Critical Companion to the Russian Revolution 1914-1921

by Edward Acton (Editor), Vladimir Cherniaev (Editor), William Rosenberg (Editor)

Overview

The "Companion" constitutes a landmark in the study of the Russian Revolution and the ensuing Civil War. Published in parallel in English and Russian on the 80th anniversary of the October Revolution, it provides direct access to the finest fruits of modern research into the subject. It is able to reflect the impact on the study of the Revolution made by the collapse of the USSR; much freer access to the archives; current concern with the analysis of language, discourse and identity; and the new opportunities for collaboration between Russian and non-Russian specialists drawn from across the world.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780340763650
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	02/02/2001
Series:	A Hodder Arnold Publication
Pages:	800
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.80(d)

About the Author

Edward Acton is Professor of Modern European History at University of East Anglia, UK.

William G Rosenberg is Professor of Modern Russian and Soviet History at University of Michigan.

Vladimir Cherniaev is at the Institute of Russian History, RAN in St Petersburg, Russia.

Table of Contents

Main thematic groupings: principal events

Editorial Reviews

"One of the most comprehensive surveys of the new information becoming available about the Russian Revolution and the new interpretations of the revolutionary period."—Kirkus Reviews

"A landmark reference work."—Lingua Franca

"Breaks the mold of the anti-soviet paradigm."—Library Journal

"It is well edited, and the historians are well chosen...the collection as a whole provides a succint exposition of the different interpretations of key issues."—The Economist

"The truly impressive work is an invaluable addition to studies of the Russian Revolution, a book one hopes will find its way into all college and university libraries as well as into public libraries and personal collections."—Slavic Review

"Acton and his colleagues deserve great credit for bringing together the best of contemporary expertise on a host of historical problems."—English Historical Review

"A great accomplishment that will be useful to every student of the period for many years to come."—The Russian Review

From the Publisher

A great accomplishment that will be useful to every student of the period for many years to come.

The Russian Review

Acton and his colleagues deserve great credit for bringing together the best of contemporary expertise on a host of historical problems.

English Historical Review

[This] truly impressive work is an invaluable addition to studies of the Russian Revolution, a book one hopes will find its way into all college and university libraries as well as into public libraries and personal collections.

Slavic Review

It is well edited, and the historians are well chosen . . . the collection as a whole provides a succinct exposition of the different interpretations of key issues.

The Economist

A landmark reference work.

Lingua Franca

One of the most comprehensive surveys of the new information becoming available about the Russian Revolution and of the new interpretations of the revolutionary period.

The conventional interpretations have tended to be sharply divergent; the Soviet emphasis on the valiant party of the workers versus the Western emphasis on the role of the Bolsheviks in snuffing out democracy and establishing a one-party state. This survey hardly exposes the "glaring inadequacies" of the "traditional Western view," as Acton (History/Univ. of East Anglia) argues. Indeed, there is much here that thoroughly supports that view (including Orlando Figes's research on the peasant revolts against the Bolsheviks). But more important, the collection supplies an abundance of evidence that enriches our understanding of the period: the differences of opinion within the Bolshevik Party, of which even Lenin had to take account, the pressures on Nicholas II (Dominic Lieven notes that by 1917 the tsar was showing signs of physical and mental collapse—not surprising, he argues, when "even tough professional Western politicians seldom survive in top office above a decade"). Perhaps the biggest single divergence with the Western view is the growing belief among historians that the Bolsheviks won because they articulated the yearnings of the mass of the Russian population better than anyone else, rather than because they were better organized. That close relationship did not last long, and the Bolsheviks abandoned their promises as soon as they could, but, when combined with their ruthless cruelty, it was enough to entrench them in power.

No book of essays is an easy read, and there are inevitably some weak spots, including contributors who have nothing new to say, but this is a wide-ranging assessment of an area of historiography in the process of being reborn.

Kirkus Reviews