Best account of the Russian Revolution?

[Niccolò Rossi]

What would you recommend as the best account (whether measured in terms of detail, thoroughness, objectivity or what ever other criteria you like) of Russian Revolutions (1905, February 1917, October 1917 and after)?

[Tower of Bebel]

I would recommend The History of the Russian Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1930/hrr/index.htm) (L. Trotsky) and The Year 1905 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1907/1905/index.htm) (L. Trotsky). The History of the Russian Revolution is relatively easy to find in book stores (compared to other books).

(edit) Also: Then Days that Shook the World (http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1919/10days/10days/index.htm) is interesting! And The Russian Revolution (http://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1918/russian-revolution/index.htm) (R. Luxemburg)

[ComradeOm]

(edit) Also: Then Days that Shook the World (http://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/1919/10days/10days/index.htm) is interesting!I must read for anyone interested in the October Revolution. Not as a factual source of course but as a journalistic work (perfectly capturing the excitement and tension of those revolutionary days) its really unsurpassed. Its also available from Penguin Classics

For a factual resource probably the best single volume on the market today is Figes' A People's Tragedy[i]. He's not a Marxist but nonetheless Figes places the Revolution in its social and historic context. A word of warning: he's [I]very poor on the Bolsheviks and their motivations (and the last third of the book suffers accordingly, especially in comparison to the excellent analysis of Tsarist failings) but if you know enough you can fill in the blanks yourself

More balanced than Figes is Fitzpatrick. Her Russian Revolution is probably the best introduction to the Revolution and the one that I'd recommend to all newcomers. Its concise (read: short) but covers the major themes without obvious bias and has the advantage in covering the Revolution to its conclusion in 1936

[JimmyJazz]

I have done a lot of looking and haven't found anything that great. The one book I ended up reading was The Russian Revolution (http://www.amazon.com/Russian-Revolution-Sheila-Fitzpatrick/dp/0192802046) by Sheila Fitzpatrick, which was good as far as giving basic facts but had no analysis and really left me wanting a lot more.

As of right now I'm waiting for Kevin Murphy (http://books.google.com/books?id=7q2ipV7fQSQC&dq=Kevin+Murphy&pg=PP1&ots=JMqdRdh5-I&sig=2ZdCaj5Xvf2YIxeYjOyJMVgF4vo&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result)'s book called A People's History of the Russian Revolution, which is supposed to come out in '09, I think.

[DiaMat86]

My favorites are "Ten Days that Shook The World" by John Reed and "The Bolsheviks come to power" By Rabinowich

[OI OI OI]

Ten days that shook the world is good but not as detailed as The History of the Russian Revolution by Trotsky which is a must-read for anyone interested in the Russian revolution.

[Charles Xavier]

Ten days that shook the world hands down.

"With the greatest interest and with never slackening attention I read John Reed’s book, Ten Days that Shook the World. Unreservedly do I recommend it to the workers of the world. Here is a book which I should like to see published in millions of copies and translated into all languages. It gives a truthful and most vivid exposition of the events so significant to the comprehension of what really is the Proletarian Revolution and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. These problems are widely discussed, but before one can accept or reject these ideas, he must understand the full significance of his decision. John Reed’s book will undoubtedly help to clear this question, which is the fundamental problem of the international labor movement."

LENIN.
End of 1919.

[Poum_1936]

The last section in Alan Woods' book Bolshevism: the Road to Revolution has the events from Febuary to October in 1917. Its worth a look.

http://www.marxist.com/bolshevism-road-revolution-lenin-trotsky.htm

[Lamanov]

I see very few people suggested actual scientific book that could be regarded less biased in relation to Trotsky or Woods.

Try E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution.

[Tower of Bebel]

I see very few people suggested actual scientific book that could be regarded less biased in relation to Trotsky...
Trotsky may be someone who defends his own opinion, the book (History of the Russian Revolution) is still a fine piece, and he did not intend to lie or hide facts. But you're right, we should read some more/other "scientific" works.

[Hit The North]

Victor Serge's Memoirs of a Revolutionary is well worth a read, particularly his observations of the rise of Stalin and what he calls the failure of the revolution.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Just out of curiousity: has anyone read Black Night, White Snow: Russia's Revolutions, 1905-1917 by Harrison Salisbury? I've seen it in the library before, and have thought about reading it.

I've read a good deal of his other book, The 900 Days: The Siege of Leningrad.

[Random Precision]

Year One of the Russian Revolution by Victor Serge, plus the works by Trotsky, Reed, and Carr that were already mentioned.

[Philosophical Materialist]

Try E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution.

I would second this suggestion.

[IronColumn]

The Unknown Revolution, 1917-1921, by Voline.

[Niccolò Rossi]

Try E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution.

Just to clarify, it's in 3 volumes right? Part of the History of Soviet Russia series?

[Devrim]

Somebody pmed me asking me to comment on this. I have never read Carr, but have read Trotsky, and would recommend it. Bob's recommendation Victor Serge's Memoirs of a Revolutionary is well worth a readas his Year One of the Russian Revolution: http://marxists.org/archive/serge/1930/year-one/index.htm While we are on the subject of Serge, the third novel in the trilogy, Conquered City: http://marxists.org/archive/serge/1932/conqcity/index.htm which is about the Petrograd in 1920 is a superb book.

Reed's work is enjoyable, but it must be remembered that it is a novelization of the subject. In my version at least Lenin warns of this is the introduction.

My favourite book on the Russia experience is Ciliga's The Russian Enigma. It doesn't cover the revolution itself, but its degeneration seen via the experiences of a foriegn communist visitor to Russia.

Devrim

[Bilan]

What would you recommend as the best account (whether measured in terms of detail, thoroughness, objectivity or what ever other criteria you like) of Russian Revolutions (1905, February 1917, October 1917 and after)?

I recommended a good one to you on msn!

The Bolsheviks and Workers Control is a fantastic account.

[Lamanov]

Trotsky may be someone who defends his own opinion, the book (History of the Russian Revolution) is still a fine piece, and he did not intend to lie or hide facts. But you're right, we should read some more/other "scientific" works.

I agree, it is a useful and thorough work.

[Junius]

Trotsky is good.

Maybe this (http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/memoir/RusRev/RRTC.htm#TC) will be helpful. Williams, a socialist, went to Russia with John Reed.

http://net.lib.byu.edu/~rdh7/wwi/memoir/RusRev/images/rr06.jpg

[Tower of Bebel]

I also found some articles from the ICC worth reading. Not always because of the conclusion, but mostly because of the "proletarian" point of view (as opposed to the "partyist" point of view). And I recently read this: Genesis of bureaucratic socialism (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/theory/su.htm) (parts 1 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/176/genesis_1.html), 2 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/177/genesis_2.html) and 3 (http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/178/genesis_3.html)). It's an amazing piece on the degeneration of the socialist revolution into "bureaucratic socialism". It explains the materialist basis for this deformation very well, and it refers to many other books, articles and letters.

[Reclaimed Dasein]

I highly recommend Stalin: A Political Biography http://www.pep-web.org/document.php?id=PAQ.019.0441A

by Isaac Deutscher
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Deutscher

While he's clearly dealing with Stalin, he paints a good overall picture of the Russian revolution along with Lenin and Trotsky's role in the whole affair.

[BOZG]

I see very few people suggested actual scientific book that could be regarded less biased in relation to Trotsky or Woods.

Try E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution.

I recollect that my copy of The Russian Revolution makes points somewhere in the introduction relating to bias. I can't remember though whether it was in the actual introduction or in a preface.

[Junius]

In the preface:


This work will not rely in any degree upon personal recollections. The circumstance that the author was a participant in the events does not free him from the obligation to base his exposition upon historically verified documents. The author speaks of himself, in so far as that is demanded by the course of events, in the third person. And that is not a mere literary form: the subjective tone, inevitable in autobiographies or memoirs, is not permissible in a work of history.

However, the fact that the author did participate in the struggle naturally makes easier his understanding, not only of the psychology of the forces in action, both individual and collective, but also of the inner connection of events. This advantage will give positive results only if one condition is observed: that he does not rely upon the testimony of his own memory either in trivial details or in important matters, either in questions of fact or questions of motive and mood. The author believes that in so far as in him lies he has fulfilled this condition.

There remains the question of the political position of the author, who stands as a historian upon the same viewpoint upon which he stood as a participant in the events. The reader, of course, is not obliged to share the political views of the author, which the latter on his side has no reason to conceal. But the reader does have the right to demand that a historical work should not be the defence of a political position, but an internally well-founded portrayal of the actual process of the revolution. A historical work only then completely fulfils the mission when events unfold upon its pages in their full natural necessity.

For this, is it necessary to have the so-called historian’s “impartiality”? Nobody has yet clearly explained what this impartiality consists of. The often quoted words of Clemenceau that it is necessary to take a revolution “en bloc,” as a whole – are at the best a clever evasion. How can you take as a whole a thing whose essence consists in a split? Clemenceau’s aphorism was dictated partly by shame for his too resolute ancestors, partly by embarrassment before their shades.

One of the reactionary and therefore fashionable historians in contemporary France, L. Madelin, slandering in his drawing-room fashion the great revolution – that is, the birth of his own nation – asserts that “the historian ought to stand upon the wall of a threatened city, and behold at the same time the besiegers and the besieged”: only in this way, it seems, can he achieve a “conciliatory justice.” However, the words of Madelin himself testify that if he climbs out on the wall dividing the two camps, it is only in the character of a reconnoiterer for the reaction. It is well that he is concerned only with war camps of the past: in a time of revolution standing on the wall involves great danger. Moreover, in times of alarm the priests of “conciliatory justice” are usually found sitting on the inside of four walls waiting to see which side will win.

The serious and critical reader will not want a treacherous impartiality, which offers him a cup of conciliation with a well-settled poison of reactionary hate at the bottom, but a scientific conscientiousness, which for its sympathies and antipathies – open and undisguised – seeks support in an honest study of the facts, a determination of their real connections, an exposure of the causal laws of their movement. That is the only possible historic objectivism, and moreover it is amply sufficient, for it is verified and attested not by the good intentions of the historian, for which only he himself can vouch, but the natural laws revealed by him of the historic process itself.

[JimmyJazz]

As of right now I'm waiting for Kevin Murphy (http://books.google.com/books?id=7q2ipV7fQSQC&dq=Kevin+Murphy&pg=PP1&ots=JMqdRdh5-I&sig=2ZdCaj5Xvf2YIxeYjOyJMVgF4vo&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result)'s book called A People's History of the Russian Revolution, which is supposed to come out in '09, I think.

Bummer...I haven't been able to find anything about this book except on the back cover of another of his books, so I finally emailed him to see if he still thinks it will come out this year. He said for various reasons the release of the book will be delayed a lot if it comes out at all.

[Charles Xavier]

John Reed's Ten Days that shook the world, a first hand account of a American Communist who was in Petrograd when the revolution occurred.

They made a movie on John Reeds life starring Warren Beatty called Reds.

The way he writes it makes you feel you are alongside him witnessing the events unfolding.