The Russian Revolution: A New History

by Sean McMeekin

Overview

A “powerful revisionist history” (Times UK) illuminating the tensions and transformations of the Russian Revolution

In The Russian Revolution, acclaimed historian Sean McMeekin traces the events which ended Romanov rule, ushered the Bolsheviks into power, and introduced communism to the world. Between 1917 and 1922, Russia underwent a complete and irreversible transformation. Taking advantage of the collapse of the Tsarist regime in the middle of World War I, the Bolsheviks staged a hostile takeover of the Russian Imperial Army, promoting mutinies and mass desertions of men in order to fulfill Lenin’s program of turning the “imperialist war” into civil war. By the time the Bolsheviks had snuffed out the last resistance five years later, over twenty million people had died, and the Russian economy had collapsed so completely that communism had to be temporarily abandoned.
 
The first comprehensive history of these momentous events in over two decades, The Russian Revolution combines cutting-edge scholarship and a fast-paced narrative to shed new light on one of the most significant turning points of the twentieth century.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781541675483
Publisher:	Basic Books
Publication date:	03/16/2021
Pages:	496
Sales rank:	244,229
Product dimensions:	8.10(w) x 5.30(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Sean McMeekin is a professor of history at Bard College. The award-winning author of several books, including Stalin’s War, The Russian Revolution, and July 1914, McMeekin lives in Clermont, New York.

Table of Contents

A Note on Dates, Names, Translation, and Transliteration ix

Introduction: The First Century of the Russian Revolution xi

Maps xviii

Prologue: The Blood of a Peasant 1

I Twilight of the Romanovs

1 The Old Regime, and Its Enemies 11

2 1905: Shock to the System 29

3 The Fragile Giant: Tsarist Russia on the Precipice of War 45

4 Russia's War, 1914-1916 61

II 1917: A False Dawn

5 Full of Fight 83

6 A Break in the Weather 95

7 Army in the Balance 109

8 The German Gambit 125

9 Twilight of the Liberals 137

10 Kerensky's Moment 147

III Hostile Takeover

11 Lenin Shows His Hand 159

12 Army on the Brink 175

13 Red October 193

14 General Strike 213

15 Ceasefire 225

16 Russia at Low Ebb 241

17 Reprieve 255

IV The Bolsheviks in Power

18 War Communism 273

19 Red on White 281

20 The Communist International 301

21 The Ides of March 311

22 "Turn Gold into Bread": Famine and the War on the Church 321

23 Rapallo 335

Epilogue: The Specter of Communism 343

Acknowledgments 353

Abbreviations 357

Notes 359

Sources 401

Index 421

Photo section appears between pages 156 and 157

Editorial Reviews

"Well-written, with new details from archival research used for vivid descriptions of key events..."
—New York Times Book Review

"McMeekin succeeds in offering a fresh take through inclusivity of contributing events...A well-written and rewarding read on the Russian Revolution's lasting historical import."—Library Journal

"With strong scholarly foundations and a riveting narrative, this book provides a broad survey of this tumultuous and fateful social transformation...This fluid work offers an overview of the revolution's wartime context."—Publishers Weekly

"A fresh history of the revolution...McMeekin refreshingly doesn't muddy the waters with too many characters, but he is thorough in his treatment, which is that much more interesting due to the wealth of information released following the downfall of the Soviet Union...McMeekin effectively shows how easily one man could undermine the foundations of a nation, and he makes the revolution comprehensible as he exposes the deviousness of its leader."—Kirkus Reviews

"[A] superb and eye-opening account of this important chapter in 20th century history that will be indispensable reading for those anxious to learn more about this seminal event and the aftershocks that followed.... The Russian Revolution is a carefully researched, well-written assessment of the complex and confusing events that did so much to shape the last century. McMeekin is a reliable guide to a complex story and the book moves seamlessly and clearly across a vast landscape of people and events."
—Christian Science Monitor

"[A] powerful revisionist history... Sean McMeekin is a gifted writer with historical talents equal to the challenge of helping the reader to follow the events of the revolution and appreciate their terrible significance... And in a world menaced by new totalitarians, by political actors prepared to use conflict as a path to power, by states ready to use their money to suborn democracy elsewhere and by liberals often paralysed by in-fighting rather than united by principle, McMeekin's magisterial study repays careful reading."—Times (UK)

"It is a quarter of a century since Richard Pipes published his history of the Bolshevik seizure of power in the Russian empire, and twenty years since Orlando Figes's A People's Tragedy. Back then, in the wake of the Soviet collapse, those seemed definitive. But now comes Sean McMeekin with a vivid new account, drawing on fresh evidence and offering an original, geopolitical perspective. The full, shocking extent to which Lenin was a German operative now becomes clear, as does the magnitude of Kerensky's blunder in not finishing the Bolsheviks off before their "revolutionary defeatism" went viral. McMeekin writes muscular history. His Russian Revolution grips the reader."
—Niall Ferguson, senior fellow, the Hoover Institution, Stanford

"Sean McMeekin's new history of the Russian Revolution is, as always with his work, dynamic, compelling, and revisionist, telling the familiar story with vigour, accessibility, and elan but ornamented with fascinating new archival revelations on, amongst other things, German funding of the Bolsheviks."
—Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of The Romanovs

"The Tsar didn't fall, he wilted, and this briskly written, fresh take on the revolution sketches the process in poignant detail-orgies, vodka, Rasputin, pogroms, plots, and war on the Eastern Front. McMeekin's Lenin is more seedy than heroic, his Bolshevik victory an act of treason engineered by a German army that had stuffed a billion dollars in Lenin's pockets before the bourgeois exile mounted his first barricade in Petrograd."
—Geoffrey Wawro, author of A Mad Catastrophe

"This is a book that we have been waiting for. The Russian Revolution is an enormous subject, and to write a short and authoritative book on it is very difficult indeed. Sean McMeekin brings many gifts to the task, not the least of which is that he can describe crowd scenes with immediacy. It should count as a classic."
—Norman Stone, author of The Eastern Front 1914-1917

"In vivid colors, Sean McMeekin presents a provocative narrative of the 1917 Russian revolutions with an emphasis on the conspiracies, mutinies, and acts of treason behind the scenes of both revolutions. He shows how the revolutions were a direct result of Russia's involvement in World War I in new ways. It is a book that will generate much debate."
—Eric Lohr, Susan Carmel Lehrman Chair of Russian History and Culture, American University

From the Publisher

Well-written, with new details from archival research used for vivid descriptions of key events…

The New York Times Book Review - Gregory Feifer

04/17/2017
In this brisk history, McMeekin (Ottoman Endgame), professor of history at Bard College, reevaluates the 1917 Russian Revolution on its centennial. With strong scholarly foundations and a riveting narrative, this book provides a broad survey of this tumultuous and fateful social transformation—the dethroning of the czar, the Bolsheviks’ improbable rise to power, and the establishment and consolidation of Bolshevik rule. McMeekin begins with a detailed background, reviewing czarist rule, its weaknesses, and its persistence. The turmoil of WWI roused simmering tensions and the Romanov regime collapsed amid charges of defeatism and treason—and growing protests, strikes, and mutinies. McMeekin navigates the complex political ructions as various factions vied for power, culminating in the Bolsheviks’ triumph. Developments in subsequent years threatened Bolshevik rule, but their victory was solidified with the 1922 Treaty of Rapallo, where the book concludes. McMeekin’s analysis privileges wartime action over the various factions’ raisons d’être, and he suggests—based on flimsy evidence—that Lenin was a German agent and the Bolshevik insurrection was rooted in German strategic policy. The work claims to be “unmediated by our current prejudices,” but it is emphatically anti-Bolshevik. Despite the glaring divergence between its objective and its content, this fluid work offers an overview of the revolution’s wartime context. Maps & illus. Agent: Andrew Lownie, Andrew Lownie Literary (U.K.). (June)

Publishers Weekly

04/15/2017
Competing against a slew of titles commemorating the 100th anniversary of the 1917 Russian Revolution, McMeekin (history, Bard Coll., The Ottoman Endgame) seeks to compile a definitive and seminal analysis utilizing newly accessible archival research. The book spans a wider timeframe starting in 1905 to allow more perspective on contributing events leading to the uprising. Additionally, the goal is to "rediscover the revolution as it transpired in real time, from the perspective of key actors who did not know, as they acted, how the story would turn out." The rise of what we now know as communism was not always a forgone conclusion. This title is similar to S. A. Smith's Russia in Revolution: An Empire in Crisis, 1890 to 1928, which also covers an extended timeframe on both sides of the revolution within a broader critical analysis. But McMeekin succeeds in offering a fresh take through inclusivity of contributing events beyond the depth of all other titles. However, this inclusivity is at times its weakness, as the work becomes overwhelming with lesser-known personages and events. VERDICT A well-written and rewarding read on the Russian Revolution's lasting historical import. Essential for research collections, scholars, and informed readers.—Jessica Bushore, Xenia, OH

Library Journal

The year 1917 was pivotal in Russian history as revolutionary events changed the political landscape entirely. McMeekin’s new history, written in the centennial year of the Russian Revolution, takes a fresh look at this tumultuous period in Russia. Narrator Pete Larkin’s crisp articulation and resonant voice greatly complement McMeekin’s study. Despite the audiobook’s serious topic, Larkin has a friendly, likable tone, and his measured pace helps to present the facts clearly. He admirably pronounces the Russian words used in the text, providing a convincing accent while still making the words understandable for the listener. McMeekin’s meticulous historical study is well matched with Larkin’s conscientious narration, producing an audiobook that does not disappoint. D.M.W. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

NOVEMBER 2017 - AudioFile

2017-03-21
A fresh history of the revolution "as a concrete historical event—controversial and significant in its lasting impact on world politics, but also worth understanding on its own terms, unmediated by our current prejudices."McMeekin (History/Bard Coll.; The Ottoman Endgame: War, Revolution, and the Making of the Modern Middle East, 1908-1923, 2015, etc.) refreshingly doesn't muddy the waters with too many characters, but he is thorough in his treatment, which is that much more interesting due to the wealth of information released following the downfall of the Soviet Union. "Fortunately for historians of the revolution," he writes, "the years since 1991 have seen an explosion of research into Russia's military performance in World War I from 1914 to 1917." Of course, Lenin springs to mind as the great leader of the revolution, but when he finally appeared, he had been out of the country for years. However, he knew that the country needed an enemy to unite against, and Germany wouldn't provide it; troops were bored and ripe for infiltration by the Bolsheviks. The author also explores the explosive Order No. 1, effectively telling troops to disarm officers, as well as Lenin's abilities to control the armed forces, one of the keys to Bolshevik success. His goal was not revolution but civil war, and he got it: "Lenin's imperative was to transform the ‘imperialist war' into a civil war." However, the author points out how easily things might have gone the other way. Peter Stolypin's 1906 agriculture reforms pleased nearly everyone, and the army was well taken care of. Czar Nicholas II does not escape McMeekin's scrutiny, either. His ineffectiveness and reliance on Rasputin turned the people away, even though it was Rasputin who warned him about the war. McMeekin effectively shows how easily one man could undermine the foundations of a nation, and he makes the revolution comprehensible as he exposes the deviousness of its leader.

Kirkus Reviews