learned a lot about Russian history regarding the revolution (especially the aftermath) but I'm sure that there are other interpretations.

Posted: Sat - December 3, 2005 at 07:47 PM      

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