Book review: Revolutionary Russia 1891-1991, by Orlando Figes
"We want the USSR back!" was a separatist slogan heard in a restive city in eastern Ukraine, by a correspondent for a major British daily. So Orlando Figes' Revolutionary Russia, 1891-1991: A History is eerily timely.
by Orlando Figes
Metropolitan Books
4 stars
"We want the USSR back!" was a separatist slogan heard in a restive city in eastern Ukraine, by a correspondent for a major British daily. So Orlando Figes' is eerily timely.
The conventional narrative is that the Russian revolution took place in October 1917, and launched the world's first communist state. However, Figes argues that the revolution was continuous phenomena covering a century of Russian history, and which unfolded in three "movements".
Delving deep, Figes identifies the period 1891 to 1922 as the first movement. The famine of 1891 provided a catalyst for revolutionary change in impoverished 19th-century Russia. Drawing from a widespread sense of oppression and neglect, Vladimir Lenin and his Bolshevik peers were able to build up a power base.
The second stage, led by the heirs of the founding generation of the revolution, was the age of Joseph Stalin, war and peace, and terror. Despite the paranoia of Stalin's three-decade-long rule, Figes notes that the dictator is held in high regard by many Russians today.
The third movement of the revolution started in 1956, three years after Stalin's death, with Nikita Khruschev's speech denouncing his dictatorial predecessor. The generation of 1956 was the one that guided the revolution until its 1991 demise.
